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DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

diy-thermocam.net

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Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#61

Post by Goz3rr »

IshKebab wrote: post #48
Goz3rr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still find it expensive for a thermal imager. I personally bought a Chinese Guide PC210 for €216 shipped, and that includes 21% VAT, for a whole unit and not just a sensor. For another €15 I got a ZnSe lens for macro use. Not only is it cheaper, on paper it's also much better: - 45 mK vs 50 mK thermal sensitivity - ±2 °C or ±2% vs ±10°C or ±10% accuracy - 256x192 vs 160x120 resolution - 25 vs 8.7Hz framerate - -20…

Emphasis being "on paper". When I worked for a research company we got a cheaper Korean company to demo their thermal cameras. They were just way way worse than FLIR and the software was abysmal (FLIR's software is surprisingly good). Ended up going for the £4k FLIR camera (not my money tbf). On the plus side I didn't even know about the 9fps thing at the time and they didn't ask me about it, but we still got a 25fps…

I intentionally mentioned the on paper part because I can't attest to the absolute accuracy, but in the aspects that are easily comparable I would say it's way ahead of the FLIR C5 that cost 4x as much I use at work.

Both are used for diagnostics of electronics, so the resolution and framerate make a noticeable difference here. On top of that mine boots up and is ready to go in under 5 seconds, while the FLIR takes close to a minute to get ready for some reason.

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#62

Post by giantg2 »

I've been working on a lepton project for about 5 months. The resources for examples and debugging are scarce and I don't have a lot of time to spend on it. It should be much cheaper than this using an ESP32. I haven't gotten it to work though.

I did get it working (but choppy) on a Pi Zero. I might be able to get it working smoothly if I wanted to trim down some of the other processes and prioritize this one. But the ESP32 should have faster start up.

I guess what I'm saying is be prepared for headaches if you want a truly DIY or really cheap lepton project.

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#63

Post by giantg2 »

Goz3rr wrote: post #45
atoav wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. 523 USD for a car is suspicously cheap. 523 USD for a mediocre sandwich is outrageously expensive. Context matters and thermal imaging is very expensive usually.

I still find it expensive for a thermal imager. I personally bought a Chinese Guide PC210 for €216 shipped, and that includes 21% VAT, for a whole unit and not just a sensor. For another €15 I got a ZnSe lens for macro use. Not only is it cheaper, on paper it's also much better: - 45 mK vs 50 mK thermal sensitivity - ±2 °C or ±2% vs ±10°C or ±10% accuracy - 256x192 vs 160x120 resolution - 25 vs 8.7Hz framerate - -20…

How did you match up a lens for this?

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#64

Post by giantg2 »

joshvm wrote: post #52
angry_octet wrote: post #41

Can anyone explain why I would get a FLIR Lepton system (America) vs an InfiRay P2 (China) system? The InfiRay seems to have much better performance for the price, and sturdier construction. But software? As much fun as DIY is, I want something with a UVC interface I can plug into a Linux machine.

If you want a UVC setup then the purethermal carrier is the route to go. You buy FLIR because they're well made, reliable products. Same reason people spend the money on Fluke. I'm not sure you can necessarily say the support is better for consumers because they mostly cater to OEMs, but the camera cores are (mostly) very well documented and software support is good.

"the camera cores are (mostly) very well documented and software support is good."

I have seen some good documents, but they are mostly tailored to OEMs as well. It also depends on what you want to do. I've been trying to get a lepton streaming video to a TFT screen using an ESP32. Resources are scares. If you hit a problem, you're basically on your own.

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#65

Post by klondike_ »

angry_octet wrote: post #41

Can anyone explain why I would get a FLIR Lepton system (America) vs an InfiRay P2 (China) system? The InfiRay seems to have much better performance for the price, and sturdier construction. But software? As much fun as DIY is, I want something with a UVC interface I can plug into a Linux machine.

FLIR systems are limited in resolution and frame rate because of ITAR restrictions, even though they're the industry leader. Chinese systems have improved a lot in recent years and are not subject to ITAR and can offer higher resolutions and framerates

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#66

Post by giantg2 »

klondike_ wrote: post #65
angry_octet wrote: post #41

Can anyone explain why I would get a FLIR Lepton system (America) vs an InfiRay P2 (China) system? The InfiRay seems to have much better performance for the price, and sturdier construction. But software? As much fun as DIY is, I want something with a UVC interface I can plug into a Linux machine.

FLIR systems are limited in resolution and frame rate because of ITAR restrictions, even though they're the industry leader. Chinese systems have improved a lot in recent years and are not subject to ITAR and can offer higher resolutions and framerates

FLIR offers higher resolution and higher framerate options too. For that, they want you to buy a Boson or higher. They even make Leptons with 25fps capability. The firmware for the standard Lepton simply reads every third frame.

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#67

Post by Goz3rr »

giantg2 wrote: post #63
Goz3rr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still find it expensive for a thermal imager. I personally bought a Chinese Guide PC210 for €216 shipped, and that includes 21% VAT, for a whole unit and not just a sensor. For another €15 I got a ZnSe lens for macro use. Not only is it cheaper, on paper it's also much better: - 45 mK vs 50 mK thermal sensitivity - ±2 °C or ±2% vs ±10°C or ±10% accuracy - 256x192 vs 160x120 resolution - 25 vs 8.7Hz framerate - -20…

How did you match up a lens for this?

One of the European sellers of the camera (Eleshop) sells a lens and 3d printed holder. I just bought the same lens and 3d printed a holder myself, from what I remember someone on the eevblog linked a suitable one.

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#68

Post by rittermax »

pwg wrote: post #47
rittermax wrote: post #2

The DIY-Thermocam V3 is a low-cost, do-it-yourself thermal imager, based on the popular radiometric FLIR Lepton sensor and an open-source ecosystem. It gives private persons, educational institutes and companies access to a portable, affordable and customizable thermal imaging platform that is based on open-source software and hardware. It is constructed as a self-assembly solution, that can be build at home by only…

The very first line of the "Building" page states: > The DIY-Thermocam V3 Kit from GroupGets contains all required parts to build the device: One has to scroll below the image to see a suggestion that the FLIR sensor and breakout board are not included in the kit. The groupgets page is more clear, but even there one has to scroll to very far down before one finds: > The DIY-Thermocam V3 self-assembly KIT contains all…

Thanks for the feedback, it was indeed missleading to write it like that. I have improved the text as you have proposed it, so it is much clearer now what is required :)

Re: DIY-Thermocam: A low-cost thermal imager based on the FLIR Lepton sensor

#70

Post by hgomersall »

anigbrowl wrote: post #58

Excellent specs and design, good value. Somewhat off-topic, but if you want to get into thermal imaging for super cheap (albeit at a lower resolution again), you can get a compact FLIR kit from M5stack for $79 that's ready to use as soon as you charge it, but also freely hackable. https://shop.m5stack.com/collections/m5stack-new-arrival/pro...

It's really low resolution, but I wonder what could be done with some super resolution techniques. Is the transfer function of these sensors well defined?
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