Hello, I'm new and I love this blog

[dalittle]

Hello everyone,

I am a long-time thermal imaging aficionado.  I’ve been lurking on this blog for several years on and off and am finally posting.

I have been in the thermal imaging industry since 1995. Most recently, I was the (now retired) Chief Executive Officer at ISG-Infrasys, a thermal imaging technology developer. Our most well-known product lines were primarily targeted to the firefighting marketplace.  Sold ISG to Tyco International in 2014. I am (or was) also active in several industry committees such as NFPA ESE (subject matter expert on TICs), US DoC SITAC (export rules EAR and ITAR), etc etc…

I am truly amazed at the level of detail that the bloggers have on thermal imaging, especially Frasers. I am really impressed by your level of detailed knowledge especially as it pertains to the stuff we designed and manufactured. 

I know some have been buying cameras on ebay and that it’s generally a crapshoot. You may get a camera that works, or one that may need some repair, or one that could be classified as “officially dead.” And I think your diagnostics are so good you get most assessments right.  That said, I remember reading a particular post of someone who acquired an ISG (EliteXR maybe?) with pics of the display output. The comments seemed to assume that the bolometer (FPA) was dead or had lost vacuum. In that particular example, to me it looked like the memory containing the NUC tables and dead pixel correction maps were somehow wiped out. The image looked “uncorrected” to me. The vignetting may also be related to this same issue. The actual FPA assembly (including FPA, readout, getter, package, window, etc.) is actually pretty hard to destroy.

I am not an EE, I just ran the place. That said, I have fairly good technical knowledge on subject. Hope I can help out at some point.

Cheers,
David

[Bud]

Good to have you joined the Forum, David! Your expertise with export rules will be much appreciated, as it seems to remain mostly guesses and speculations.