U.S. ITAR regulations - flir PM695

[Bud]

Do nothing wrong against your country or its allies and you have NOTHING to fear 

That is an interesting one 

[Geodetic]

i bought the battery packs from akkuplus
they were not much cheap but the material quality satisfied me when i got my hands on them.

if the camera runs linux i may be able to access any time soon, since i'm a student in engineering and linux is one of our studies subject. i'm already posed in programming something on it. dealing with reverse engineering is much easier than making anew. just need to know what is the SO memory occupation, and if i can add data.

i'm not going to get a better optimization via software.. for a 50'000 dollars camera i'm sure it is filled with optimizations.
my intent in accessing the SO is to be able to modify the firmware by adding a "videorecording" option to allow it record videos, obviously in the memory capacities. but actually with 160 mb such as it is the memory, a 240*320 video, if only image, could last really long. a little less if we consider the thermal data too.

once connected to the PC i can easily use some resolution enhancer to get a 640*480

about the NETD i will try someday to use a large lens with close focal distance, when i happen to bump into one cheap enough. if the lens do have larger diameter but same focal distance as the original ones, the NETD will increase drastically.

with a 108mm F 1,8  like the aga thermovision 680 lenses, it may get 50-55 mk.
with a 108mm F 1,0 it could likely get 35 mk.
i already tried here to find some but i found only midwave.. i needed longwave for it.

[Fraser]

Bud,

Meaning NATO 

[Cerebus]

Let's not get too tied up in the politics of whether regulation of this technology is right or wrong though. We are where we are. Common sense is all that is needed to stay out of trouble with the authorities.

We need a debate from time to time because of the "regulatory ratchet", that tendency for things to be banned, but not to be unbanned when the validity of the original regulation has become dubious, sometimes even farcical. If export controls on CPUs hadn't moved over the years we'd be in the situation where we'd all need end user certificates for our smartphones. Technology moves on in a way that what was only possible to create with a dedicated high-powered, well funded research team twenty years ago is now within reach of a hobbyist or impoverished undergraduate with a few days or weeks to spare.

[Fraser]

Agreed 

[Bill W]

With regard to the battery pack. It contains a 10K thermistor, over temperature fuse and over current fuse. These are common safety items in professional battery packs. I purchased the parts to make my own battery packs. I will look at what I purchased for the fuses. Out of interest, where did you buy your replacement cells from in Germany ?

Fraser

The PM695 seems to be a NiMH battery.  In this case the thermistor can do several things.

It can be used to prevent charging / limit charge rate for ambient temperatures, just like a Lithium battery / charger pair should.
Cheap ones do not - sometimes a 10k fixed to make it charge, draw your own conclusions.

It can also be used to end charge as NiMH get hot when nearly charged (dT/dt termination).
Early NiMH were a bit trickier to detect end of charge by the normal voltage drop (-dV/dt) so often used both effects to be sure.

Bill

[Fraser]

Thanks Bill.

I once worked on a professional bit of kit that had the nastiest Nicad charger you ever have seen. It just charged the Nicad pack at a high rate and used a mechanical (bi-metallic) thermo switch attached to the cells to tell the charger to stop the charge cycle. There was no secondary thermal fuse for overheat protection. The batteries used to get very hot indeed and it was no wonder that they did not last long. That was a piece of American kit as well. We changed the charger to a better design and fitted Ni-Mh calls. They lasted until the kit was retired.

The AGEMA PM series batteries are well made but the 4 slot desk charger is hard on them and is known for its unpredictability when it comes to declaring a battery 'faulty' or 'fully charged'. The problem is sometimes poor battery contacts due to corrosion or contamination. Some people scrape the plating off if the contacts and just make a bad situation worse. Thankfully the battery packs are easily rebuilt. New price for a battery from FLIR was £250 + VAT each but I am not sure they can even supply them now. DIY battery casings are a real possibility thanks to 3D printers. Even a suitably sized plastic project box can be used as that is what I used for a while.

Fraser

[Bill W]

I once worked on a professional bit of kit that had the nastiest Nicad charger you ever have seen. It just charged the Nicad pack at a high rate and used a mechanical (bi-metallic) thermo switch attached to the cells to tell the charger to stop the charge cycle.

I recall another, I think it was a drill, that touted its' audible charged signal .... yes you guessed it the bimetallic switch going over and back. 

regards
Bill

[Fraser]

Geodetic,

In case it is of use, here is the communications document for the PM series....

http://support.flir.com/DocDownload/Assets/dl/1557501$a.pdf

I have also just been advised by Spirit532 that the PM and P series are clearly running Win CE. He says it is clear from the GUI but I am not familiar with WinCE so was unaware. It must be WinCE 1.0 in the circa 1997 PM570, and possibly later cameras as well.

Hope this help with your investigations into the firmware.

Fraser

[mikeselectricstuff]

The problem with technology-based export regulations in general is that they only provide a competitive strategic edge if your country is a sole source.  As the documents you linked to illustrate, that doesn't apply here.

And regs like that can be actively counterproductive in achieving their goal of restricting availability- if people won't buy US sensors because of the hassle of regulations, this means that foreign companies can put more resources into development of more advanced sensors, so it actively increases the availablility to anyone that wants them.

[TheEPROM9]

Does this mean you are not allowed to take high frame rate camera's on holiday. Would be fun to do thermal photography abroad. Or is it just selling the units abroad.

[robert_]

I once worked on a professional bit of kit that had the nastiest Nicad charger you ever have seen. It just charged the Nicad pack at a high rate and used a mechanical (bi-metallic) thermo switch attached to the cells to tell the charger to stop the charge cycle. There was no secondary thermal fuse for overheat protection.

Makita did this as well. Cherger was just a transformer, rectifier, resettable fuse and a latching relay that was reset by the ~45°C bimetallic switch. Charging current around 1C.
It worked surprisingly well and the battery packs dont seem to die, as long as they used robust Sanyo <2Ah NiCd cells. NiMH and chinese noname NiCd didnt like it at all.

[Fraser]

TheEprom9,

The regulations apply to taking controlled across borders so yes, if you take a high frame rate camera on holiday theoretically you could get into trouble if visiting some countries. I presume paperwork for temporary export is needed. I know that a company used to take their high frame rate cameras around Europe and had no issues with such. The USA can be a little more strict though and could, in theory, stop you taking the camera out of the country without correct paperwork. Much will depend upon the attitude is port security staff at points of exit and entry. Most would not be aware of the restrictions on 'civilian' cameras. If they see something that obviously looks Military in nature, the situation could be somewhat different ....... strip search, followed by body cavity search maybe )

The only way to know for certain whether any paperwork is needed for an overseas holiday is to contact the relevant department in both the camera manufacturer and both home and holiday location government export offices. Remember you are effectively 'exporting' when travelling to ans from your holiday location, but involving two different governments.

Also, some common sense applies. I strong suggest that taking a thermal camera to a country that distrusts or dislikes your country of origin is asking for trouble. Accusations of spying using 'sophisticated surveillance tools' is just one accusation that comes to mind.

If I was thinking of taking my FLIR E4 to anywhere in Europe, or surrounding waters, I would have no concerns. I would be a bit nervous of taking any of my military/Industrial looking professional cameras though.

Another important point to remember, if you return to your home country with a very expensive piece of flashy electronics, your countries Customs authority may require you to prove that you have paid the relevant taxes and duties on it or that it was purchased within your countries borders.

Fraser

[Cerebus]

Another important point to remember, if you return to your home country with a very expensive piece of flashy electronics, your countries Customs authority may require you to prove that you have paid the relevant taxes and duties on it or that it was purchased within your countries borders.

If something you have falls into this category, and valuable enough to be worth the effort, it can be a good idea to acquire a carnet (pronunciation: car-nay) for the bit of kit. It's a customs form that proves the origin of an item for temporary import/export and allows you to pass without paying export or import taxes/duty.

An original purchase receipt oftens serves as an informal substitute for getting things back into your country of origin but obviously doesn't cut much ice in terms of temporarily exporting to your destination country.

[TheEPROM9]

Thanks for the info, pretty much all this regulation crap is pretty indecyfrable. Always good to know.

Year when you buy something expensive abraud chuck the box, ding it up a little so it less obvious it is new. Import TAX is a bitch, oftern higher than the usual VAT you would pay normaly. The stuff customs cares about in that catgory is people smugaling rather than someone buying a one of laptop or simular.

Back to thermal cameras, always safer to know & take percausions rather then just clame ignorance as that will rearly help you.

To be honest the restrictions seem pretty poinless if you ask me as as bad acter will alwasy find a way of getting what they want. I am with Mike on this the regs need updating and being made less dreconion, if anything it limits comercial applications as 9Hz is just not enougth for anything video related unless you can put up with lag city. Plus not everyone wnats to make a missial targating system.

[DaneLaw]

Year when you buy something expensive abraud chuck the box, ding it up a little so it less obvious it is new.

Here in  Denmark the customs sadly got access to some registries. (to check VAT&TAX)

Numerous have been speculating in buying expensive stuff when overseas to fx USA, as "USA" is almost China-land in regards to here in the worlds most taxed nation -
-even items that nobody or customs would think twice about a person have on vacation, like laptops, phones etc.
If they sense it perhaps been purchased abroad, and it doesnt matter if you bang it up or use it a lot and make it look like "used".
-they can check the serial to some extent to see if the item have been tax-handled + the mandatory +25% VAT.

Numerous have been caught like that, with mobiles, laptops, even that Mac pro cylinder-computer, which you can also state (it just with me on vacation as its many thousand of dollars you can save)
and it doesnt matter if you make it look used. they sadly got access to some registries to sense if the item has been taxhandled and is legit", - you do risk that the customs will ask for documentation on expensive items, even if its item you already have here in Denmark, (fx purchased privately on ebay and labeled as something else and actually come thrue customs) the moment you then take it out again and back in, if it ain't registered with tax here, you can have a problem.

Actually wondering, have just purchased an Ipad2018 (mainly for my Seek pro) sealed new from an online china wholesaler and purchased it at a price only slightly above US price, and they assured me' that I would not risk any taxing in Denmark when it arrived. (and ýeah, not a problem it came from abroad and then thrue UK and then to Denmark. and it was 25% cheaper than all other alternatives here in Denmark or EU or Apple.dk)
Was somewhat baffled how they could do that and so much lower then everybody else, but since it was thru UK it went straight thru., perhaps they have some firm or Tax/VATaccount in UK, they can tumble to minus and then jump ship.
--
but these ITAR and Wassenaar legislations & agreements..and particularly hence consumer-thermal cams.. have anybody here in newer time' ever heard about anybody in so-called private-regi having federal problems or been fined... ain't it most in theory nowadays.

Noticing many private US-sellers on Ebay is often only valid to ship to US-residents and usually its down to these legislation-hysteria and when asking about (reason) they often don't know why, they have just heard something about sending thermal equipment abroad and don't wanna risk anything' even to one of the most safe and regulated countries on the planet like Denmark who are as "friendly" in a USA viewpoint as they come and one of the founder of Nato since the 40s and likely also part of all the exceptions..
But its a jungle and often confusing, so many US-sellers simply keeping the sale regional-only, even if they gotta admit they could get a way higher price to open up for countries included in the exceptions but they don't wanna risk anything as the US government/bureaucracy is not somebody your fronting...

[Bill W]

Noticing many private US-sellers on Ebay is often only valid to ship to US-residents and usually its down to these legislation-hysteria and when asking about (reason) they often don't know why, they have just heard something about sending thermal equipment abroad and don't wanna risk anything' even to one of the most safe and regulated countries on the planet like Denmark who are as "friendly" in a USA viewpoint as they come and one of the founder of Nato since the 40s and likely also part of all the exceptions..

Ironically Denmark was briefly about the worst place to deal with selling fire cameras like Argus 2 and 3 when they were new.  They used US cores (all of which were from military funded programmes) and the US were tightening up more and more.  The US came up with the great idea that thermal cameras should only be sold to 'Governments'.

The problem was that the Danish fire service were (and I assume still are) the private 'Falck' organisation and are not government like almost anywhere else.  The US could cope with selling to local councils etc but not effectively a car breakdown / insurance company.

Bill

[DaneLaw]

Yes to some extent, Falck = G4S' group4securitas or Falck Securitas = they are the same firm and stands for 60% of danish fire-service according to wiki.
It's a huge many many billion dollar company there stands for many things, Fire-service, ambulance, securities for private or corporates, surveillance & protection, car assist etc etc-
It's also a very old Danish company from the late 1890s or something like that..but I think its been purchase now from England, as their headquarters are in England and also now listed on UK stock exchange. G4S plc or perhaps they just listed in UK for the moment as their headquarters are there.

-damn' according to Falck's own history specs. they are today the worlds biggest security-company and the worlds second biggest private employer in the hole freaking world with more then 600.000 people on there payroll in more then 100 countries around the world.(so its not like its a little player' just doing car-breakdowns.. they are as big as it gets' literally and the worlds second biggest private employer and the worlds frontrunner on securities issues..

Here is there history (though in danish, but google translate wil make it easy to read)
http://www.g4s.dk/Om-G4S/Historie.aspx

It started more then 110 years ago with 4 people riding on their bikes in inner Copenhagen and called nightwatch or in danish "nattevagten".. pretty wicked' they are now the worlds biggest security company and the worlds second biggest private employer.. impressive did recall they where pretty big, but not of this magnitude..

So I doubt that it would be a hassle to sell to the worlds biggest security firm aka Falck G4S, under there home fireservice as they run fire equipment in Denmark with the worlds most advanced and modern firestrucks and fireequipment.(if those Falck claims is still valid, cant say some years since but there gear looks topnotch..)