Hacker News Reader

Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

If only the cost of thermal imagers could come down and be more affordable, more people might be interested!

That and the associated optics.

There’s some reason for encouragement however. I bought a Seek Pro, with 320x240 resolution, on sale for $350 earlier this year. The app is pretty terrible unfortunately and the camera physical construction is flimsy, but the imager seems to be of reasonable quality for the price point.

Couple of examples: https://imgur.com/a/ZGsOwUm

Thermal imaging resolution is restricted by arm control laws unfortunately. There are forces at work beyond market forces.

ITAR compliance assurance isn't free and certainly impacts operational costs, but the sensor I have isn't export controlled and still normally costs >$1K when you buy it from FLIR.

That's only for the US though, and I'd expect such a product to come from Asia.

I once rented an IR camera for roughly 100€. This is probably the best option for people who only need IR cameras on very few occasions.

Will we ever see chap(ish) IR cameras? Is there an alternative to germanium lenses on the horizon?

I believe there are some metamaterial-based approaches for the actual microbolometers that should help drive costs down. Ostensibly metamaterials could also be used for lenses but I'm not aware of anything there, we're probably stuck with germanium for the time being.

Zinc selenide lenses for laser cutters work very well in the spectral range covered by consumer IR cameras. They are dirt cheap on eBay, Ali Express, and other places.

That carboy is pretty hot.

It was a pretty hot yeast: https://i.imgur.com/YGhx1kr.jpg

Appears to be a still? Never done that. I do mead and wine.

Literally just making sure we could get sanitizer if we needed it. Maybe will get into the craft at some point.

Seek cameras are rather noisy though. More expensive, but much less noisy and still reasonable to buy as a expensive toy would be TE-Q1 from i3system: http://nicesuper3.cafe24.com/down/TE-Q1-compressed.pdf

Looks good! Any idea why they make it so difficult to buy their product?

i3system is based in South Korea, and I guess shipping thermal imaging technology is PITA due to various restrictions, not profitable enough to sell to individual customers. There seems to be EU reseller (thermalexpert.eu) but they sell only to companies (likely because VAT accounting when selling exclusively to companies is much easier).

I bought one on eBay a few years ago for about £300, but it sucked so I got rid of it. It used a traditional camera to draw most of the image (itself already quite low-res), and just highlighted even-more-low-res temperature data in blue and red.

I was just considering buying one. Would you share your thoughts?

The resolution was too low.

I didn't really have a use in mind for it, I just thought it was interesting and thought I'd find uses for it after I owned it, but the resolution was too low to be able to do anything useful.

Here's the only picture I have of it working: https://img.jes.xxx/1047

As you can see, you can't see anything.

> As you can see, you can't see anything.

Thank you.

I wanted to get one to (a) find creatures outside at night while camping, and (b) fix my house energy leaks. But that rez seems awfully low. So amazed at the OP for doing such an amazing job stitching images!

I've had decent luck finding and seeing creatures with the Seek RevealPro I used, although there may be better ones out by now.

I even used it to try to find a friend's lost cat once. I didn't succeed in finding the cat with it, but I did end up finding a few other stray cats and racoons. (For anyone wondering, the pet cat was found later and was taken to a shelter by some good samaritan.)

For (b) even a quite low res thermal camera can be useful. Compared to a laser thermometer, you have a much wider fov, and you can always get closer.

It's $570:

https://www.amazon.com/Seek-RQ-AAA-Thermal-Revealpro/dp/B07B...

Yes I do covet them. Getting cheaper but still fairly low resolution. Keep hoping for a tipping point like digital cameras where cheap decent sensors will suddenly be everywhere. Not yet though.

I'd imagine demand for thermal imaging has skyrocketed due to covid, so its possible the tech will get better and cheaper.

I don't think cheap cameras are sensitive enough and you don't need an entire image that is better for seeing relative heat, you just need a single accurate reading. Those thermometers are only $20 and are being cranked out in bulk.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com