While I was looking for thermal cameras to repair/salvage, I came across this
https://www.ebay.com/itm/324977590615ISG Infrasys Elite XR, which is a firefighting thermal camera apparently. After digging a bit deeper, I realized that the camera might have a 384 x 288 50Hz microbolometer at its heart.
For less than $200, I decided to gamble. Fast forward to today: the unit that arrived was in remarkably good condition. Minor scuffing from use, but the lens was mostly scratch-free. No sign of corrosion on the battery terminals either, and the LCD appeared intact. Good start, but still need to power it on.
After searching around for a bit, I found some battery refurbishing services claiming that the battery voltage was 12V. After disassembling the camera to figure out which terminal is the positive one, I hooked it up to a RDTech DPS5005, set output to 12V, and crossed my fingers. To my surprise the camera was actually functional! Shutter(s?) clicked periodically, LCD screen had no crack or burn-in, hot-spot tracking functioned, and no artifact was displayed. The feed was remarkably low-noise (compared to my HT-19's Seek Mosaic at least), and the responsiveness was almost real-time. While I can't take stills to verify the resolution, the camera came with a "100K Hi-res" sticker, so I do believe it indeed had a 384 x 288 50 Hz core inside.
Good stuff.
Album.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit 1 TL;DR: Did some research on what ISG was making. Found a bunch of manuals and brochures, but not for all recent products (i.e. couldn't find anything for XRHR). See the Google Drive link for a bunch of documents.
Elite XR without 100K Hi-res stickers have 320 x 240 VOx sensor. Elite XRHR, E380, X380 definitely have 384 x 288 ASi sensor based on the X380's Operating Manual.
Link to the documents.Edit 2: Added some more partial-disassembly pictures of the camera. See
Edit 5.Edit 3: Bought 2 more. 2 Elite XR's arrived.
Partial disassembly album.Edit 4: Consolidated all the high-resolution pictures I have taken + some other I saved for reference related to the Elite XRHR and Elite XR
here.Edit 5: Full disassembly.-----------------
After some more digging around, I found a 2015 market survey report from the Department of Homeland Security that basically is a catalog of most of the emergency-response tailored thermal cameras available on the market at the time (see attached).
This document listed the specifications of a lot of thermal cameras including the ISG Infrasys Elite XR, which supposedly had a 384 x 288 sensor.
Now, going back to the original seller with all of the ISG Infrasys stuffs, they do have a bunch of Elite XR's up for sale. What's intriguing is that all of the XR models without "100K Hi-res" stickers all have their serial numbers ending in XR.
The ones that do have the sticker, mine included, have their serial numbers ending in HR. Both variants are listed as Elite XR, so this led me to believe that the one in the DHS' report is actually the one with the Hi-res sticker.
Here are some examples:
XR no sticker:
K1K-1138XRK1K-1002XRK1K-3698XR4994-XR XR with sticker:
K1K-3032HRThe one I bought has serial number K1K-2279HR.
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Based on Wayback Machine's capture of ISG's website (bless this service), this is my estimate of ISG's product history:
1992: Founding of ISG.
~1999: Site created.
Pre-2001: K-90 Talisman, K-90 Enforcer, Firefinder.
2001-2002: K-80 Firecam introduced. Very similar chassis to the XR. First instance of this particular platform being used.
2002-2003: K-90 Talisman XL, K-1000 Elite Firecam (Minicam?, same chassis as K-80), K6800 Spectra Scan, K-I Sentry introduced.
2004: K-1000 Elite Lite introduced. Used FFB160 sensor (160x120). K-1000 probably used the FFB320 (320 x 240) based on
this, and the fact that ISG claimed the K-1000 Elite has 76800 pixels in the 04/28/2006 snapshot.
~2005: K-1000 Elite rehash?.
2008: Elite XR introduced. Looked exactly like the XR no sticker cameras from above. K-85ST came out with 160 x 120 sensor and wireless streaming.
Elite XR's Operating Manual claimed it had a 320 x 240 VOx microbolometer.
K-1000 Elite's Operating Manual from this time also claimed the same thing.
Also, first mention of Infrasys. This was probably the year they merged or started partnering.
2012: E380 introduced. First mention of 100K sensor. Operating manual claimed 384 x 288, but not what the sensor type is. E380N variant came out later, but was essentially identical.
2013: X380 introduced. Probably the same core as the E380, but with cold spot tracker and wider temperature range (down to -40C).
XRHR Introduced. Claimed to have 100K sensor as well. Suspect X380, E380, and XRHR to have 388 x 284 ASi sensors based on SD1000/K1000 manual.
11/21/2014: Scott Safety acquired ISG Infrasys.
~2014: SD1000/K1000 either were introduced, or rehashed with new sensors.
2015: Site redirected to Scott Safety.