David,
I am pleased that your enjoyed the journey into the past where electronics were less heavily integrated and “heavy metal” was considered a sign of quality and some justification for a units high cost ! When you spent the sort of money that these cameras cost, you kinda expected something nice and solid feeling in your hands
I bought this camera as a project in 2015 but that was the time that I had to leave my job due to M.E and this camera just got boxed up to await my attention. I thought it had a power supply fault and always knew that it was a gamble with regard to the coolers serviceability. I was not aware that someone had already ‘got at’ the Stirling Cooler though. I cannot remember what I paid for the camera but it was not a great deal of money at the time as thermal cameras were not as well known on eBay and ‘exotics’ like the SC3000 often attracted little attention.
The SC3000 camera shares many similarities to my AGEMA Thermovision 550 units that were sold 10 years earlier. It just goes to show that in the World of thermal imaging Circa 2005, the older, proven, electronics packages were still valid and were adapted to the newer thermal sensor technologies. The AGEMA single board computer in these cameras is based upon the Motorola MC68340 micro-processor and this IC integrated additional interfacing that is not found in the simpler MC68000 version. I studied these Motorola micro-processors when reverse engineering the AGEMA/FLIR PM570 microbolometer based camera. I was not surprised to find that the original AGEMA single board computer design from the THV550 continued to be tweaked and used in all the later industrial cameras in the PM series as it was a very versatile controller board. It had an imaging sensor input that was fed data from another processor/interface board that was unique to the sensor technology in use at the time. This meant that it was relatively simple to deploy a new sensor technology or version with an updated image processor/interface board that connected to the same main single board computer design. Some new firmware and hey-presto, a new camera was born ! The same basic SBC design was to be found in the PM695 that marked the end of the PM series. That thermal camera had a visible light camera added to it in a ‘carbuncle’ bolted to the front of it (I never liked that design decision !). To support the addition of a visible light camera, FLIR took the standard SBC and added an additional digital input. The visible light camera had its own composite video to digital data converter (Video decoder and ADC) mounted in the ‘Carbuncle’ housing. The data from the video to Digital data converter was fed to the new digital port on the SBC and the firmware was modified to support the VL camera. FLIR were responding to market demand for visible light cameras on thermal imaging systems to assist in documenting thermal imagery in reports and also to provide the user with thermal scene context. The old Motorola MC68K based SBC was so versatile that it could be adapted to designers needs with relative ease. The introduction of the Microbolometer FPA required a separate image processing PCB that used four physically large CPLD’s and another microprocessor (another Motorola IC I think) with its own Flash ROM and RAM, to deal with the needs of the Microbolometer and pass the resultant processed data to the SBC. This design did provide FLIR with the ability to develop the Microbolometer FPA image processing side of things without needing to respond the main SBC design. A nice situation for the designers but I do not know if this was a consideration whe the SBC was originaly designed for the THV550. For me, it is great as I can open any thermal camera from the THV550, through to the later PM series and find my way around the SBC with ease. It is like finding an old friend whenever I open one of these cameras. It took me 3 months of evenings to reverse engineer the PM570 camera design and friends at both my workplace and FLIR were both impressed and somewhat shocked at my efforts. FLIR were horrified to see a 3rd party produced schematic of their PM570
At the time I was doing that reverse engineering, the SBC PCB was a £5K spare part that needed programming by FLIR before it could be used. I had no choice but to reverse engineer the camera in order to trace the faulty component. I thought the fault lay on the SBC as the camera was halting during boot. It turned out to be a failed output on a humble 74ALS245 IC located on the Microbolometer processor board and not the SBC. I found that out by diagnostics on the SBC that proved it to be in perfect working order, but awaiting a response from a sub-system.That sub-system was the whole microbolometer processor PCB that was being held in RESET by the failed buffer gate. A £1 IC that effectively paralysed the whole camera. I could possibly have found the fault with completely reverse engineering the whole cameras electronics package, but I enjoyed the challenge. It has held me in good stead ever since as I repair PM series cameras using the knowledge gained from that PM570.
I may produce a teardown and commentary on the PM570 camera and it’s descendants as it is an old camera now, and no longer “cutting edge” technology. I promised FLIR that I would not release the schematics that I created for the PM570 but I can still describe the cameras design without breaking that promise
Watch this space
Fraser
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