Raytheon / L-3 Thermal Eye X series repair - new patient for Fraser - X50

[Fraser]

Tiny update as I have not had time to do much on the X50 today.

The MLCC capacitor that was damaged on the I/O PCB is a 1206 size 4.7uF X7R and it sits across the output of a LT1930 boost converter. It is an important component so I have ordered a TDK replacement of the identical specification.

The I/O connector on the rear of the X50 appears to be a Hirose part, as I suspected. If I am correct, it is a MQ172X-4SA. The plug is thankfully inexpensive at £1.84 and available from Farnell  I ordered three to experiment with. The 4 pins in the connector are, as expected, Video out, Ground, USB D+ and USB D-.

I have inspected the connector that serves the FFC solenoid. The two solenoid wires were sheared off in the crimp so quite some force was involved. Thankfully an easy repair though.

I have found no other damage on the PCB's so once the new MLCC is fitted and the FFC wires re-terminated, I will test the core. If it is working OK, I will make up a USB cable, test the communications link and see if the GUI can access the core configuration.

The Chassis is not too badly damaged and will be a simple repair using solvent based plastic welding.

Fraser

[Fraser]

She Lives 

This evening I decided to do a little more work on the X50. I fitted the new C3 (TDK 4.7uF X7R MLCC), re-terminated the FFC flag solenoid wires and reassembled the electronics package for testing.

Batteries inserted, power switched on and ....... she lives  At power on I heard the familiar sound of an FFC flag event as the camera began its warm up calibration routine. The EVF was lit and I could see my hand in front of the lens 

I set up a very quick test scene that included my freshly made coffee with the Amazon Fire TV USB PSU in the background (triangular shape). I attach the first pictures captured of the unit working since I received it. The resolution is still 100 x 80 pixels as I have not accessed the Core via USB yet.

I now need to repair the plastic chassis that has several pieces broken away and is cracked in a couple of places as well. That is a job for another day though. I will make up the USB communications cable once the Hirose plugs arrive and see if I can access the core.

Happy Days 

Fraser

[Bill W]

Always good when a thermal camera can see hot things....

    

Bill

[Fraser]

Thanks Bill

I had wondered whether the Microbolometer had been adversely effected by being dropped but it certainly looks OK. The drop must have been from a relatively low height. The plastic chassis needs some TLC but it will be ready to be refitted soon 

Fraser

[Fraser]

A couple of pictures of the broken plastic 'chassis' that is about to undergo repair. It appears to be ABS plastic rather than something more exotic.

I have used solvent based plastic welding as a repair technique on laptop cases for many years to good effect. If done correctly, the joint is stronger than any glue can achieve. The plastic surfaces melt into each other and the highly volatile solvent dissipates. A similar technique has been used for years in the plumbing industry but the solvent used can be much thicker and mixed with ABS plastic as a filler. I would not recommend plumbing pipe jointing solvent in any area that will be visible after repair.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The first weld is compete and the two largest Chassis parts have been welded back together. I need to leave the chassis overnight for the solvent to dissipate and the plastic to harden. The chassis is being rebuilt on an Engineers straight edge that is also very flat. This will ensure that it 'sets' flat. Once this weld is hardened I can add all the smaller parts in the same session and leave them to harden overnight. If there is one thing I have learned about plastic welding using solvent, it is to be patient and allow time for the solvent to evaporate out of the joint and the molten plastics to harden. After the weld is hard I can tidy any slight plastic 'oozing' from the joint with a scalpel, fine file or fine abrasive paper. In this case (it is an unseen part) that will not be necessary though.

Note the area of discolouration to the left of the joint was caused by me being a bit generous with the solvent to ensure a good melt and weld. This chassis is not seen so it is fine to over apply the solvent a little. In a cosmetically important part it is essential to apply a small amount of solvent as it is very thin, like acetone, and flows a long way ! This is one of the challenges when using a solvent to weld plastic.... it is a lot harder than applying a relatively thick hard plastic glue and it will etch any ABS plastic it lands on.

I am only showing this process in case any readers are not familiar with plastic welding using solvents.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I now have the Torrey Pines Logic TPL 50-2 2x Teleconverter for my X series thermal scope 

This 2x teleconverter is capable of being used on many different thermal cameras and has just had a suitable adapter mounted on it to suit the X series lens assembly. I hope to create other mounting adapters to suit other cameras in my collection. It was a lucky discovery on eBay and came from the same seller as the X50! The seller never mentioned that he also had this very nice lens.

I attach pictures from the auction

Fraser (feeling lucky)

[Fraser]

An exciting update on my X50 

I have been trying to reconfigure my X50 to release its Thermal Eye 3600AS core's full resolution. As I previously stated, I believed that the X50 had been configured to boot into the 1.5X EZoom mode to artificially reduce its resolution.

I had the 2005 engineering GUI for a Thermal Eye 3500AS core and tried this with the X50. I constructed a custom USB cable for the task and accessed the camera via the 4 pin connector in the rear panel. I managed to connect to the X50 and the driver recognised the 3600AS core. The GUI accessed the camera and downloaded its configuration. Sadly the GUI did not offer me any EZoom settings at all  I could access other functions and the camera responded to commands from the GUI, such as FFC shutter activation and measurement modes. So I had a working GUI, but I believe it was intended for use with the 3500AS core and so some 3600AS functionality was missing.

I had another (later) Thermal Eye core GUI given to me, but sadly could not find it in my archives    Life has been less than great of recent and I obviously did not file it in the right file area or Hard Disk 

A fellow forum member recently supplied me with the later version of the GUI that supports all Thermal Eye cores up to, and including, the 4500AS. I installed that 2006 GUI on my XP laptop as the L3 GUI does not always like later operating systems.
After some issues getting the camera to reliably connect with the laptop I eventually obtained a solid link and ran the GUI. This later GUI is called the integrated version as it is a single utility as opposed to the three separate utilities contained in the 2005 version. The GUI succeeded in downloading the X50 configuration and displayed the all important EZoom menu  As I had suspected, the X50 core was configured to boot straight into the X1.5 EZoom state. This core permits selection of which EZoom settings may be offered to the user and which EZoom was presented after boot.

I tested the GUI's ability to reliably control the X50 and found no issues at all. I then changed the startup EZoom setting to X1.0 that would provide the full 160 x 120 pixel thermal image. After saving the new configuration to the X50, I restarted it and waited to see if the EZoom had been reset to X1.0. I was very pleased to see that it had  I had now reconfigured my X50 to the X150 specification. I am also able to reconfigure the X50 via the GUI to provide different colour palettes for an external colour display or activate the measurement functions. There are a lot of features that may be controlled from the GUI. The configuration can be saved to the X50 in order to be persistent, or the GUI live configuration screen permits live changes to be made whilst using the X50 (effectively under GUI control) but changes are not persistent after a restart.

Feeling very chuffed with my un-hobbled X50   

I attach pictures of the GUI plus the pre and post EZoom change image of a coffee cup.

Fraser

[Ultrapurple]

Excellent news!

Now, I wonder how I unlock my 640x480 sensor to the full 45 megapixels the nice man I bought it from mentioned...?

[Fraser]

 

Obtaining thermal imaging core engineering configuration information and/or software is not at all easy but I value any that I find greatly. That information is normally only available to companies that intend to use a core in a design and sign the required NDA’s. This is likely why the X50 contained no countermeasures to my changing its configuration settings. I count myself most fortunate to have had the Thermal Eye GUI’s provided by very kind fellow forum members. Without such, I could not have released my X50 from its bonds.
My sincerest thanks to those who helped me by providing three different versions of the GUI. You know who you are 

I can also use the GUI’s  to reconfigure the Thermal Eye cores in some of my fire fighting thermal cameras. Some are setup for measurement in Degrees F or have additional features that I can enable to suit my needs The Thermal Eye 3500AS, 3600AS and 4500AS are very much respected and relatively common cores in many thermal cameras that were based on the ‘kit of parts’ design principle.

Fraser

[Fraser]

A side note.

The problems I was having connecting to the core appear to have been due to the three installations of GUI and associated NI VISA driver on my laptop. I removed all of these occurrences from my laptop and installed just the 2006 Integrated GUI along with the provided NI VISA driver. Connecting to the core no longer generates NI VISA driver error reports and failures to recognise the core 

Fraser