DIY-Thermocam - An open-source, do-it-yourself thermal imager

This looks great, but 429 euro is still pricey though.

For lower resolution, there is an open source BeagleBone Black Thermal Imaging Camera here. It uses a Melexis sensor but nowadays

would be better (and cheaper) to replace with Panasonic Grid-Eye (£28+VAT).

The project uses a $7 colour LCD screen, and bilinear interpolation to produce a reasonable image out of

the low-resolution sensor, and works quite well with video here the individual fingers of a hand are visible.

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Comment on DIY-Thermocam - An open-source, do-it-yourself thermal imager BBB - Building a thermal imaging camera

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Thanks for your answer ! I know the price is not comparable to the cheap smartphone addons on the market, but if you compare it to a stand-alone thermal imager even from big companies like Seek or FLIR (and I am just a single student at the age of 23), it's still in the price range.

The project you mention also looks very interesting Version 1 - 3 of the predecessor of the DIY-Thermocam, the Cheap-Thermocam, also used a single IR sensor to scan the image. That was cheap of course, but took some time to create an image. The Lepton sensor in the DIY-Thermocam is a real 80 x 60 LWIR sensor, and there will be an upgraded version with 160 x 120 pixels in the near future, that can also be plugged into the device.

How is that you use a Flir sensor but have better resolution and much better accuracy than Flir can manage ?

Do you have any test reports that can back up these claims ?

MK

How is that you use a Flir sensor but have better resolution and much better accuracy than Flir can manage ?

Do you have any test reports that can back up these claims ?

MK

What specification do you mean exactly ? As I rely on the sensor precision itself, I can of course not claim any better specs than FLIR does

From the feature table on your web site:

Features - DIY-Thermocam

makes the claims re. precision and accuracy versus Flir E4

MK

The FLIR E4 does use another thermal sensor, so the specifications are correct. Just have a look at the FLIR Lepton datasheet and the E4 datasheet, you will find it there. The spot sensor I use is a MLX90614 from Melexis, that has a better precision than the sensor used in the FLIR E4, so this is where the difference comes from.

Thanks for the clarification - it might be a good idea to add a note to that effect on your website - one sees so many unjustified claims on the web that caution is very necessary.

MK

You are right, I added a small footnote to the table to explain the difference, thanks