Ours cost $12K some years back. I think the germanium lens alone is worth a couple of kilobucks. It will clearly image the hot spot of an
0603 resistor.which is about worth $12K. We use it a lot.
One way to find a short is to force in enough current to make it hot.
How good an image can you get with the $250 one, parts on a circuit board?
I remember that. Was it for logic pulses?
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
By "kids" I meant my young engineers. They are already ruined with their EE degrees.
Hey, I might need some compliance advice. I can pay in cash or beer.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
You can get non smart phone ones around that price, for local hot spot finding:
Tempted to buy one after today's latchup stuff but I've got enough toys.
[...]-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
The ruining process begins much earlier. When their parents buy them just about any electronic gadget they wish so they do not have to repair, restore or build anything. Wehn I was young we didn't always do that for fun but often out of necessity.
What do you need to know? I am not really a compliance expert but know some things about UL60601 and RTCA/DO-160 because I had to design towards those.
Regarding beer I am planning to get into brewing again soon. Found a supply store in Folsom, so that should get me started. Right now my clients won't let me.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
It's certainly not a $12K imager but it's pretty good (160x120). It also has a visible imager built in so you get visible detail merged into the image for reference.
Worked to find power shorts, too. Just drive the circuit with a pulse gen. It wasn't all that easy to use, though.
For values of "around" = 2x
No much information on the imager, either (and tiny display).
We have more expensive imagers but this is cheap enough to throw in my desk in case I have a problem.
That looks awful. They won't say how many pixels are in the thermal image. Not many I bet. I'd expect it to be useless for electronics.
Excuse me, what do those words mean? Enough toys?
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
The Fluke is mostly fraud.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
My son spent his B-day money on a quad copter kit. (It's pretty cool, but we're still at the flashing firmware stage.)
George H.
It's in the user manual further below.
Off-brand devices can be had for around half. Without needing some special smart phone.
They mean that I am married and the clutter in my man cave has reached a level close to her pain threshold. Especially since I claimed the garage as man cave #2 after I got back into mountain and road biking.
Some day I'll have to let a big unit or two go, then space frees up. Like the HP-4191A which I rarely use anymore. Or even (with a tear in my eye) the HP-3577A which is almost indespensible for ultrasound projects but my work has shifted away from med tech and towards aero, oil, gas, industrial. Thanks to Obamacare but that's another story.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Yeah, looks like they messed up that design. But he is comparing a Porsche against a Yugo, the FLIR units are way more expensive. In the end it depends what you want to do. For me it's not finding traces, it's to find that one part that gets hot.
It's like with photo gear where the difference is largely in the optics. After having used a Leica lens you never want something else again. But it'll cost four digit.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
At least he got a kit. That is very commendable.
That's before the "FAA agents showing up" phase :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Real thermal imagers are much cheaper nowadays, under $1K, but I don't know if any of them are good for imaging parts on a PC board. Maybe somebody has experience. I might get another one for my office so I don't have to share the megaFLIR. The big FLIR software is awful.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
Most modern software from HW companies is awful these days. Now that they finally made a non-crashing and non-freezing version for my Signalhound boxes it turns out that only runs on Windows 7 or higher, so can't be used at the lab bench.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
I knew a ham operator who actually went to federal prison for a year. Someone was cursing on a ham band, which he found offensive, so he decided to jam his favorite frequency. The judge bashed him.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
That's its visual resolution. It says nothing about its IR resolution, so expect it to be crap.
"special"? Well, it does have to be either Android or iOS. I'd bet that 99% of engineers have smart phones, these days.
That's why I have a >2000sq.ft. basement. ;-)
Make sure the device you use has a Host mode USB port and will source power. Some of the Samsung devices do not work and will not power the IR camera.
Probably. Got to try them out, study reviews and such. Or videos like John pointed out.
Yay! Finally I am a one-percenter!
If it's possible to get _and_ register a smart phone on a simple pay-go non-data plan like what I have now I might do it. But only if software can be loaded via Internet. Or apps or whatever they call that these days. Because I really don't have much use for data plans.
[...]-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
There must be more to the story. To get a judge this mad he must have p....d him off majorly in court. Or became hardcore irate when the FCC showed up, or threatening in some way.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Joerg, I've got a smart phone (~$50) that I use with Trac-phone. ~$100 a year. If you are in some place with wifi then logging on to that doesn't use any of your "time"... (minutes, texts, data). The camera is nice... and of course I can now text to my daughter... Otherwise we might go days with no communication. :^) AFAIK I haven't used any apps yet.
George H.
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