Comments on: Poor man’s thermographic camera

By: nobodyimportant

nobodyimportant — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:41:49 +0000

Antonia, an IR remote is an near infrared light source (just below visible red). You would need need a detector to see.

By: ronald

ronald — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:56:34 +0000

no thermal images like them thermal heat sencing night scopes

By: Antonio

Antonio — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:23:24 +0000

Can you use the ir in your tv remote to created an ir thermometer?

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:51:18 +0000

Great idea and execution!

I am currently looking at something similar, but my infrared thermometer does not have a computer link. The ouput I get from the thermometer is a bunch of 1′s and 0′s. Any ideas on how to get some proper data from the thermometer onto the laptop or how to interpret the code?

By: Joern Loviscach

Joern Loviscach — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:19:51 +0000

Thanks for the praise of my video. Actually, I’ve got tons more of such ideas, ranging from computer graphics and audio to Web-based stuff to electronics:
http://www.j3l7h.de/ideas.html
I’m definitively looking for international cooperation with students and with other educators/researchers. I’m traveling a lot to North America and to the UK so there should also be a chance to meet in person. — Joern

By: Haku

Haku — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:58:35 +0000

@Gio: the thermopile I linked to in the first post of this comments section works in the 2um-22um range. The price isn’t very nice but it’s the only commercially available sensor like that I could find which you can order online, similar ones I’ve found online are on manufacturers sites and don’t have online shopping capabilities.

By: Haku

Haku — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:51:58 +0000

From what I gathered of searching for ir thermal sensors, the ones used in motion detectors only detect heat changes, not the actual level of heat in celcius/fahrenheit.

Which is a shame because I picked up a bunch of battery powered PIR sensors for £3 each, being battery powered they can be directly plugged into PICAXE chips and powered from the same 5v supply, hence my reason for getting them (that and the price is unbelievably cheap).

By: Gio

Gio — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:34:18 +0000

Hmm, I was just thinking, maybe a PIR sensor from a cheap motion detector? But again, they might be slow. Anyone gave this a try yet?

By: Gio

Gio — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:29:38 +0000

Weren’t the old thermal imagers build up from a single detector and a system of rotating mirrors to scan a 2D image? Reflecting IR (8µm, mid IR, the region of thermal IR emission) is not the same as reflecting visible light, but I believe that material as common as aluminum should do the trick (for the mirrors of course). But maybe the sensor will react to slow to be useful.
Does anyone know a manufacturer of sensors that are sensitive to 8µm wavelength? Most common IR sensors are only sensitive to 2µm tops.

By: tom61

tom61 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:57:49 +0000

younata, you’d only be able to see a little cooler than red-hot with the IR range a CCD/CMOS sensor can see. The IR that consumer camera sensors can see is in the near-visible light range, ‘heat’ IR is farther away from visible light in the spectrum and cannot be seen.

By: Younata

Younata — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:22:52 +0000

Alternatively, you get a ccd.
You put a filter which blocks all but IR.
Then, using physics, you interpret the data you get so you get a nice looking picture.

By: andar_b

andar_b — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:12:43 +0000

Yeah, you get them hot enough and they emit visible light with no trouble, of course they would pick up on a CCD.

I had trouble understanding this for some time, because they’re used interchangibly, but its like dogs and poodles. All poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles.

Likewise, heat is infrared (below the wavelength of visible light) but not all infrared == heat.

By: duesentrieb

duesentrieb — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:43:51 +0000

Althoug CCD cameras can be converted to see *near* infrared, the cannot be used to detect heat. Thermal radiation is so far away from the receptive spectrum of the CCDs that this would be impossible. The reason that some stove plates also light up in near IR is that they emit *some* radiation in that region, too.

By: Haku

Haku — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:42:51 +0000

I think the most complex thing about the first version of this hack (IR thermometer on a pan/tilt setup) is the software, you can get IR thermometers with a USB connections so no need to start taking one apart to figure out how to tap into it’s circuitry.

The thing that suprises me is how he only sampled a load of random points rather than scan a grid of points, unless that proved too difficult (unlikely) or too time consuming (likely).

By: JB

JB — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:14:55 +0000

Nice hack. It does not have the resolution of a real IR imager (I have access to one at work) but should do fine for a home lab. I’d like to see more details on how to build it/software. As Steve said, it would be nice to add to a sentry gun (follow the heat and shoot until is no longer hot) :P