Hikvision DS-2TP21B handheld camera - an interesting unit

[MetalHead]

Thanks Fraser!

I dismantled everything and reconnected without the housing of thermal imager. Same yellow screen with "dots and lines"(( All connectors are like new.  I haven't seen any signs of water neither on LCD and underneath it. Nothing is overheating, tried with finger. Also I used hot gun to check how ICs react to the increase of temperature and nothing...

I attach some images. To me it looks like the problem is with microbolometer and its circuitry (like you said above). I will buy another good h10 and will try to replace IR sensor assembly. Will see if that will do the trick! this mess is either LCD or sensor or maybe both

[ser4]

Hi, I have 57 units of DS-2TP21B-6AVF/W - HIKVISION - $300. Located in Kazakhstan. Condition - new. Complete set. +77475587919 whats app/telegram, ser4_chet@mail.ru

[Fraser]

Metalhead,

Your camera certainly has an unusual fault.From what I can see, it has more than one fault, which is unusual unless something very bad happened to the camera. You have an LCD display panel that appears to have lost its @bility to display anything but the yellow spectrum and a microbolometer thermal image that contains many ‘spots’ that cannot be explained. The angled lines across the displayed image are also a mystery. In addition to these obvious issues, there are the corroded screws inside the camera, yet no evidence of water ingress. Another mystery. Those screws are very corroded so there has been a very damp atmosphere inside that camera.

Doing some “blue sky thinking” I am trying to come up with scenarios that could cause these symptoms but I can find no common denominator except water ingress but we know that is not supported by the physical state of the battery, PCB’s and alloy chassis part condition. I have considered the possibility of a significant drop event causing damage to the fragile LCD display panel and microbolometer but this is still not a “good fit” to your cameras fault symptoms. I have also considered whether someone has used your camera as a parts donor and put the faulty parts in the cameras casing to sell it. This might explain multiple non-related faults in a single camera. I have seen this done before and it is a pretty mean act by the seller. Is it the case here ? No idea.

Sadly this sort of fault can become a really deep rabbit hole when it comes to diagnostics. For this reason, such a camera is often uneconomic to repair in terms of time spent on it and the cost/availability of replacement parts. If you had another camera from which to borrow parts, you could quickly determine whether the LCD panel and Microbolometer modules are faulty and this would save much time probing signals with an oscilloscope. If the LCD panel is faulty, a replacement may be available if it is a generic model. If the microbolometer module is faulty, the camera becomes good for parts only as the module is not available and, even if it was, the camera would require a full calibration to use it.

Kind Regards

Fraser

[Fraser]

A good test to determine what is happening in a thermal camera is to image a hot coffee mug (fill with boiling water). Please do this and post the image captured. This simple test provides the camera with a high thermal contrast scene to image and the measurement system should show a sensible reading. I am considering weather your microbolometer has lost its tiny, but essential, vacuum as that destroys its performance.

Fraser

[MetalHead]

It doesn't seem that anybody was inside. Everything was glued together nicely and evenly and I used hot air gun to disassemble it.

Well, I started to look for spare parts, or some cheep body-type Hikvision model to take parts from it. I think the only thing that is different in H10 is FPGA and firmware on uC, screen and IR sensor are the same.

Regarding the cup of coffee, I tried but I can't see anything... too much noise on screen

When I will get parts or another H10 I will update you with what I found out! This may take some time however..

Thanks Fraser for all your help! 

[Fraser]

Metalhead,

The symptom whilst viewing a hot coffee mug makes me suspect loss of microbolometer vacuum, with potential pixel damage associated with the event. If it were not for the strange anomalies present I would suspect microbolometer power supplies and bias voltages but those faults would not cause the anomalies we are seeing.

I had already thought about a Human fever screening DS-2TP31B camera as a possible spares donor for the LCD display as those cameras can be quite cheap on eBay. Sadly you cannot use the microbolometer from such a camera without carrying out a full calibration of the camera as the NUC table, dead pixel map are specific to each unique microbolometer. Using another cameras microbolometer in your faulty unit would likely result in a marginal image with dead pixels visible and poor flat field. You cannot use the donor cameras calibration as it is set up for vHuman Fever screening and I not know how to transfer that data between these cameras in any case. Please think carefully before spending more money on your faulty H10. You may be better served to save your money and buy another camera to serve your needs. Losing $50 is hopefully not too serious a loss for you, but ‘wasting’ more money in an attempt to repair it would be rubbing salt into the wound. Maybe selling the M10 as “faulty, for parts” on eBay would recover some of your investment ?

Kind Regards

Fraser

[MetalHead]

Yes, maybe you are right! I will wait for a donor if it won't came up, I guess I probably sell it on local second hand auction as broken machine. Thanks! 😊