HTI now has a 640x512 thermal imager for under $1500 WOW!!!!!!!!!

[Ben321]

This is the first time I've seen a thermal imager with a microbolometer of this resolution for such a low price. https://hti-instrument.com/collections/thermal-monocular/products/ht-a11-outdoor-thermal-monocular?variant=40630429188211

At first I thought it might be one of those scam ones claiming too high of a resolution (the state the resolution of the display screen not the actual microbolometer resolution), especially since it's from a Chinese company. But on further looking they separately state the screen size as 1024x768, so the 640x512 actually is the microbolometer resolution on this one! Also it has a fast frame rate of 50fps, so it definitely has some impressive specs. I haven't bought it yet, but I've been very impressed with HTI's other offerings. I bought their HT-301 cellphone addon USB-C thermal imager before, and it outperformed the Seek Compact Pro not only in slightly higher resolution (384x288 instead of 320x240) and not only in frame rate (25fps instead of 15fps), but also the quality of the image (things like noise and sharpness) were also better than with the Seek Compact Pro.

I also noticed they use a different sensor material for this than the standard vanadium oxide. Instead they use something called amorphous silicon. I bet that would explain the lower price, as working with amorphous silicon for the sensors can probably be done with more commonly available machinery at their factory (probably the same machinery that would be used for etching silicon for normal ICs) instead of specialized machinery for processing the vanadium oxide into sensors. Also the vanadium oxide is probably a rare/exotic and therefore expensive material for them to even get access to, while silicon is a much more widely available and lower priced material.

While I would consider getting this at some point, it's still $1299 which isn't exactly cheap (for this kind of device it sure is, but as an absolute dollar amount it's not at all cheap), and right now I'm saving up for something else (an unrelated device, a Picoscope 5000). But I would certainly consider buying this thermal imager in the future, so I'd like any advice from anybody has here who already has this thermal monocular scope. How good a quality are the images it produces? Would you recommend it for a hobbyist looking for a low-cost 640x480-class thermal imager? Or would you recommend holding off until another company makes a better quality one?

[Fraser]

If you are willing to put a little effort into a project, I have found and purchased 640 x 480 pixel thermal cameras that were installed within COVID-19 screening cameras. They can often be found at amazing prices as surplus. From memory I paid around $220 for a complete system that included the bi-spectral camera and a very nice Blackbody reference. The VGA thermal camera was a self contained module within the systems metal casing. I covered these units in a post on this forum. VGA thermal imaging cores are not as hard to source at affordable prices as they used to be.

[Fraser]

My VGA thermal camera purchase, and there have been even cheaper offerings of this camera in the USA since !

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/ici-and-dali-thermal-camera-software/msg4996465/#msg4996465

Fraser

[gamerpaddy]

Theres a few monoculars with 640 sensors that came out recently for absurd prices like Dahua TPC-m60 which ive seen priced at sale for 1000 bucks on german ebay a few weeks ago

theres also camera modules for drones for almost half the price
https://www.ebay.com/itm/176460951341
its slowly coming
still waiting for something like a Thermal Expert TE-V1 30hz from infiray / hti for sub 1.5k


those dahua covid cams seem to be a US thing, no luck finding them in EU, at least not at 30hz or affordable.


last thing is to strap one of these onto them
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005007256438943.html

[Ben321]

Theres a few monoculars with 640 sensors that came out recently for absurd prices like Dahua TPC-m60 which ive seen priced at sale for 1000 bucks on german ebay a few weeks ago

theres also camera modules for drones for almost half the price
https://www.ebay.com/itm/176460951341
its slowly coming
still waiting for something like a Thermal Expert TE-V1 30hz from infiray / hti for sub 1.5k


those dahua covid cams seem to be a US thing, no luck finding them in EU, at least not at 30hz or affordable.


last thing is to strap one of these onto them
https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005007256438943.html

Are those ebay cams genuine 640x480 resolution? Also, they seem to have a 5 pin connector, but the item listing doesn't say it comes with a cable, and I can't find any info on where to get the required 5 pin cable. Anybody here maybe know about that?

[gamerpaddy]

im sure they are genuine 640x512 sensors

pinout is as follows:

(button is change color palette)

Connector type looks like 1.25 Molex Pico Blade 5pin


but couldnt find any infos on serial commands supported, nor did any of the sellers respond to my questions

if they would have been available in a EU warehouse i would have bought one allready
but since its from china.. +20% tax...+nasty german customs that complain about stuff like a missing german manual or missing CE mark. im 99.9% sure it wont arrive here.

[Hazel]

If you're interested,you can see the catalogue of our infrared cameras.
https://www.visiondatum.com/upfile/onlinedoc/online_doc_download_directory_EN/Vision_Datum_Infrared_Product_Brochure_VT_EN_RLS.pdf

[ArsenioDev]

Okay vision datum, can you drop full datasheets for cores?