FLIR ONE PERSONAL THERMAL IMAGING DEVICE FOR YOUR iPHONE5 & 5s

[kripton2035]

I work for an apple retailer, and when apple wants some device for their applestore, they can have an exclusivity for it
and then it's impossible to find it anywhere else in the world but in an apple store ... (and of course not in an apple retailer !)

[Fraser]

I expected the whole PCB to be potted as an anti Mike countermeasure !

[mikeselectricstuff]

I made a direct approach to FLIR regarding the purchase of a LEPTON sample. They did not even acknowledge my request. Considering I was asking ion behalf of a company, this was surprising. It would appear that FLIR are only interested in selling their new baby in their own products for the moment.

A while ago I enquired and it was a MOQ of 1000 at $250 each. If they are selling F1 in Apple stores at $350 there is clearly a lot of potential for reduction from $250, especially if Seek Thermal delivers - a 32K pixel product for $250 would make the F1 look pretty pricy. I do sort of wonder if it's 32K real pixels though.

Requiring a MOQ at an early stage is pretty understandable as they need to prioritise production and support resources to big users, however with potential competition coming along, they could do with as many design-ins as possible early on.
What may be interesting, once F1 shipments are flowing, is to approach them to buy lower qtys on an unsupported basis, now that the info is out there.
Once the Iphone 6 comes out, we may also see the price of used F1's dropping.

I'm also curious as to how someone persuaded Mouser to order 4800 sockets, with an apparent commitment to buy only 12. Mouser are a Flir distributor BTW.

http://uk.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Molex/105028-1001/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMvlOED0T0kTWh0BiEHzb9gh

Well at least they'll shift a few more thanks to me...

 

[mikeselectricstuff]

Interesting, I just noticed that someone has ordered 100 sockets from Mouser since yesterday.
 

[Artlav]

Is Flir One for sale already?
I tried the Flir site, and it says:

FLIR ONE™ is Not Currently Available Outside the US
FLIR ONE™ is currently only available the United States; check back for updates on availability in Europe and Asia.

Which is weird.
Ebay is also pretty much empty of them, except for a few suspicious offers at twice the price.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Interesting, I just noticed that someone has ordered 100 sockets from Mouser since yesterday.

..and now stock has  gone back to 4788.... maybe they changed their mind!

[mikeselectricstuff]

Is Flir One for sale already?
I tried the Flir site, and it says:

FLIR ONE™ is Not Currently Available Outside the US
FLIR ONE™ is currently only available the United States; check back for updates on availability in Europe and Asia.

Which is weird.
Ebay is also pretty much empty of them, except for a few suspicious offers at twice the price.

It's been orderable in US for about a month, EU was supposed to be "mid-August"
there are usually a few on Ebay US but some won't ship outside US, and most are a bit pricy. A few have gone for $300-400. Auctions (as opposed to Buy it Now) tend to end around $400-450.
I lucked out on a buy it now for $375, which was the cheapest for at least a week afterwards (I was checking several times a day!).
Another issue that may put off US sellers is that Ebay pops up a message about export controls, which is rather vague and misleading, and may scare some off.

[Fraser]

I just ordered a couple of Mike's custom prototype boards....they look darned useful !

Thanks for making them available Mike.

Aurora

[Artlav]

I don't think i'll ever get to it, so here is an idea free of charge:
http://orbides.1gb.ru/photobot.php?lng=eng
With this 2D scanning rig, a ZNSe lens and a single "pixel" MWIR photodiode i was able to get thermal images of over a megapixel in resolution (albeit taking 30 minutes to take).

Now, what if you put the Lepton sensor on the caret?
Should easily give you a 1-4 megapixel thermal camera (doing one frame per minute, but these are the trade-offs).

[MrSquirrel]

Awesome stuff, really enjoyed watching the videos. 

Looks like these students managed to get their hands on a Lepton early on.
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-poster.pdf

I guess this qualifies as one of those "unusual applications" Mike was talking about. 

Here's some excellent info on the protocol:
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-presentation.pdf

Helpfully they include a diagram at the end of the document.
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-user-manual.pdf

[orion242]

Great work Mike!

Moving a scope with decode up my wish list.  Seeing you put that to work, really pointed our how much time it can save.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Awesome stuff, really enjoyed watching the videos. 

Looks like these students managed to get their hands on a Lepton early on.
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-poster.pdf

I guess this qualifies as one of those "unusual applications" Mike was talking about. 

Here's some excellent info on the protocol:
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-presentation.pdf

Helpfully they include a diagram at the end of the document.
http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/academics/undergrad/capstone/documents-2014/ir-scout-user-manual.pdf

Either that's an earlier/different module, or they messed up the PCB - the pinout is a mirror image of mine.
The schematic symbol matches mine exactly though.
Interesting that they don't seem to be using I2C either
Date on those docs seems to be today - I wonder if they had an NDA that ceases when info becomes public elsewhere 

[majbthrd]

..and now stock has  gone back to 4788.... maybe they changed their mind!

Mike, you seem to be making waves in the supply chain with your excellent endeavor!  Now the Mouser stock shows 1200 immediately available and Newark/Element14 shows 12,560 available as "supplier direct ship".  If they will only stay that way, this could be interesting.

[mikeselectricstuff]

..and now stock has  gone back to 4788.... maybe they changed their mind!

Mike, you seem to be making waves in the supply chain with your excellent endeavor!  Now the Mouser stock shows 1200 immediately available and Newark/Element14 shows 12,560 available as "supplier direct ship".  If they will only stay that way, this could be interesting.

That's a different socket.

[majbthrd]

..and now stock has  gone back to 4788.... maybe they changed their mind!

Mike, you seem to be making waves in the supply chain with your excellent endeavor!  Now the Mouser stock shows 1200 immediately available and Newark/Element14 shows 12,560 available as "supplier direct ship".  If they will only stay that way, this could be interesting.

That's a different socket.

I am SO embarrassed.  My apologies.

In my defense, I read "24 pin socket to make into 32 pin Molex 47337-0001" on your web page and somehow leap to the conclusion that the part number was the equivalent after conversion.  Regardless, I should have reasoned through this before posting.

I was hoping that the SMK CLE9132 might be a possible alternative (not that it seems any more plentiful), but even if the mechanicals were viable, the contacts meet on the base of the camera module, not the sides.

[Hypernova]

Logic decoding: I guess it's time to upgrade to a 3000X, it's got two decode channels.

Didn't think of doing a socket that neatly, my first thought would have been to solder on the pins to the PCB one by one by hand.

Given all the heavy lifting is done on module, what does the long term drift and accuracy look like?

All in all we got a great trend going here, got a "E8" myself so in no hurry for one but imagine getting 360x240 in the same form factor in five years!

[IRspector]

Interesting video

[Fraser]

Just received a couple of Mike's prototype PCB's (as seen in the video)....very impressed. If you are in the market for such a board I can recommend it.

Aurora

[Psi]

I wonder if that timing issue an start-up that mike found is intentional.

Maybe some sort of internal random delay function based on serial number to prevent people using multiple sensors chips with an offset clock to build a combined image with higher FPS and/or resolution.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder if that timing issue an start-up that mike found is intentional.

Maybe some sort of internal random delay function based on serial number to prevent people using multiple sensors chips with an offset clock to build a combined image with higher FPS and/or resolution.

No because it's only a 1-off synchronisation issue - once synced it stays in sync, with no obvious jitter in the frame timing, so it would in principle be possible to phase-lock the clock, though the fact that you have to poll & read 164 bytes to determine start of frame would make it a bit fiddly.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Just had a long chat with a very reliable source in the US 
F1 should be in stock in Europe the middle of this month.

[MattSR]

Heh, they can't even deliver in time in the US..

[mikeselectricstuff]

Heh, they can't even deliver in time in the US..

I'm told the US backlog was cleared in 5 days and they are in all Apple stores (though don't seem to be in the Apple online store)
 My source was puzzled as to why people are still paying $400-500 on ebay..!
 

[MattSR]

I ordered one direct from FLIR on the 31st August and just received an email then to say it's delayed until the 16th...

[MattSR]

...and no sooner had I put that post up, I received an email from FLIR to say that the item is shipped and is with Fedex. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get form wherever it is, to my friends place in California...!