Jenoptik IR-TCM-384 thermal camera - ‘Box camera’ Teardown

[Fraser]

The story of another thermal camera purchase by Fraser

If you are sitting comfortably, I shall begin 

As many readers will already know, I collect and repair thermal cameras as my hobby.

On many occasions I have decided to stop buying these wonderful pieces of technology, but my will is weak in this area. Inevitably an unusual thermal camera will stray into my field of view, at a price that just begs my attention.....and my resolve will buckle under the strain !

Such an occurrence recently resulted in my becoming the proud owner of another unusual thermal camera. Before I go on, I have decided to not identify the camera or its manufacturer at this time. Such details are not essential to the story yet could cause some issues as you may see as the story progresses.

So what is unusual about this thermal camera ? Well its specs are nothing earth shattering at 384 x 288 pixels producing a 60fps output to the user. The NETD is specified as <70mK but in high sensitivity mode this drops to <35mk. None too shabby really. This improvement is made possible by carefully set bias voltages and the use of a thermo-electrically temperature stabilised microbolometer array. The camera outputs are many. It has Firewire, RS232, Composite Video (NTSC or PAL), S-Video (Y & C) and VGA. Plenty to be meet the varied needs of a user.

This camera has no control panel, no LCD display and no viewfinder...... making it not very user friendly eh ? Well it was never intended to operate in a stand-alone mode. It is a specialist industrial thermal camera module that is intended to be incorporated into a larger machine. It is not just a 'Core' as it is a complete thermal camera with a full gambit of on board capabilities. It just lacks the normal human interfaces. The camera is controlled from a computer that sets up the modes of operation and the image is either streamed to the computer or displayed on a suitable video monitor. Control may be via Firewire or RS232 and the user interface is a bespoke PC program. It is possible to command the camera over RS232 using a simple terminal program but this has its complications as I shall shortly detail.

The camera actually appears very boring from the outside. It is just a 'box camera' and, to those unfamiliar with thermal camera optics, it looks very much like the usual heavy duty industrial visible light cameras that are so common in industry. It build shouts 'ruggedized' and such cameras are often very expensive. The seller knew this so its price was set quite high. In truth the seller likely knew nothing of the camera, beyond, "it looks shiny and expensive" !

In communications with the seller I established that the camera was purchased at general auction without any other accessories or paperwork. I received the serial number and sent that to the manufacturer to check that it was legitimate. It was and it was originally sold in 2014 ! It was virtually new compared to most used industrial thermal cameras sold. That may be explained later though, so hang in there 

The seller could not test the camera or state that it was working. This is one of those occasions when you have to decide whether the risk is worth taking. My thought process was as follows:

Pro's:

1. Very nice cosmetic condition industrial thermal camera
2. Decent resolution and frame rate
3. Lemo connectors shouted quality
4. It is fitted with a large 50mm close up lens !
5. It is an auto and manual focus camera
6. The camera has an SD card recording option
7. The camera is made by a reputable company and I found data on it.
8. The price might be negotiable
9. The camera is only around 2 years old
10. It is unusual, so I like it

Con's

1. It is an industrial modular camera, so not totally self contained.
2. The camera is in unknown, untested condition and may be faulty or degraded.
3. No leads or software come with the camera. Both are expensive from the OEM
4. The camera needs bespoke software to control it as the command set is not public
5. The OEM is unlikely to provide much assistance
6. The camera is not cheap if it turns out to be a paperweight !

After some thought and communications with the seller of the camera, I decided to risk a sum of money with which I was comfortable. This is essential when considering the purchase of an unknown condition thermal camera. They can end up as expensive paperweights. I knew the lens would be useful even if the camera was scrap. I offered the seller £200 and he happily accepted. To him, this was a total unknown and he was happy to get some decent money for it.

The camera arrived in due course and I quickly inspected it for signs of abuse. The Lemo sockets were all in good order, the Aluminium case had some bumps on the corners and one mounting lug on the lens was badly bent. Hmmm it looked like the camera had suffered impacts to both its case and the lens. There were no dents in the lens barrel but there was a witness mark from a blunt metallic impact on the side with the bent lug. These are Industrial cameras so such damage is not that worrying as they are tough and designed to take a beating. 

I had already procured the required LEMO connectors ..... total cost £45 for the two from Germany, and that was the cheapest source ! that is a consideration when buying a camera without cables.... if LEMO or Fischer connectors are used, they can be very expensive. It is sometimes the case that it is better to change the connector on the camera to LEMO from Fischer as the Fischer types are both more expensive and harder to source in the UK.

Now to the challenging part. I had been in communications with the OEM and had provided the serial number so that they could check their records. I was up front about buying the camera used and not being the original purchaser. They seemed happy to talk to me, which was a bonus, but it was not all good news. I had asked them if they were willing to supply me with the pin-out of the cameras connectors, any documentation on the command set and a user manual for my model. The response was polite but disappointing. The pin-out was part of an extended documentation set that was chargeable. The documentation set also includes the command set for the camera. Neither could be supplied to me for free. The software was also a chargeable item. It looked like I had hit the proverbial brick wall with the OEM as everything was chargeable, and at high prices. We are talking thousands of Pounds here and not pennies   This is the risk you take when buying specialist thermal cameras or equipment that requires bespoke software, or a command set that is not in the public domain. It was looking as if I had myself a £200 paperweight.

I am not one to give up so easily though. I asked the OEM if they would be willing to send me just the user manual. This they were happy to do and I received a 20MB PDF by return. The user manual made interesting reading but sadly no remote control information is provided, except to refer the reader to the 'Interface and control' document that may be purchased from the agent or OEM.

I knew I could reverse engineer the cameras interfaces so was not concerned about not having the connector pin-outs. What I needed was either the command set or the software. Both seemed out of reach but if there is one thing I know about the internet, it has all manner of information and software squirreled away in dark corners out of the normal public gaze. I am experienced in searching out such assets on legitimate servers and not hacking sites. A long and comprehensive search brought fruit in the form of an official Agent who was happily providing a download of the software that I was searching for. It is the original software from when the camera was released. This has been replaced with a brand new software package so maybe the old version was made available for download as a legacy support decision ? The OEM was offering me the latest software and made no mention for the earlier software so maybe it is considered obsolete and no longer offered by them ?  I downloaded the software from the dealers support page and tried to install it on my Windows 7 laptop It installed without the need for any keys or passwords. It runs perfectly and has no signs of being a demo, or limited use version. Happy days

So I now had the essential software to configure and use the camera. I could intercept the RS232 communications between the PC and camera now and so reverse engineer the command set for the camera

So where are we at this point then.....

I have a camera that remains untested
I have the required LEMO connectors
I have the required OEM software
I have the user manual for the camera and software

I do not have proof that the camera is in an operational state or 'safe' to apply power
I do not know if damage or degradation exists within the camera or microbolometer
I do not know the pin-out of the two LEMO connectors

Next obvious step ..... open her up

And that is what I did

Opening the cameras case was very straight forwards with just two hidden screws. One under a rubber foot, and one under the ID label. Pretty common stuff really.
With one side of the metal case removed, I could inspect the internal parts for evidence of damage. One thing you learn when doing forensic investigations is to use your eyes first and not your hands. I visually inspected the camera and notes some interesting facts about its interior.

1. We already know that there are impact witness marks on the case and lens barrel
2. We also know that one lens retaining lug is bent as the lens was forced sideways
3. There were small flakes of matt black paint floating around inside the cameras case
4. A microprocessor daughter board was only partially retained in its edge connector (similar to a SIMM connector). One end was completely out of the socket. If I had applied power to the camera, all manner of issues could have been caused if the edge connector was shorted by miss-aligned connections.
5. There was no sign of where the mat black paint was being used in the cameras chassis or optical path.
6. The camera looked in good physical condition with no evidence of previous entry or distortion of the mechanical elements.
I know the camera had suffered some form of impact to its lens and case but thankfully it seems to have survived.

I made another discovery whist inspecting the camera. There is a small micro switch positioned behind one of the SD Card cover retaining screws. Both the screws are too short to operate the micro switch. The SD Card recording capability is a chargeable option on this camera. There are two possibilities for the micro switch that come to mind.

1. The SD Card option is enabled by fitting longer screws to the SD card cover ! It would not be the first time that equipment 'upgrades' and options were a very simple physical change like a jumper link or push button sequence etc.

2. The micro switch could actually be a 'hard reset' button concealed behind the sealed SD Card Cover. This protects the camera from accidental reset and dirt ingress if a hole was provide for reset button access. Saying that, such a hole could easily be sealed with a blind grommet. Maybe the designer though this a more elegant solution?

At this point in time I do not know the function of the micro switch. It is connected to an I/O board expander that talks I2C. when I get the camera running I can quickly work out its function though

I was able to quickly and easily dismantle the cameras internal parts down to module and PCB level. Each was then visually inspected for damage or interesting elements.
It was immediately obvious that the cameras main board comes from one of the OEM's camcorder style industrial thermography cameras. In fact I think I know which model. There are several unused ribbon connectors and headers present. The same is true on the microbolometer PCB. The camera does have a hardware option that is not present on my camera but this does not explain all the unused connectors. The camcorder style camera would have the keyboard and viewfinder connected to this PCB.

Upon examination of the main PCB, the architecture of the camera became pretty obvious. No surprises here at all. Thankfully the OEM used COTS IC's and the datasheets are freely available to download. The date codes on the IC's suggest that the camera was built in 2009 which is earlier than I expected for a camera sold in 2014. Maybe they had a lot of stock in the warehouse ? I will likely add pictures of the PCB later but it is nothing unusual or very exciting really. The use of a daughter board for a microprocessor proved a vulnerability as the sprung retainers were unable to keep a grip on the PCB during the impact event. Judicial use of RTV silicone might have addressed this vulnerability, as it does on rugged fire fighting camera internal header connectors.

Another daughter board provides the required major supply rails for the camera. It is a very neat design and easily reverse engineered. It uses a pair of LM5642 IC's to take the input supply voltage and generate 5V0, 5v2, 2V5, and 3V3. No negative rails are present at this boards output. The voltages are annotated on the PCB which is kind of the designer. How often I have wished other designers would do the same. It makes it so much easier to check for correct supply rails.

The 'optical block' with associated microbolometer PCB is interesting in that the whole microbolometer PCB, and its associated chassis, is moved forwards and backwards on linear ball bearing runners that fasten the microbolometer chassis to the optical block chassis. Two stepper actuators are present. One drives a circular plate that contains three different apertures and the other drives the microbolometer chassis back and forth. There is a challenge to the designer when the microbolometer moves. The microbolometer in this camera needs a heat-sink on its rear against which the Peltier temperature stabiliser may operate. How do you attach the microbolometer to the case such that it acts as the heat-sink ? Well this cameras designer has used an impressive form of flexible 'heat pipe'. The microbolometer has a special 'retainer' attached to its rear. This retainer holds four very large copper braided cables. These braided cables are then attached to the case via a bracket. The flexed braided cables permit the microbolometer chassis/sled to move whilst maintaining the required thermal path to the metal case. A neat solution to a challenging problem. FLIR take a different approach in the PM series cameras. They fix the microbolometer to a heat-sink that is in turn attached solidly to the metal case. The focus is accomplished by moving the middle lens in its optical block. The PM series do not have a removable lens however so they do not need to move the microbolometer. Professional thermal cameras are often a combination of high performance electronics and clever mechanical engineering. This camera is no different.

Whilst investigating the optical block I found more flakes of matt black paint. Even the microbolometer had matt black paint specs on its window. It was time to track down the source of the paint flakes.

Where is matt black paint commonly found in a thermal camera ?

Matt black paint is often an excellent black body surface and has excellent emissivity properties. It is anti reflective in a thermal camera optical path. The inside of lens barrels, areas around the microbolometer and the FFC flag are common areas where you will find such paint.

I had inspected the lens and could find no source of the paint flakes. Two areas remained tat I needed to access, the area around the microbolometer and the rotating aperture plate. This was not going to be easy however as I established that I would need to completely dismantle the optical block chassis. Not a job I take lightly as all screws are locked, and for good reason. Dismantling the chassis presents unknown risks such as alignment loss as I have no service manual to help me. You have to be very careful and methodical when undertaking such a task. I would not recommend such to the beginner and in all cases I take lots of pictures so that I can retrace the disassembly steps and see 'what goes where' !

I disassembled the optical block and inspected the parts. I could see where the matt black paint flakes had originated before spalling away and into the cameras interior.
There is a small insignificant metal plate mounted adjacent to the microbolometer. It is likely present to prevent some imaging artefact due to internal reflections or off axis energy from the lens. It may be small but the fact that it was shedding paint flakes in to the cameras optical block was very significant and very bad for the cameras imaging health.

Why is the paint flaking off the small metal plate ?

I cannot be certain as I do not have enough evidence, but I suspect that the impact event that the camera suffered put a shock wave through the optical block via the lens mount, and through the rotating aperture plate shaft and rear bearing. The plate rests on the rear bearing and this flexed the thin metal plate. The paint on it is very brittle so spalled easily. There is no evidence of a bent chassis. the camera received impact energy from two directions. To the side of the lens barrel, and the rear of the case. There may have been quite a lot of energy passing through the camera and its internal parts.

To repair the paint damage to the small plate, I removed all loose paint, roughened the surface with very fine 'wet & dry' paper before cleaning all dust off and re-spraying with an excellent optical black paint that was recommended to me by an industry insider.

The plate is currently drying in the conservatory and I shall await the hardening of the paint before re-fitting it. Sadly I cannot re-assemble the optical block until that small plate is in place. It is buried deep within the optical block All work has stopped as a result.

The camera case and all component parts will be cleaned with compressed air to remove all traces of the paint that was floating around inside the camera.

Well that is the story so far. I shall re-assemble the camera and then see what happens when power is applied. An RS232 link will be used initially to talk to the camera as it has less chance of issues than using Firewire. Once I am sure that the camera is working correctly, I will try accessing it via Firewire and video streaming etc.

I hope this little story has been of some interest. I am not detailing the camera model or OEM as I may need more assistance from them, and they may not appreciate me showing a complete tear down of their product. Maybe later

Watch this space

Fraser

[T3sl4co1l]

Riveting

Tim

[Fraser]

I forgot to share my thoughts on how a 2 year old industrial thermal camera came to be sold in a General auction. I will correct that now......

The camera was purchased along with others in 2014. All were fitted with Close-up lenses so they were going to be up close to something being monitored. The cameras were bought with the most basic support package of 1 year. This is unusual in industry for such an expensive piece of equipment.

No software or cables were purchased with the cameras. They appeared to be either spares or replacements for in-situ cameras.

I have more information that suggests to me that these cameras were almost sacraficial in their tasking. That is to say, the project justified risking destruction of some thermal cameras. Big budgets were involved.

I have no proof, but it is my belief that this camera was damaged during whatever testing was being carried out with it present, and it was written off as a project consumable. It failed due to 'abuse' rather than normal use. This may explain the lack of a support contract. If the camera is likely to be destroyed within the year or so of use, a support contract is not much use. Remember, the owner could afford to write off such a camera as a project consumable.

Scary though this might sound, it is not that uncommon. It is a matter of relativity. If I on my average income destroyed a $6K camera, I would be gutted, however a project with a $100 Million budget would lose no sleep over such a loss provided it could be accounted for and the end justified the means. I have seen new equipment destroyed in testing and the car industry does it all the time during new model safety and performance testing.

My camera failed to work after an impact event that dislodged the microprocessor daughter board. The case was not even opened to investigate. It was written off.

This camera was not the only casualty of the project. There were others similarly disposed of as scrap.

Lucky me though

Fraser

[T3sl4co1l]

Yup.  A local GM (General Motors) facility was about to open up, then, 20 million later, they just up and decided -- "meh!" and the whole thing was taken apart and auctioned off for pennies on the dollar.  Same idea.

My PPoE picked up some steel shelving and cage / securing hardware from that.  (This was over 5 years ago.)

Tim

[Fraser]

Some pictures of the disassembled optical block and microbolometer chassis.

The small plate that was losing paint may be seen on the right of the images.

Just look at the complexity of the metal parts used in this chassis. All are milled from solid blocks of Aluminium !
The linear ball bearing slides (like drawer runners) may also be seen. The microbolometer chassis mounts onto these runners.

The aperture disc with its matt black painted rear is also clearly visible.

I have included a picture of the microswitch that is positioned behind one of the SD Card cover screw holes.

Note that the outer case is milled out of solid aluminium as well !

The microbolometer PCB is not shown but I can advise that the camera uses the venerable ULIS UL 03 04 1 which is a 43mK NETD sensor array. It is capable of 27mK NETD when 'tuned' for certain applications.

More pictures to come in due course, once I have removed OEM details 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Some pictures of the troublesome little painted plate that necessitated my disassembly of the whole optical block !

You can see where the paint has shed. The last picture is of the repainted plate drying in the conservatory.

Fraser

[Bicurico]

Great story! Reads like a novel...

But now I am suffering in silence: will the camera boot up and work? Will the results be great? Was it worth it?

Jesus, you have so much patience to FIRST disassemble the whole device to check for faults, painting the plate, etc., before trying it out. I wish I was as methodical. My inner urge is to try out as fast as possible... In this case I would have tried to boot up the camera before painting the plate...

This means that if not anything else, your many descriptions help me to educate myself to get a grip on my urge and check out equipment calmly before hooking it up for a first quick test. Kudos to you for that. I have seen some professionals like you, who do things without hurry. Inspect, measure, clean. Let it rest, think calmly, get a good sleep, wait until everything is quiet so you have time to do stuff without pressure. This is something one has to learn. Otherwise, when under stress, the slightest mistake and you break something.

Keep your promise and continue this wonderful strory!

Regards,
Vitor

[Fraser]

Vitor,

It is 'normal' to want to apply power and see what happens.

I was trained to show restraint though 

If you receive a piece of equipment and have any suspicions that it may have had a rough ride or has suffered some damage, it is important to inspect it for issues within the case. Some issues can cause more damage if power is applied as parts can be shorted or jammed. Applying power in an uncontrolled manner is a bit like Russian Roulette. If you are lucky, all will be well, if not, you can cause serious damage to electronics or mechacon systems.

In the case of the camera in this thread, there was obvious evidence of an impact to the camera casing. Once opened I could immediately see that the microprocessor daughter board was dislodged from its socket. Had I applied power without opening the camera, it would not have booted but power supply rails may have started and been shorted by the misaligned edge contacts in the socket. not a good situation. There was also paint flakes in the case and this could have been caused by distortion of a metal painted part. Such could be serious enough to jam a mechanism and overload the motor or driver circuit. Again, not a great idea as more damage can occur. There is also the issue of the paint contamination getting on the microbolometer window and being scuffed across it by an FFC flag. Not a great idea for an optical surface!

So in short, though I was keen to apply power to the camera, doing so might have caused more issues. If I had just re-seated the microprocessor board I could have started the camera with less risk but I was keen to discover the source of the paint flakes as that can be a sign of bent metal parts. This is where my training kicked in. I decided to fully investigate the effects of what is likely to have been a hard impact on the camera before applying power.

Also bear in mind that I did not have the pin-out of the two connectors so I needed to partially disassemble the camera in order to reverse engineer the main PCB. To remove that PCB, I had to remove the optical block !

Once I saw the source of the paint flakes, I could not ignore it and it was a case of just pushing onwards until I could get that part out and repair its surface. It is positioned at the heart of the optical block though and required the complete disassembly of the chassis. That was not something I was keen to do, as I said, but I am a perfectionist by nature and training so I could not ignore the issue and it might cause further issues in the future if more paint flaked away.

After this little exploration of the camera, I am now familiar with every part of it. Not a bad idea when you want to learn about a camera design. Patience is required though.


I have another really nice thermal camera that I bought with a known fault. It is a very expensive NEC AVIO camcorder style high performance camera that was displaying "Stabilizer" as a fault warning. The unit came with its service manual and that was next to useless ! It was just a board replacement manual. For a "Stabilizer" fault it just said to fit a new main board and carry out full calibration !  The previous owner was in a position to discuss the fault with the OEM and they were stumped, saying to just replace the main board and see what happens. The main board is several thousand pounds as a spare part and comes without any calibration entries of course. The owner of the camera sold it to me as a 'lost cause' for £700.

Now £700 is a lot of money to pay for a faulty camera but I had a feeling that i could repair it. These particular cameras sell for around £7K on the secondary market. I decided to take the risk. I was working then so £700 was less scary than it is now that i am retired !

The camera arrived and I carried out my usual visual inspection of the casing looking for any evidence of abuse. I found plenty !
The camera had been a rental unit that came back broken one day. I could see that it had been dropped on its lens ring 
The camera is slightly front heavy so this was no surprise. the lens ring had already been removed as it just unscrews. I could see the witness marks on the front casing from the impact though. The camera was otherwise in great condition.

Once I saw the impact damage I knew I needed to inspect the internal parts. To cut a long story short, the camera had suffered minor distortion of the lens mounting plate (aluminium and easily corrected) plus the distortion of the quite thin aluminium main chassis. The main chassis holds the battery bay and the battery comprises two 18650 cells so it has some weight to it. The impact with the ground resulted in the battery slamming against the end of its battery tray and bending the aluminium 'cage in which the battery bay resides. The aluminium cage sits directly behind the microbolometer PCB and the distortion of the cage caused it to touch the PCB ! This resulted in the shorting of a critical power rails to 0V as the chassis sits on the 0V rail. The shorting of the power rail caused the "stabilizer" fault as the Thermo Electric temperature stabilizer was powered from this supply rail. The gap between the chassis and the PCB was normally around 2mm, which is not much ! On inspection I saw that the chassis was slightly bent but could not see the shorting point as it was obscured by other chassis parts. I proved the fault cause when I separated the chassis and microbolometer PCB for testing and the camera booted without the "stabilizer" fault  It was then just a case of visually working out what the chassis was doing to the microbolometer PCB when joined together.

That was a fun repair and well worth the effort as she is a lovely camera. I was lucky though. Both the previous owner and I had applied power in order to ascertain the fault symptoms and neither of us had been able to visually detect the distortion of the chassis that was causing a short to 0V of a supply rail. Testing of the TEC circuit would have revealed the supply rail issue but I did not get to that stage before discovering the cause of the problem during disassembly. Also, having power applied to a shorted supply rail for a prolonged period during tests could have caused more issues. I was lucky.

Visual inspection is a crucial element of good trade craft when repairing equipment. Always look for signs of abuse or other potential causes of failure. This is why a methodical approach to disassembly is important. you need to keep looking for clues as sometimes the cause is right in front of you staring you in the face. Electronics are quite reliable in general, so external influences can lead to faults through no fault of the components. If you dive in pulling stuff apart, cleaning surfaces and blowing the dirt out as you go, you sometimes miss or obscure useful clues  Like the small spot of brown 'stuff I found on the underside of an equipment top casing air grille...... directly below I found a spot of the 'brown stuff' on an IC's pins. The 'stuff' was likely coffee and a drip had gone through the air grille and onto the PCB below, causing corrosion over time and malfunctioning of the IC. The power supply pins were involved and one had virtually corroded away causing issues for the IC. Now i could have found that fault by tests but I found it a lot quicker by carefully inspecting the equipment casing, inside and out for signs of abuse.

The MK1 eyeball is a very powerful tool and can be a very effective fault finding tool 

Look first, prod later    ....  and only apply power when safe to do so ! 

Fraser

[lukier]

If this is a machine vision camera (despite having a LWIR sensor) and has FireWire then it seems highly likely that:
a) maybe it can be powered via FireWire (dunno about the power consumption of the TEC or the shutter),
b) should conform to the IIDC1394 standard and therefore interfacing to the PC should be easy (i.e. dc1394 + coriander on Linux). This is not the case for GigE/USB cameras which almost always require vendor driver.

This is based on my experience with daylight/NIR machine vision cameras from PointGrey/IDS uEye/Basler/AlliedVisiion - my pockets are not deep enough to collect thermal ones, so I collect these (and RGB-D cameras)

[Fraser]

Hi Lukier,

Many thanks for this.

Indeed the camera can be powered via a desktop PC Firewire port. The user manual states that laptop Firewire ports will need a powered hub due t their lower current capability.

Thank you for the hints on the Firewire interface standard fro cameras. I will look into that. Firewire is not my favourite interface, due to past bad experiences with drivers etc, but it is very efficient and capable for video streaming. I hd all manner of problems getting Firewire thermal cameras to talk to a Firewire PCI card in a desktop PC and also with IEEE1394 PCMCIA cards in laptops. The drivers would not co-operate with the cameras in spite of them being the correct ones for the job. I found debugging the problem both time consuming and annoying as I had no hints as to what was going wrong. At least with RS232 you can monitor communications easily. One NEC AVIO camera continues to challenge me due to its Firewire issues. The camera is seen by the PC but it ignores all commands sent to it, casuing a hang in the control software. I spent hours working on that problem and concluded that something is wrong at the camera end of the link. The camera works fine in all other respects and responds to its dedicated remote controller (RS232)

Interestingly I have since read a guide to Firewire connectivity that FLIR produced. They advise that most PCI card or PCMCIA card  OEM drivers will not work well and that the user should always select the generic Firewire 1394 OHCI drivers provided by Windows. They further advised that most PCMCIA IEEE1394 cards would not work with the cameras.

This is why I try to avoid Firewire interfacing when starting out with a new camera. Interfacing 'issues' can really confuse matters. My FLIR A40 is Firewire as well so I had better get used to debugging such interfaces if the camera is not seen by, or communicated with, by the PC host software.

Many thanks again for the comments. Much appreciated. I am not that comfortable with Firewire as you can likely tell !

Fraser

[lukier]

At least you can power via Firewire and then poke around RS232. Firewire power usually also means the input voltage can be in a broad range. Firewire specifies up to 30V, but most cameras I worked with run on 12V or sometimes even 5V is fine. For example I have an adapter Y-cable from micro-Firewire (found on laptops, doesn't carry power) to Firewire-A 6 pin connector and other leg of the Y cable to USB plug to steal 5V.

I agree that Firewire can be troublesome, mostly because of multiple standards (e.g. A and B) that also can have variable link speed. Although, I never had problems with the host controllers, let it be something embedded in a laptop or various PCI or PCIe cards. I guess that's because I never used Firewire on Windows, only on Linux which is probably the equivalent of generic Windows OHCI driver. I don't know the equivalent of DC1394 library/GUI for Windows.

Sometimes camera manufacturers try to scam people by convincing them to buy Firewire PCI cards from their store for few times more than on Amazon.

[Fraser]

Again, useful information. Thank you

Fraser

[WastelandTek]

fascinating

waiting for the next chapter

[Fraser]

For interest, here are the pin-outs that I have identified so far. Some need to be confirmed in terms of exact 'type' when the camera is running as the video encoder IC DAC's are customer configured for output signal content.

6 Pin LEMO 1B 306 Pinout

1 - Firewire TPA+
2 - Firewire TPA-
3 - Firewire TPB+
4 - Firewire TPB-
5 - Power supply-
6 - Power supply+

14 Pin LEMO 1B 314 Pinout

1 - VGA Video Sync
2 - VGA Video Sync
3 - Video Signal
4 - Power-
5 - Power-
6 - Power+
7 - Power+
8 - Video Signal
9 - RS232C Data Out to Host
10 - RS232C Data in from Host
11 - Video Signal
12 - Video/RS232 0V
13 - Video/RS232 0V
14 - Video/RS232 0V

The VGA Sync outputs have been identified but which is H and which is V is not currently known. The three video outputs from the encoder DAC may be configured by the OEM to produce any of the required video signals for Composite Video, S-Video (Y&C) and VGA (RGB) These signals will be identified once the camera is up and running under software control.

The power inputs from the two sockets each have a small filter, 1.5A fuse and series diode in the path to the power PCB. Either may supply the power required by the camera as the diodes prevent back-feeds from one socket to another.

The camera specification permits a supply voltage of 9V to 24V DC.

The RS232 at the connector originate from a MAX3222 level converter IC so the camera runs true RS232C levels and polarity.

All this is may appear useless information unless I reveal the identity of the camera to you dear readers, but that may yet come later in the story 

Fraser

 

[Fraser]

No movement on the cameras re-assembly yet..... we have been out looking at kittens !

I hope to re-assemble the camera today, followed by a power on test and attempted communications via RS232.

I have purchased an iLink (Firewire) powered hub that I can use to power the camera via its Firewire port when using a laptop. That is due to arrive early this week.

As a side note that may, or may not effect this cameras use with Firewire, Microsoft ceased support for Firewire TCP IP communications with the move to Vista. To use TCP IP via Firewire you have to use a host computer running Windows XP. Good old Microsoft eh ! 

Fraser

[amyk]

I have more information that suggests to me that these cameras were almost sacraficial in their tasking. That is to say, the project justified risking destruction of some thermal cameras. Big budgets were involved.

I have no proof, but it is my belief that this camera was damaged during whatever testing was being carried out with it present, and it was written off as a project consumable. It failed due to 'abuse' rather than normal use. This may explain the lack of a support contract. If the camera is likely to be destroyed within the year or so of use, a support contract is not much use. Remember, the owner could afford to write off such a camera as a project consumable.

Scary though this might sound, it is not that uncommon. It is a matter of relativity. If I on my average income destroyed a $6K camera, I would be gutted, however a project with a $100 Million budget would lose no sleep over such a loss provided it could be accounted for and the end justified the means. I have seen new equipment destroyed in testing and the car industry does it all the time during new model safety and performance testing.

I'm going to guess aerospace, and that these were used to look at rocket exhaust. That type of project would certainly have the budget to treat everything around the launch pad etc. as a consumable.

[Fraser]

 Amyk,

 

[Fraser]

Well the camera is now reassembled 

time for the teardown and rebuild pictures me thinks. You can likely identify the OEM from thee pics 

Enjoy

Fraser

[Fraser]

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[Fraser]

The re-assembly begins here.........

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

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[Fraser]

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[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[WastelandTek]

oi

that heat sinking arrangement is interesting

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

Re-assembly pics

[Fraser]

So there you go. Disassembly and re-assembly pictures.

Now to test the camera(s) 

Watch this space..........

Fraser

[T3sl4co1l]

Wait, you got two of these?  I thought only the one...

Tim

[Fraser]

I did say that more than one were bought for the original project (sequential serial numbers) but thought I would leave the number I have as a little surprise 

I am a Gemini, and always like 'one and a spare' where possible 

The other camera has no obvious problems but we shall see once it is powered and operating.

Fraser

[Fraser]

In case anyone is wondering, these cameras are very nicely constructed. The optical block and microbolometer chassis are a joy to work on. I found no more issues with the camera beyond those already detailed. It all went back together without any drama or difficulty. I carefully air dusted everything before assembly to remove any remaining remnants of flaked paint.

These cameras are solid and I suspect were very expensive when bought new in 2014. There is no pricing available for them on the internet that I can find. That is not unusual for Industrial thermal cameras.

Now to see if there is any life in them. Fingers crossed. They may yet be paper weights 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Tiny update....

Both cameras complete the boot, self test and initialisation sequences 

One has an issue with the motorised aperture plate/FFC flag that sits in front of the microbolometer. It is 'sticking' and not rotating freely as it should. Could be the physical gear drive or stepper motor drive.

The rotating disc contains three different apertures and a blank area. The blank area is used as the FFC flag. Not a system I have met before, but little reason to not use it.

Making a IEEE-1394a cable for the camera tonight.

The other challenge with this camera is its use of LEMO 1B connectors rather than the larger 2B type. When looking for a 14 core screened cable to fit a 1B 14 way Lemo, I realised that cores are tiny and rated at only 250mA per stranded core. It was also slightly too large for the connector. I have resorted to a 10 core cable (still only 250mA per stranded core) and I shall not used the power pins. This avoids the issue of the very fine wires current rating. Power may still be supplied via the other LEMO connector that is only 6 way and dedicated to the IEEE 1394a communications. Even if IEEE 1394a is not used, power may still be provided via its port.

In a dedicated installation, the 14 way Lemo would likely have fewer pins used and so a heavier duty cable may be used with larger cross section stranded cores. I am electing to access all signal lines for experimentation. The darned 1B-314 Lemo connectors cost me £26 each so I only bought one for the moment.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Minor update......

Well the IEEE1394 cable was built ...... what a PITA that IEEE1394a cable structure is ! So many foil and braid screens. No wonder IEEE1394 TCP/IP netorks were expensive to implement !

The Software and driver was loaded onto an older HP laptop that is running Win7 and has a IEEE 1394a port built in. The camera was connected to a powered IEEE 1394 hub to provide its power. It draws around 500mA when running.

Once all was connected up and drivers assigned, the control software was up and running   The image window was filled with a beautiful thermal image. I say beautiful because it was present, rather than its content which was nothing interesting or in focus !

After some focus adjustment and placing of a hard disk in front of the camera as a target, I was rewarded with a well focussed and clean thermal image. The camera is working perfectly. It is fitted with a 50mm FL Close focus lens so is more like a thermal microscope. Depth of field is very shallow at around 2mm.

I am still getting used to the control and configuration software. It is by no means the best that I have used, but it is the official software, and all that I have. The image seems a little blocky at first sight but there are various configuration settings including a smoothing algorithm that I need to play with. It could just be the upscaled image on the laptop and nothing to do with the camera. Even the menus on the image screen seem blocky so something weird seems to be going on.

In terms of performance enhancement options fitted in the cameras..... no such additional options are installed. No resolution enhancement and no additional high temperature ranges. The camera has two temperature ranges and covers up to 300C. It looks like the SD Card may be active but I need to test that tomorrow. It is certainly complaining that no SD Card is present ! The camera can output composite video, S-Video and VGA, as hoped. Nice to have those options in addition to streaming via IEEE1394a. Video recording to the laptop at full frame rate is also present and operational.

I will upload some pictures tomorrow, after I have had more time with the camera and software.

Fraser

[T3sl4co1l]

I wonder, is Windows desktop set for default (125%) scaling?  A lot of older programs don't play well with that.

Tim

[Fraser]

Tim,

Excellent suggestion, I will investigate. It does have the appearance of up scaling mismatch.

There are two image stream display modes, RGB and IR-Data. RGB shows the cameras overlays and menus but IR-Data shows only the IR image data, no overlays or menus. The IR-Data mode is noticeably better imaging quality.

I will save an image to SD Card as well to see what quality is recorded. There are many options for image storage file type as well. PNG may be better than the default JPEG format.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am uploading last nights images that I quickly captured from the camera feed.

The IC in the image measures 11.9mm across its plastic encapsulation and the torx head screw head measures 5mm across. Horizontal FOV appears to be approx 20mm at 50mm distance from lens. This gives approx 0.05mm per camera pixel, or put another way, 20 pixels per mm.

Distance of the PCB from the lens objective was approx 50mm.

I will do the diagonal hot wire pixel count and definition test later.

Note that some pictures are focused on the PCB tracks and some on the top surface of the IBM IC.

It was interesting to see that the hard disk IC imaged was running quite cool initially and whilst I was testing the camera, the IBM IC suddenly 'thermally erupted' in the image and shot up in temperature. This hard disk has been removed from service as it had a habit of becoming sluggish in its responses. I wonder if the sudden temperature escalation of this IC has something to do with that failure ?

Fraser

[Fraser]

Two more pics at the end of last nights test.

[Fraser]

A quick read of the manual has explained the two stream modes of RGB and IR-Data. I noted that IR-Data provides a better image quality.

RGB mode enables camera GUI menu overlays and image fusion to be seen on the control software image window. Saved RGB images contain no radiometric metadata. It is a mode used for remote control of the camera with a preview of the thermal image.

IR-Data mode displays only the pure thermal data stream from the camera with no camera generated overlays present. images are stored in an IRB format which contains full radiometric metadata.

It would appear that RGB mode slightly degrades the image in the window, and that saved, in order to accommodate the fusion of camera generated GUI displays. I will have to play with the IR-Data mode some more.

Fraser

[T3sl4co1l]

Really weird, those screenshots look like they've been pixel-resized multiple times.  If it were a single resize (with no filtering), the line doublings should be evenly spaced.  Instead I see patterns like, 1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,2,2,1,1,1,1,2,1,...  There should never be two consecutive doubled lines in a single resize. 

And also, that.  Lack of filtering.  Makes things so ugly.  Oh well.

Tim

[Fraser]

I agree, there was immediately something about the images that looked weird to me. See above however. There seems to be some manipulation of the image to cope with the camera sourced GUI.

Also note that the saved images are 640 x 480 and the camera actually produces a 384 x 288 image ! Those two are not a good match in terms of upscaling !

The IR-Data mode is far more promising as it is presumably what is the 'pure' feed intended to be used in an industrial setting. I shall have to look at how the camera copes with generating a signal for the composite video, S-Video and VGA outputs. I suspect more mismatched upscaling or possibly the camera will drop the used FPA pixels to 320 x 240, then doubled for VGA output.

People sometimes like the extra pixels provided by a 384 x 288 pixel array but such can make thinks awkward when it comes to upscaling to a 'standard' resolution. This is why OEM's often use these 384 x 288 pixel arrays in the sensors 320 x 240 mode. ULIS accommodate these two modes in their ROIC as standard to assist in this matter.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Now for those readers who have patiently been waiting for me to release the cameras identity.........

The camera is a product of Jenoptik (Germany) so it is little surprise that it uses a European ULIS (France) microbolometer

The model ID is IR-TCM 384 that translates to "Infrared Camera - Thermal Camera Module 384 x 288 pixel imaging array".

The IR-TCM Industrial thermal camera module uses the same imaging core and main board as the Jenoptik Variocam handheld thermal cameras. Very good quality and in the same market segment as FLIR professional industrial cameras. Very expensive Germanium lenses are used to maintain good image quality. Radiometric accuracy is excellent. The IR-TCM is a 'hard core' industrial thermal camera similar to the FLIR A40 etc.

Datasheet is here:

https://www.jenoptik.com/cms/products.nsf/0/3922D918776B7BCEC1257775007F90C8/$File/ir-tcm_384_en_web.pdf?Open

These cameras squeeze the very best performance available from the ULIS  UL03-04-1 384 x 288 35um pixel A-Si FPA.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Pictures of the IR-TCM and handheld version Variocam. I also include a picture of the now familiar imaging core, as shown on the Jenoptik Core site.

Fraser

[Fraser]

These thermal cameras also appear on the market as Infratec products, a partner of Jenoptik.

http://www.infratec.co.uk/

http://www.infratec.eu/fileadmin/downloads/pdf/VC_HD/InfraTec-VarioCAM-HD-head-security-h-EN-mail.pdf

Fraser

[Fraser]

On the topic of image filtering, the camera shares a feature of other high end units in that it permits the level of image filtering to be set by the user. In the case of the IR-TCM module, it may be set to Off, Weak, Medium or Stong.

From memory, the stronger the filtering applied, the more likelihood of issues when imaging fast moving objects. In industry where the thermal data is key and pretty imGes are lowerpriority, the filtering is often set to Off or Weak in order to achieve the best effective frame rate from the 'sensor head' (the camera). This is likely why the images look poorly filtered. The filter was set to weak in the images I uploaded.

There is another program that I have for analysing the images captured in 'IR-Date' radiometric mode. It is called 'VarioAnalyze' and is intended for Close analysis of the images. The main capture and control program is called VarioCapture and it appears to be just an engineering program to set the camera up and capture images. It contains no report writing capability or niceties often found in consumer grade thermal camera software. It is more of a utility. Even setting the time and date must be done by activating the cameras on board GUI rather than by direct commands from the PC software. It is very much a remote control program for accessing the functions normally activated on a handheld cameras keypad. It does offer the advantage of image streaming and recording to the PC though.

Jenoptik now supply a new piece of software for their cameras. It is named IRBIS and may be more capable than VarioCapure. It's very expensive though so I will not be trying it out any time soon !

Variocapture does provide me with full remote control of all camera functions and I do have the option to build a RS232C remote controller for local control f the camera. I need to reverse engineer the command set first though.

So for those unfamiliar with the world of Industrial modular thermal cameras, I hope this thread has been enlightening. They can be useless without the host control software, built like battleships, very capable and are usually very expensive ! Buy them only if you know what you are doing. Mine cost me $250 and it was a risk. However it was a risk I was willing to take.

I will update this thread with further discoveries about these cameras, such as image quality, analysis software performance and the repair of the unit with a sticky aperture/FFC plate.

Not forgetting that little micro switch behind the SD Card port of course

Fraser

[Fraser]

Just so people are aware, I will not be reverse engineering these cameras beyond what is needed to get them operational and any areas that interest me. These are a controlled Dual Use technology camera and I respect that status.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Apologies for the slow progress on this thread. A health issue has recently heavily impacted on my ability to do much electronics related stuff. Normal service should resume shortly

Fraser

[Fraser]

For those interested in the control software aspects of industrial cameras, take a look at the InfraTec IRBIS options page found here:

http://www.infratec.co.uk/thermography/thermographic-software.html

This is not at all unusual in the world of Industrial thermal imaging. You buy a core image analysis program that actually contains all available options, but to activate the ones you want in your application, you have to pay for an upgraded licence. It can get VERY expensive ! $10K is not unusual.

So when someone complains abut the quality of free software provided with consumer grade and semi-pro cameras.... consider yourselves lucky to be given anything for free. Even FLIR TOOLS+ is a relative bargain at around $300 when compared to the software provided to industry at huge mark-ups. FLIR professional software is still available and still costs a small fortune. It is protected using the USB HASP HL dongle system due to its high value.

Third party software is sometimes also available. My NEC AVIO cameras can be remote controlled and their images analysed by either the OEM provided software, or some excellent third party programs. The NEC AVIO software has always been a bit clunky, much like this Jenoptik offering. Many NEC AVIO agents recommended a specific third party software that was very good. It was supplied by the 'White-Blue' company but sadly they discontinued it a few years ago. I am fortunate enough to own a licence for this excellent capture and analysis software. What is interesting is how many other thermal camera manufacturers actually used the software under their own branding. My licence works with them all so I managed to find the latest versions to use. The software cost several thousand pounds for a special, customer specific licence that unlocked certain features and support for certain cameras. Thankfully my licence is fully loaded so all features are unlocked 

Fraser

[WastelandTek]

get better soon Fraser

[Fraser]

Thank you

I spent a little more time on the camera and software today.

The control interface is a little clunky as no keyboard keys are used to replicate the cameras buttons and joystick interfaces. It is all mouse driven.

I have tested the camera with an SDCard and all is well. Images are stored on the SDCard so that option is enabled.

The camera has four levels of noise reduction as already stated. The best for everyday use is the 'Weak' filtering option as it does not noticing you impact upon imaging fast moving objects. The highest setting is definitely intended for static objects and such is stead in the manual. The filtering reduces the noise content of the images when small temperature spans are used. The camera is capable of 2C spans and with filtering switched off there is quite a lot of random noise content. This drops markedly when the filter is set to 'Weak' strength.

I noted in the imaging settings that there was an 'HQ interpolation' option that was selected. This may have been causing some of the weird artefacts in the original images. The cameras image output is upscaled by a factor of 2 before being displayed on the PC. This remains the case no matter what the condition of HQ interpolation. More investigation will be carried out in this area later.

The two streaming modes now make more sense to me. As I previously stated, the streaming is either 'RGB' or 'IR-Data'. In the RGB mode the images presented on the PC software window are literally the RGB video data that would normally be presented to the cameras LCD display or viewfinder (on the Variocam version). That is why the menu overlays are seen. This mode appears to provide a less pleasant image as it is literally an RGB video feed rather than raw, unadulterated radiometric data being read and displayed.
In the IR-Data mode of operation, the camera outputs all of the radiometric data needed to create an image on the PC. No camera generated GUI data is present. In this mode, the camera radiometric image data is used to create a clean and true thermal image in the PC window. The thermal span etc is shown as it is also supplied in the radiometric data stream. This data may be recorded as a data stream, video stream or as still images. The recorded data may be analysed using the VarioAnalyser program that is able to read the Radiometric file type directly. The VarioAnalyzer program also enables the user to save images in common file types such as JPEG, BMP and TIFF.
Various analytical tools are available n the camera and in the PC Analysis software. These include, but are not limited to Thermal profiling along a defined line, and an image Histogram. The analysis software is simp,e enough to use and even provides report writing tools. As true Radiometric data is used, the user may add temperature measurements to the images. Image palette, spans and centre temperature may also be changed to suit the uses needs.

The camera and software contains some interesting palettes and I must say I like some of the ones that I had not seen before. I do not see any option to create new custom palettes but it may be possible to add them to the analysis software. I will need to look into that.

The camera has behaved flawlessly throughout the testing and is a good performer. Clean images and very accurate temperature measurements. The Close-up lens is a bit specialist and limits the use of the camera to that of an inspection tool and thermal microscope. It images modern high density electronics with ease though.

I will hopefully find time to take a look at the combined aperture plate and FFC shutter tomorrow. It sounds like the stepper motor is having difficulty moving the aperture plate and so the drive current limit kicks in. The camera seems happy enough in other respects though.

I ordered another couple of Lemo connectors for the other camera today. Ouch that hurt in the wallet ! They are essential though so I just had to bite the bullet.

Later I shall set up the RS232 control link instead of using the Firewire. I can the. Send commands from the control software and capture them at the serial port. With some effort I should be able to capture many of the cameras control commands. Sadly not all though, as I feel sure there will be commands that the control software does not produce. The command set for FLIR PM series cameras are extensive and these cameras are likely similar.

I may, or may not, build a RS232C remote control for these cameras It would certainly be easier than using the mouse driven PC software GUI. I need to build a remote control for my PM series cameras first though as that is a higher priority.

I have not decided on the future of these cameras yet. I already own the FLIR A40 and recently purchased the genuine Close-up lens for that camera. I may keep one of these Jenoptik cameras and sell the other as you only need so many close-up cameras in the lab

I think I got quite a bargain with these Jenoptik cameras. Luck was on my side and good fortune smiled upon me. To find the proper remote control and analysis software on an agents web page, when such is not available from Jenoptik, was a real surprise and it was the difference between a good buy and a disaster !

Fraser

[Fraser]

I almost forgot...... the tiny microswitch behind the SDCard cover screw....

I still do not know what it is for. It does not reset the camera, enable any additional options or have anything to do with the SDCard operation.

If it is pressed in when power is applied, the camera will not start the boot sequence. I am wondering if the switch is used for firmware updates and forces the camera to look for a firmware file on the SDCard. This type of firmware upgrade process is not uncommon on thermal cameras. The firmware is loaded from the SDCard rather than from a Host PC. The firmware has a very specific file name that the upgrade routine looks for. If it does not find it, nothing happens.

For the moment, the microswitch function remains a mystery.

Fraser

[WastelandTek]

It sounds like the stepper motor is having difficulty moving the aperture plate and so the drive current limit kicks in.

I am probably revealing my ignorance here, is lubrication even an option in this application?  or is this a function of tolerances?

[Fraser]

WastelandTek,

A semi seized bearing or hardened grease are known issues in some camera bearings but this particular situation is different.

The Jenoptik camera uses a system that I have not met before. The large aperture plate/disc/wheel is like a giant gear wheel and driven on its outside edge. It has a central spindle that passes through a stainless steel sleeve. There is no oilite bearing as I would expect of a spinning shaft scenario. The reason is that the aperture plate only moves occasionally and at low speed. There is the lightest of lubrication on the bearing surface. The aperture wheel is unlikely to seize.

The way the camera uses the aperture wheel is novel. Different apertures may be selected by the camera to suit its needs. The same wheel has a blank high emissivity area that is used as the flat field correction reference. Most conventional designs use a simple flag as the reference. When the camera needs to carry out a FFC it drives the aperture wheel around to the blank section and after FFC completes, the wheel is driven back to the required aperture. All this happens at a relatively slow speed.

If I am honest, I prefer the 'flag and solenoid' design but Jenoptik must have had their reasons for combining the aperture plate with the FFC reference area.

The aperture plate wheel is driven by a small stepper motor via a wide nylon gear. It is possible that the gear is engaging too tightly with the aperture plates edge. If the camera has suffered an impact the weight of the stepper motor can bend its mount causing misalignment of the drive gear with the aperture plate teeth. I shall investigate this first. There is also the potential for an issue with the stepper motor driver.

Never be afraid to make comments or suggestions though..... all are welcome and none are 'silly' questions or suggestions as we learn by asking and discussing matters. Hence this rather long winded explanation of the system used in the camera.

Watch this space

Fraser

[Fraser]

The remaining camera fault has been resolved 

You will recall that the camera was failing to correctly position the aperture plate and that the plate is like a large gear wheel, driven on the edge by a stepper motor.

I suspected misalignment of the stepper motor due to the force of the impact to which the camera was exposed. Whenever inspecting a mechanical or electronic device that has been dropped or exposed to high impact energies, you should look at all heavy items to see whether they have moved or the chassis has bent. In the case of the Jenoptik camera, it is very well built and should withstand reasonable abuse. It does use standard mechanical components in the form of the stepper motors though.These COTS stepper motors/actuators are made with a standard sheet metal mounting plate that secures them to the very rigid JenoptiK chassis.

When the camera experienced the high forces travelling through it during the impact event all parts will have become far heavier due to G forces upon deceleration. As suspected, these forces traveled through the two stepper motors and their mounting plates. The focus stepper linear actuator is very well supported by its bracket and the actuator shaft. It is therefore quite stable. The aperture plate stepper motor is supported by only its front face mounting plate that is made from mild steel. The screws had not moved but the engagement of the nylon stepper motor gear with the aperture plate was far too tight for easy 360 degree rotation of the plate.

During the impact event the aperture plate stepper motor had tilted outwards on its thin mounting plate causing the gear to effectively dive into the aperture plate gear teeth. The mounting plate had not recovered its correct shape after the impact event. This left the gear engagement so tight that no tolerance existed for radius variation in the aperture plate. The assembly then jammed at certain points in the rotation sequence causing an over-current situation in the stepper motor driver.

Upon close inspection, the distortion in the stepper motor mounting plate was very small indeed. the slight tilt in the mounting plate was corrected and the motor refitted. The gear mesh and backlash was carefully checked and adjusted to optimum.

Upon re-assembling the camera it was tested and the aperture plate now rotates perfectly and normal operation has been restored.

I attach pictures of the parts discussed in this post fro better insight into the design.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Some details of the close-up lens that is fitted to these cameras.

The lens is marked Jenoptik IR 2.0/50mm LW CLOSE-UP LENS 707033

This is not a standard lens with either a close-up auxiliary lens or mounting extension tube. It is a dedicated close-up lens.

The lens is a heavyweight at 500g and the lens elements are constructed from pure Germanium. The number of lens elements is not known at this time.

The weight of the lens lead to the mounting lugs being distorted during the impact event. Thankfully the damage is not to the lens elements and the lenses are otherwise undamaged. These would have been very expensive lenses so I am surprised that they were not salvaged by the original owner. Maybe the lens mount lug damage caused them to be condemned ?

The good news is that the damage to the lens mounting lugs is repairable if required, but the lenses seem to seat correctly and securely as they are for the moment. The lens mount locking ring uses a helical lug retainer which explains why the lens is still retained well.

The lens has a pair of gold contacts that mate with a pair of gold spring loaded pins in the cameras lens mount. I believe this is the Lens ID chip and maybe more. Measurements on the two contacts show 2 Meg Ohms so it is not a simple thermistor, RTD or thermocouple as might be expected. The camera has to know the lens identity in order to set its calibration table offsets. The camera is also capable of reporting whether it has been calibrated with any given lens attached (identifed by serial number).  It could be that the lens contains a circuit that reports lens type, serial number and temperature via the two contacts.

All in all, very nice quality professional close up lenses.

Fraser

[Fraser]

An interesting discovery regarding the Jenoptik close-up lens ....

Yes it IS a close-up lens but is it a 'ground up' close up lens/macro design ? I think not.

From the first time I saw this lens, I thought it looked unusual. The front element looked like it was 'tacked on' rather than being an integral part of the lens design. Could it be that the lens is just a standard type with a close-up element attached to the front ?

Now there is nothing particularly wrong with using an auxiliary close-up lens, but to supply a "close-up" lens that is in fact a standard lens with a close-up element 'bolted' on the front struck me as a bit unusual. Most OEM's offer the standard lens options plus a number of auxiliary single element close-up lenses to mount on the front of the standard lenses. In fact Jenoptik do offer this exact option with their lenses. The exceptions are usually Macro lenses and microscope lenses. These are designed to fulfill their specialist roles from first design, and not just an adapted standard lens. I can find no listing for my exact lens so it is a bit of a mystery. It was also unusual to see that no mount thread was provided fro a lens protector. This can be an important accessory for a close-up lens to prevent liquid splashes or impacts on the expensive AR coated Germanium lens element.

I was making an assumption about the lens design though so needed to prove if I was correct. A quick look at the area around the 'objective' element further raised my suspicions. There was no standard internal lens retaining ring but there was a very familiar looking slightly concave lens element that looked to be part of a lens ring/sleeve that could unscrew. I tried to unscrew the front ring but it has been locked in place with lacquer or glue on the threads...... damn! Oh well, maybe applying some heat and more force will budge it ?  Before going off in that direction, I checked the other camera lens to see if it was also 'thread locked'. I was in luck.... with very little force, the front ring unscrewed  Only a very small amount of lacquer/glue had been uses at the rear of the threads.
Upon removing the front lens retaining ring, I could see that the lens was not part of it and was sat in a recess in the lens barrel. Not what I had expected to be honest. I expected the front lens ring to have the front lens element secured to it. I carefully removed the front lens and to my joy I could see a standard looking Objective lens sitting behind it  The bulbous objective lens appears very similar in appearance to the standard Jenoptik 50mm lens objective element. The close-up lens element and its retaining ring is not needed in terms of the other lens elements and their retention in the lens barrel.

It is too late here in the UK to start doing tests on the lens without the front (close-up) lens element fitted, but I very much suspect that I will find the camera will focus fine without the close-up lens and that it is just a standard 50mm Jenoptik Lens in a modified lens barrel to accommodate the close-up element. If this is in fact the case, I will be very pleased as the close-up lens somewhat limited the versatility of these cameras. If they can be set-up as standard OR close-up lenses they will be far more useful to me 

There will be a very slight change in the transmission characteristics of the lens without the Germanium close-up element fitted, but any difference is likely to be minor and of no consequence to me. It can be tested and quantified easily enough using my Black Body test sources anyway.

Well dear readers, it is almost 4am here in Blighty so time for bed. I go to my bed a happy chap in light of tonights discovery. Hopefully I will prove that the lens works like any other standard lens once the close-up element is removed.

Just enough time to upload the pictures......


Fraser

[Fraser]

OK, I have tested the camera with the front 'close-up' lens removed.

Well I was wrong, the lens does work well without the 'close-up' element ..... but this lens is by no means standard. It has a lengthened lens barrel compared to the standard lens. This means that it is still a close focus lens, just not as close as with the close-up lens fitted !

The improvement in focus distance is worth while though. The lens is far more useful in general PCB work when the close-up lens is removed.

The camera has adjustable focus so I have listed the optimum focus distance for its closest and furthest focus settings.


Focus distance test.....

With close-up lens

Set to max Far = 40mm
Set to max Close = 20mm


Without close-up lens lens

Set to max Far = 320mm
Set to max Close = 50mm

I took some quick pictures of the ubiquitous hot coffee cup during testing to show the different colour palettes. I tried both RGB and IR-Data modes and IR-Data images are much cleaner than RGB, as suspected. I will upload some of the IR-Data pictures later but this was not a formal test. In the mean time I am uploading the RGB images as they show the colour palettes. The vertical bar on the front of the cup is caused by my radiated heat as I was in front of it.

Fraser

[Fraser]

More of the RGB mode pictures

Fraser

[Fraser]

OK, some RGB images Vs IR-Data images that I have loaded into VarioAnalyzer and then saved as JPEG files. Some loss of quality may occur due to the compression but without VarioAnalyzer .IRB files cannot be read.

I am still playing with the software so also tried the auto 'Clean', 'Soften' and 'Sharpen' image improvement tools. I set maximum strength on them to see how severe they are. They will follow the RGB IR-Data(converted to JPG) comparison images.

I decided to leave the HQ interpolation mode switched on as I assume it is supposed to improve the image quality ? I shall have to do some test on that later.

In the following images, the RGB images contain the cameras GUI but the IR-Data images are clean except for the temperature scale.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Clean, Soften and Sharpen filters applied using the VarioAnalyzer edit mode set to the highest effect setting.

First image is the untouched version, followed by Cleaned, then Soften, then Sharpen. The edits are individually applied to the untouched image and not sequentially to one image as that would cause weird effects !

Fraser

[Fraser]

Having just used the VarioAnalyze program to look at the IR-Data images and compared them with zooming in on the JPEG version previously saved by the program, I can confirm that the image gets degraded. The unmodified IR-Data image is actually very nice indeed.

When using VarioAnalyze I can clearly see every single microbolometer pixel and even select the measured value of such. The program also provides a spread sheet style of presenting all of the captured pixels. The camera captures the full 384 x 288 pixels.

Once I save the image in JPEG it is upscaled to 644 x 432 pixels which is not a great situation  I shall have to look into stopping the auto upscaling as it does not do a very good job.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Ok, the up-scaling issue was my fault.

I had not realised that when you zoom in on an image in VarioAnalyze it not only upscales the displayed image, it also saves the up-scaled version when you select 'save-as'. Examples attached at 100%, 200% and 300%. All have JPEG compression but the available TIFF format would be better.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am uncertain how much more I can post about this model of camera, and the PC software, that will be of interest to the readership. I may park this thread for now and move onto another thermal camera repair. I have a Guide M3 / SPi RazIR and a Keysight U5855A to look at. Then there is the Stirling Cooled Amber Radiance 1 to explore ! Not forgetting  looking at the Ideal HeatSeeker camera and upgrading my FLIR E40 to E60 spec. So much on the to-do list !

These Jenoptik cameras have been an enjoyable little project for me and I hope my long meandering commentary has not been too boring a read. I tend to write as I speak, so a lot gets written

Fraser

[WastelandTek]

Well, at the risk of being "that one fan", I am not even a thermal camera enthusiast and I found your detailed, learned write up interesting indeed.

I look forward to your next endeavor.

[Fraser]

Well I am pleased that this little story has been of interest. These cameras are just a bit out of the ordinary so I thought the readership might be interested in the technology within them and the potential issues that can exist in industrial cameras that have been deliberately 'abused'.

I am certainly very please with what I got for $250. The cameras are perfect for PCB thermal profiling and thermal fault investigations on equipment.

I am very aware that the story could have been very different had i not been able to find the controller software though. Some similar industrial thermal cameras do have the required software easily available but at a horrendous price. Always worth considering when looking to buy such 'special use' cameras. If this thread prevents just one person from wasting significant sums of money on an industrial thermal camera that cannot be used, it will have been worth my effort to write.

Fraser

[lukier]

I am very aware that the story could have been very different had i not been able to find the controller software though. Some similar industrial thermal cameras do have the required software easily available but at a horrendous price. Always worth considering when looking to buy such 'special use' cameras. If this thread prevents just one person from wasting significant sums of money on an industrial thermal camera that cannot be used, it will have been worth my effort to write.

Which is strange IMHO. The drivers for machine vision cameras are freely available from manufacturers websites - PointGrey / Basler / AVT / IDS / VRMagic and so on. At most registration is required.

Doing otherwise by the manufacturers means shooting themselves in the foot. At work we spend thousands of pounds on these cameras and lenses and if, let's say PointGrey, decided to charge for the Linux driver and C++ API we would promptly switch to the other brand, assuming they went mad. In the end there is no rocket science there, often sensors from the same manufacturers + FPGA + transceiver (FireWire/USB 3.0/GbE).

[Fraser]

Lukier,

The reason for proprietary thermal imaging and analysis software and its often high price goes back into the annals of time.

In the early days of thermal imaging everything was geared up for military and industrial buyers as they were the only ones who could afford such equipment. At that time a thermal camera cost several times that of a 2 bedroom house ! The cameras were treated more like specialist scientific equipment at that time. With such scientific equipment it was not at all uncommon for each manufacturer to have a proprietary control software costing a great deal of money. Everything cost extra, a bit like buying a German car ! In the early 1990's the Agema Thermovision 880 scanning cooled camera cost around £125K with its hardware controller, the lens was another £25K and conversion to a Stirling Cooler from LN2 was another £25K. The kit gave you real time viewing of a scene with only basic control over span and centre temperature. For analysis of images you needed the AGEMA BRUT computer. If you had to ask the price of BRUT, you could not afford it !

Later cameras became more integrated and offered conventional communications ports for connecting to a PC. These could be RS232, SCSI or IEEE 1394 and USB on later models. The old tradition of using proprietary software and charging for it continued. No two manufacturers used the same control codes or data sets in their software.

Why ? Well I believe it was just an attempt to prevent third parties producing software and to 'lock-in' customers to their products. Once you have invested in very expensive hardware plus software the OEM wanted you to trade-up with them when the time came and they would offer trade-in offers for cameras and software versions if required. Remember, there were very few suppliers of this technology, and that is still the case compared to conventional digital cameras.

In my experience the thermal camera market has a tradition of selling the customer a camera that can do basic thermography but true image analysis is seen as a cash cow by them. The OEM has the opportunity for a second bite of the Cherry whilst also committing the customer to their unique analysis software, and thus potentially their brand at time of equipment refresh. The software often came in different versions for different purposes. Some were image file analysis only whilst others offered remote control and more advanced analysis features. Yet more software offered report writing capabilities separate to the analysis side of things. Just like with Microsoft, the OEM's wanted to offer a suite of software packages on which they could effectively earn another income stream with sales and support contracts. The OEM's also had the advantage of a captive audience in their customers due to proprietary code, and their customers usually had deep pockets ! remember... from the customer procurement department perspective, this was NOT Information Technology software, it was Scientific Instrument software so they expected prices to be high. That was just the world of military and scientific equipment.

Were OEM's wrong to do this ? In my opinion no. They were a small number of companies producing a very specialist product full of 'black magic' that impressed the customers. Why not treat the cameras and analysis software as two income streams ?  PC software OEM's like Adobe base a business on writing clever image manipulation software, why not the same for thermal images ?
The cost of the software had the potential to vary vastly between versions, capabilities and OEM's. They charged what the market would pay. I still use some of the older software's that were very expensive in their day and I can report that some are embarrassingly poor in terms of the user interface and their capabilities. Some are nothing less than appalling cr*p ! But the customers had no choice remember, it was that or nothing, take it or leave it.

Over the years the software has come of age and has improved vastly when compared to the early stuff. It still comes in many different versions, still uses proprietary image types and control codes and can still cost a small fortune to buy.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the FLIR Ex series came with a free non-demo version of FLIR Tools. That was the first time I had met a FLIR product that gifted analysis software to the customer and I believe it was because FLIR realised the importance of providing some basic PC software, and the shallower pockets of the intended customer base. Customers want to at least view and edit their images on a PC for reports etc. They were used to Digital cameras offering such after all. Offering FLIR Tools free was also an excellent vote winner for the customers who knew of the tradition for charging extra for such in the industry. Then there was the clever marketing tactic of offering a FLIR Tools+ upgrade that would attract interest from more advanced thermographers wanting more capabilities, who likely had deeper pockets to pay for it. Now as many will agree, FLIR Tools and FLIR Tools+ have their issues and are nothing amazing, but they are affordable for many customers and do 'get the job done'.

For the professional thermographer there is still the option to purchase the traditional more advanced software packages that still cost thousands of Dollars for a single licence. Unlike in the past though, customers are not left with this as the only option open to them. There are also third party thermal image analysis and reporting software's available, though many are still very expensive.

So in summary, Thermal camera PC software has traditionally been an extra cost, and a not insignificant one at that. It has not always offered good value for money either. Visible light industrial cameras are a different market that has possibly had different traditions when it comes to proprietary control codes and image formats. The technology certainly has a much larger OEM base than that of thermal imaging cameras, and the adoption of standards like Firewire may have helped with standardisation of image and control data. Firewire on thermal cameras was just another type of communications interface, with no effort to make any two OEM's products compatible with the others software.

We live in more enlightened times now however and I am pleased to see that many thermal cameras now come with at least basic image display and editing software. More advanced software is normally offered for those who need it and can afford the associated cost.

With regard to Jenoptik, they are an OEM who still wishes to maintain tight control over their software market and still like the idea of support contracts and additional fees for functionality unlocking. That is just their business model. Interestingly Jenoptik have been in some difficulty in recent years. Maybe their business model has become outdated when compared to others in their markets ?

Well those are my thoughts on this matter, others may have a different view on the industry.

Fraser

[lukier]

But my point was not on "thermal imaging and analysis software", let them charge whatever for that, I don't care, I write such software for a living. I believe it is the same for visible spectrum cameras, where people that don't want to code buy either Matlab or something like HALCON: http://www.mvtec.com/products/halcon/ or more industry-specific solutions.

My point was just the OS driver and something like C++ API to control the camera and access thermal or ratiometric video streams, that's all. It doesn't even have to be open source or standardized across manufacturers - it isn't in the visible spectrum cameras as well (with the exception of the FireWire standard that most cameras adhere to as I've mentioned in my previous post).

[CatalinaWOW]

I endorse Fraser's comments, and would extend that back a couple of decades.  The first thermal cameras were complex electro-mechanical beasts that usually had to scan a small array over the scene.  Small might even mean a single element, and was seldom more than 4x64 or some similar format.  Costs were stunning - even to military and industrial users.

In addition to Fraser's comments on software, think of it this way.  Each of the companies had software that interfaced to their own peculiar interface.  They had significant investment in this software.  Making it compatible with another vendors hardware would require additional investment and be vulnerable to defensive moves from the other vendor such as a change in hardware interface.  Making it compatible with a standard interface (PAL and NTSC were most of what was available) would put real limits on the data and open the income stream to others with little obvious payoff.

[lukier]

In addition to Fraser's comments on software, think of it this way.  Each of the companies had software that interfaced to their own peculiar interface.  They had significant investment in this software.  Making it compatible with another vendors hardware would require additional investment and be vulnerable to defensive moves from the other vendor such as a change in hardware interface.  Making it compatible with a standard interface (PAL and NTSC were most of what was available) would put real limits on the data and open the income stream to others with little obvious payoff.

Still missing the point. In the visible spectrum each manufacturer (PointGrey/IDS/Basler) has their own closed-sourced driver and API, with different image formats, API calls, driver architecture and so on, but it is publicly available so I can access the camera.

I even wrote a simple semi-unifying library for that: https://github.com/lukier/camera_drivers that implements back-ends for PointGrey FlyCapture SDK, FireWire DC1394, OpenNI2 (RGB-D Kinect 360), libRealSense (new Intel RGBD cameras), VRMagic SDK (OEM industrial cameras), libfreenect2 (Kinect One), IDS uEye SDK and classical Video4Linux2 API (USB webcams etc). Each of these is a completely different API, often closed source, with multitude of image formats, camera controls etc - don't care as long as the driver is available and somehow documented. Usually the functionality is very simple, i.e. set the camera mode to this and that, parameters to this and that, resolution and fps to this and enable stream, then one has to fetch the frame buffers (either via blocking or a callback, depends on a driver architecture). I don't need anything more.

[Fraser]

Lukier,

I see your point but, from the OEM's point of view, Software and Drivers are one and the same. They want(ed) to control the drivers and use proprietary code to protect their software market. There was absolutely no incentive for them to help others write software for their equipment. It might appear unfriendly of them but they wanted the income from the software sales to continue. Even now OEM's protect their proprietary code and offer only 'packaged' SDK's. Such are often chargeable.

Remember, the customer did not have much say in the matter. The technology was and still is very specialist with only a few OEM's available. You can threaten to not buy a particular OEM's product, but then the alternatives are little different so you gain little or nothing. It is a tough and well locked down market that offers the customer few options.

Remember SEEK Thermal .... Champions of the common man (woman) when it came to cheap thermal imaging ? Well they are just as tight lipped about their interface drivers. They are all the same on this matter. Only a good quality truly open source thermal camera would likely change the situation.

Fraser

[lukier]

I see your point but, from the OEM's point of view, Software and Drivers are one and the same. They want(ed) to control the drivers and use proprietary code to protect their software market. There was absolutely no incentive for them to help others write software for their equipment. It might appear unfriendly of them but they wanted the income from the software sales to continue. Even now OEM's protect their proprietary code and offer only 'packaged' SDK's. Such are often chargeable.

Remember, the customer did not have much say in the matter. The technology was and still is very specialist with only a few OEM's available. You can threaten to not buy a particular OEM's product, but then the alternatives are little different so you gain little or nothing. It is a tough and well locked down market tat offers the customer few options.

You might be right, while the machine vision camera market is rather niche (compared to, for example, smartphone camera sensors - some manufacturers make 1 million a month of these) the thermal vision market is even smaller with a handful of manufacturers, therefore much easier for them to form a cartel and play such games with vendor lock-in even on the low-level drivers.

Edit: but maybe the new manufacturers will break this monopoly - I was very happy when ThermalExpert provided me the Linux driver for my Q1 Pro. Closed source and crappy driver, but still something.

[Fraser]

The thermal camera OEM behaviour is very protectionist and some would say 'old fashioned' but they have the power to be like that and still survive I suppose.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Oh, does this situation annoy or disappoint me ?

Yes it does. Especially when OEM's refuse to offer any help with software or drivers for long obsolete products. But then they are are unlikely to earn money via new sales from me, so can I blame them ? No, but some companies are more friendly, like FLIR and E2V. I have no hesitation in recommending a company that is helpful to the 'little people'

Fraser

[Bicurico]

I just want to say that I love reading your stories about your cameras and their repairs, so please go on and be as extensive in writing as you want.

I always learn something and it is very interesting,

Regards,
Vitor

[Fraser]

Thank you Vitor 

[amyk]

Oh, does this situation annoy or disappoint me ?

Yes it does. Especially when OEM's refuse to offer any help with software or drivers for long obsolete products. But then they are are unlikely to earn money via new sales from me, so can I blame them ? No, but some companies are more friendly, like FLIR and E2V. I have no hesitation in recommending a company that is helpful to the 'little people'

Fraser

You said this yourself, which probably has a lot to do with why they're so secretive:

Just so people are aware, I will not be reverse engineering these cameras beyond what is needed to get them operational and any areas that interest me. These are a controlled Dual Use technology camera and I respect that status.

[Fraser]

Amyk,

Good point.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I was recently asked whether I had purchased a certain ‘exotic’ box format industrial thermal camera that recently sold on eBay. I replied that I had not, and advised that I tended to avoid such cameras due to the challenges often encountered in obtaining the required control software for these totally remote controlled units. Unlike the FLIR A40 box camera, these do not have a keyboard for local control.

I am resuscitating this ancient post by me from 2017 as I thought it might interest those who have not seen it previously. It details the excellent engineering of these industrial cameras, but also shows that without control software or a command set, they are not the best of buys unless extraordinarily cheap and you have the time and skills to reverse engineer the command set from the firmware.

I hope this old thread is of interest to some.

Fraser

[Fraser]

As an update to this thread, I have now identified the use and component connected to the Lens contacts 

For those unaware, the camera requires a lens to be connected that is identified to the system via its two gold lens contacts. If a suitable lens is not seen by the system, the aperture wheel moves to protect the microbolometer so the camera cannot be used.

I was recently contacted fir help with an IR TCM 384 camera that does not have a lens. I had already considered the possibilities when it came to the use of the lens contacts…they were…

1. Temperature measurement of the lens using Thermistor, Thermocouple or simple silicon diode.
2. Lens identification using some unidentified 2 connection IC

After some simple tests I discovered that the resistance across the lens barrel contacts was in the Mega-Ohms in both directions but it did display a 0.6V reading in diode test mode and and an O/C in the opposite polarity. This suggested to me. That I was dealing with an IC of some sort. The obvious possibilities were a temperature measurement IC or an ID chip.

There are only 2 contacts in use here as the lens barrel is not used as an electrical pathway. I immediately thought of the common Dallas iButton units that use only 2 wires for data I/O operations. The 1-Wire system is used for this. The possibilities remained if either a temperature sensor or ID chip but the owner of the lensless IR-TCM 384 read the user manual that I had provided and highlighted that the camera was able to identify the exact lens that is fitted, whether it was the serial number against which it had been calibrated and whether it was even the same lens type. Suddenly, lens ID became the more likely use of the contacts.

As luck would have it, I purchased a couple of Maxim 1-Wire serial communications adapters on eBay a few years ago. I was looking at 1-Wire systems used on laptop batteries and the Maxim adapters were very cheap so added to the “may be useful some day” stock in my lab I dug out the two serial 1-Wire adapters and an iButton that I had and tested the Maxim 1-Wire viewer software on a laptop that is equipped with a real serial port (not a USB to Serial adapter) The setup worked perfectly and read the iButton with ease. My iButton was an eeprom and I suspected the lens ID chip would also be an eeprom of some sort, likely with very small memory capacity.

I tested the iButton with my multimeter in diode mode and saw the exact same 0.6V / Open Circuit readings as found on the lens barrel. This gave me the correct pin out of the lens barrel connections as well. Using a couple of jumper wires I connected the 1-Wire interface to the lens contacts and was immediately rewarded with the unique ID number and the device type identification of the 1-Wire IC within the lens  The device was not the eeprom that I had expected to see, but rather a DS2406P 1-Wire 2 output switch ! That surprised me so I quickly downloaded the data sheet. Whilst I cannot explain the use of a 2 port switch in the lens, I did find that that DS2406P also contains a user programmable OTP EPROM of 1Kbit in size  This was what I was looking for as it would likely contain data unique to my lens.

https://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/DS2406.pdf

Using the Maxim 1-Wire viewer software I was able to display the contents of all of the DS2406P data areas so could clone the IC if required. The switch function could potentially be used in some lens versions to select an electric lens cap or even change the FOV setting on a multi FOV lens. My lens does not appear to use this function though.

More from me on the data that I found inside the lens in the next instalment.

My thanks to the owner of the lensless IR-TCM 384 for focussing my attention on the cameras lens contacts again as they had long dropped off my ‘Radar’ as I have the original Jenoptik lenses to use with my cameras.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Next installment.... the data collected from the 1-Wire DS2406P IC.......

And what does the EPROM data say ? See my next Post 

[Fraser]

The translation of the EPROM data into plain English using a Hex converter. Yes it is that simple in this case !

My thanks to "Golden Wedge" (the other IR-TCM 384 owner) for doing the Hex to ASCII translation for me as it was late when I downloaded the data.

The lens details written on its barrel are as follows:

COASTAL IR 2.0/50mm LW CLOSEUP LENS 707033 SN/COA7513

For anyone not wanting to download the attached PDF file, the DS2406P EPROM Data pages translate as follows:

Variocam II closeup lens
IR 2.0/50 LW
COA7513
707033_1
Y ? ? ? ? (In decimal this reads as 89290011)

The last line does not translate to English so may be a build date code or other 'in house' code for the lens

The contents of the EPROM data fields provide everything the IR-TCM-384 camera needs to identify the lens that is connected to it.
My 25 pin version of the Maxim 1-Wire interface has the added capability og being able to provide a 12V programming pulse for EPROM's. The normal 5V based serial adpaters cannot program 1-Wire EPROM's but they do program 1-Wire eeproms.

With my Maxim DS9097U 25 pin serial 1-Wire interface I can create a clone of the DS2406P that is used in my lens so that 3rd party lenses may be used on the Jenoptik IR-TCM camera

Fraser

[Fraser]

For completeness, here are the Data screens from my other Jenoptik camera lens. All details are the same except lens serial number an the final data field.

The lens barrel detail is as follows:

COASTAL IR 2.0/50mm LW CLOSEUP LENS 707033 SN/COA7760

The final data field is 50 1E 00 00 0B Hex which is 80300011 Decimal. The other lens reads as 89290011 Decimal. This does not look like a build date. Only the first 4 digits appear to vary. This does not matter much to me but interestingly the numbers do have a pattern..... 80 30 and 89 29. It could be coincidence but the second digit of each pair are the same in each case.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The DS2406P IC’s have arrived 

Thankfully the 6 pin IC has 1.27mm pitch pins so I can easily attach a couple of wires to it for programming and testing on the camera chassis to see how it behaves with the clone. More when I have had a chance to program and test the IC.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Update..... 'Disaster' strikes:(

I just tested one of the 'new' DS2406P IC's ready to program it and ........ it already had data in its EPROM memory area 
These IC's are OTP and data cannot be erased from the EPROM (not eeprom) so the IC's are useless to me. I will recover my money from the seller but I now need to source some truly new, unprogrammed parts so there will be a delay 

When is something 'New' not 'New' .... when it is delivered pre-programmed with someone else’s data !

I attach the data revealed by Maxim's 1-Wire viewer software

Fraser

[WastelandTek]

that sucks

[Fraser]

I ordered another set of DS2406P I.C’s and they arrived today.

Upon checking them for a clear EPROM data area I found that page 0 was full of someone else’s data

What we are seeing here are chip brokers selling surplus from factories after production runs and the I.C’s have been pre-programmed at the time of original supply. The latest I.C’s looked new and we’re on their sealed tape. I advised the seller of the situation and it is clear that they have been having trouble sourcing these Maxim parts so they are likely from a Chip Broker. Possibly the same Chip Broker who supplied my first set of DS2406P IC’s. The World I.C shortage is leading to people buying parts anywhere they can. If the memory had been an eeprom, it would not have mattered but this particular I.C. uses old fashioned EPROM and even needs a 12V programming supply. As a OTP device, selling pre-programmed parts is risky as some users need the memory area whereas others just use the 1-Wire switch functionality.

I was about to return both sets of I.C’s to their respective sellers but had a thought before doing so……. What would the camera do if I connected one of these pre-programmed DS2406P I.C’s to its lens ID contacts. I connected my unpopulated DS2406P breakout board to the camera and switched it on. It booted and then went into the ‘no lens’ mode where the aperture disk rotates to obscure the microbolometer window. I placed one of the pre-programmed eBay DS2406P’s on the breakout board and the camera responded by moving its aperture wheel to the largest aperture as it recognised that a lens was now present (it wasn’t of course, just the ID chip)

It is my belief that the camera looks for the DS2406P and/or it’s unique serial number sequence and if it finds it, it is happy that a lens is fitted. The data in the EPROM of my lenses is plain ASCII in Hex code so it is likely read by the camera for inclusion in reports and when the camera is interrogated for its hardware serial numbers. It would appear that any DS2406P I.C. Will ‘fool’ the camera into opening its aperture disc for imaging to take place. I have not yet checked to see what happens if I connect a 1-Wire 1K eeprom to the cameras lens contacts. That test will follow soon.

I will use these pre-programmed parts until I find some truly new and unprogrammed parts, likely in late 2022 according to Farnell and RS. Ordering such from Digikey is an option but gets expensive for me in the UK A project I have in mind is making a 3rd party lens adapter for the cameras to use one of Bills 15mm Germanium lenses from an E2V Argus 3 camera. Both my Jenoptik cameras are fitted with close-up,lenses so it would be nice to have a standard lens as well.

Fraser

[Fraser]

A further update …..

I just tested the camera with a DS2431 1K eeprom and a DS1971 (iButton eeprom) and the camera recognised them both as valid lens ID components ! It looks like the camera is reading the unique serial number as proof of lens presence

Fraser

[Fraser]

A fellow forum member, ‘Golden Wedge’ has tested this camera with a DS2431 eeprom that contained data from one of my lenses. He reports that the camera works well with this IC and shows the correct lens status in the software  The DS2431 is far easier to source at the moment and may be programmed with the low voltage 1-Wire interfaces, unlike the DS2406P that requires the 12V programming signal.

A good result 

Fraser

[Fraser]

I am bringing this thread back from the distant past as I have just had an enquiry that referenced this thread about the IR-TCM-384. Having looked at it again, I thought it might be an interesting read for newer members of the forum as it covers a lot of ground relating to how I purchase certain thermal cameras and the challenges that can faced along the way

Buying Industrial ‘Box’ cameras can be fun, but they present unique purchase risks compared to more main-stream consumer grade cameras.

Fraser