Hacklet 47 – Thermal Imaging Projects

May 15, 2015 by 36 Comments

Thermal imaging is the science of converting the heat signature of objects to an image visible to humans. Everything above absolute 0 gives off some heat, and thermal imagers allow us to see that – even if there is no visible light in the room. Historically, thermal imaging systems have been large and expensive. Early systems required liquid nitrogen cooling for their bolometer sensors. Recent electronic advances have brought the price of a thermal image system from the stratosphere into the sub $300 range – right about where makers and hackers can jump in. That’s exactly what’s happened with the Flir Lepton module and the Seek Thermal camera. This week’s Hacklet is all about thermal imaging projects on Hackaday.io!

We start with [Pure Engineering] and Flir Lepton Thermal Camera Breakout. Flir’s Lepton thermal camera created quite a stir last year when it debuted in the Flir One thermal iPhone camera. The Lepton module used in the Flir One is a great standalone unit. Interfacing only requires an I2C interface for setup and an SPI interface for image data transfer. Actually using the Lepton is a bit more of a challenge, mainly because of its packaging. [Pure Engineering] made a simple breakout board which makes using the Lepton easy. It’s also breadboard compatible – which is a huge plus in the early phases of any project.

 

grideyeNext up is [AKA] with GRID-EYE BLE-capable thermal camera. This project is a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) thermal camera using Panasonic’s Grid-EYE 64 pixel thermal sensor. 64 pixels may not sound like much, but an 8×8 grid is enough data to see quite a bit of temperature variation. If you don’t believe it, check the project page for a video of [AKA] using Grid-EYE’s on-board OLED display. Grid-EYE was a Hackaday Prize 2014 semifinalist, and we featured a bio on [AKA] last year. The only hard part with building your own Grid-EYE is getting the sensor itself. Panasonic doesn’t sell them to just anyone, so you might have to jump through a few hoops to get your own.

 

pylepton[Kurt Kiefer] brought the FLIR Lepton to the Raspberry Pi with pylepton video overlay. This project uses the Lepton to overlay thermal data with images captured by the Raspbery Pi camera module. The Lepton interfaces through the I2C and SPI ports on the Pi’s GPIO pins. The results are some ghostly images of black and white thermal views over color camera images – perfect for your next ghost hunting expedition!  The entire project is implemented in Python, so it’s easy to import and use pylepton in your own projects. [Kurt] even gives an example of capturing an image with just 5 lines of code. Nice work, [Kurt]!

 

 

wificamFinally we have [Erik Beall] with WiFi Thermal Camera. [Eric] is using an 82×62 diode array to create thermal images. Unlike microbolometer sensors, diode/thermopile sensors don’t need constant calibration. They also are sturdier than Microelectricomechanical System (MEMS) based devices. This particular project users an array from Heimann Sensor. As the name implies, the sensor is paired with a WiFi radio, which makes using it to capture and display data easy. [Erik] must be doing something right, as WiFi Thermal Camera just finished a very successful Kickstarter, raising $143,126 on a $40,000 initial goal.

Are you inspired? A thermal imager can be used to detect heat loss in buildings, or heat generated by electrical faults – which means it would be a great project for the 2015 Hackaday Prize! If you want to see more thermal imaging projects, check out the thermal imaging projects list!

That’s it for this week’s Hacklet, As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

The Hema-Imager: Accessible Thermal Imaging For Smart Devices

August 18, 2014 by 32 Comments

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[Erik] began working on this project a few years back to help him improve his electronics skills. Now, after meeting an electronic’s manufacturer through LinkedIn, he is ready to get his device out into the market through a Kickstarter campaign. If successful, the technology will be shipped out and deployed in areas of construction, manufacturing, hospitals and emergency services; all of which could utilize the heat-mapping potential of this affordable device.

In addition to commercial uses, this product can assist in the reduction of household energy consumption by locating areas of heat loss. Without thermal imaging, the initial source of these types of drafts and airflows can be extremely hard to pinpoint. Abnormal equipment heating can also be found as well. For instance, electrical panels can overheat with loose or poorly attached connections.

Now, Hema-Imager is not the only product that is surfacing through crowd funding campaigns. MuOptics, for example, has raised over $280,000 through Indiegogo in 2013 without having to show an actual working product, barely even showing a 3D modeled prototype. Yet, they still achieved their goal, opening up the door for another device like the Hema-Imager to come in and raise a similar amount of money. The differences between the two can be seen on the Hema-Imager’s Kickstarter page.

[Thanks for the tip Enn!]

After the break is a video of [Erik] describing the Hema-Imager project along with a fire fighter’s point of view:

Continue reading “The Hema-Imager: Accessible Thermal Imaging For Smart Devices” →

DIY Thermal Imaging Camera

December 1, 2013 by 51 Comments

Thermal imaging cameras – those really useful devices that give you Predator vision – are incredible tools. If you’re looking for heat escaping your house through a window, or just trying to figure out where your electronics project will explode next, they’re invaluable, if expensive, tools. [Kaptein QK] figured out an easy and cheap way to make your own thermal imaging camera using nothing just a few dollars worth of parts.

[Kaptein] based his camera off of a non-contact IR temperature gun. This device is useful for spot checking temperatures, but can’t produce an IR image like it’s $1000 cousins. By taking the thermopile out of this temperature gun, adding an op-amp, an A/D converter, and connecting it to an Arduino Nano with pan and tilt servos, [Kaptein] was able to slowly scan the thermopile over a scene and generate an image.

In the video below, you can see [Kaptein]’s scanning camera in action reading the ambient temperature and creating an imaging program for his PC. It works very well, and there a lot more [Kaptein] can improve on this system; getting rid of the servos and moving to mirrors would hopefully speed everything up, and replacing the 8-bit grayscale display with colors would give a vastly improved dynamic range.

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A Real Thermal Imaging Camera For $300

March 6, 2013 by 127 Comments

If you want to check your house for hot air leaks, take pictures of the heat coming off a rack of equipment, or just chase the most dangerous animal, [Arnie], through the jungles of central america, a thermal imaging camera is your friend. These devices normally cost a few thousand dollars, but the team behind the Mu Thermal Camera managed to get the price down to about $300.

The basic idea behind the Mu Thermal Camera is overlaying the output of an infrared thermopile – basically, an infrared camera – on top of the video feed of a smart phone’s camera. This is an approach we’ve seen before and something that has even been turned into a successful Kickstarter. These previous incarnations suffered from terrible resolution, though; just 16×4 pixels for the infrared camera. The Mu thermal camera, on the other hand, has 160×120 pixels of resolution. That’s the same resolution as this $2500 Fluke IR camera. After the indiegogo campaign is over, the Mu camera will eventually sell for $325.

We have no idea how the folks behind the Mu camera were able to create a thermal imaging with such exceptional resolution at this price point. The good news is the team will be open sourcing the Mu camera after their indiegogo run is over. W’e’d love to see those docs now, if only to figure out how a thousand dollars of infrared sensor is crammed into a $300 device.

An Absurdly Clever Thermal Imaging Camera

January 3, 2013 by 35 Comments

Thermal imaging cameras, cameras able to measure the temperature of an object while taking a picture, are amazingly expensive. For the price of a new car, you can pick up one of these infrared cameras and check out where the drafts are in your house. [Max Justicz] thought he could do better than even professional-level thermal imaging cameras and came up with an absurdly clever DIY infrared camera.

While thermal imaging cameras – even inexpensive homebrew ones – have an infrared sensor that works a lot like a camera CCD, there is a cheaper alternative. Non-contact infrared thermometers can be had for $20, the only downside being they measure a single point and not multiple areas like their more expensive brethren. [Max] had the idea of using one of these thermometers along with a few RGB LEDs to paint different colors of light around a scene in response to the temperature detected by an infrared thermometer sensor.

To turn his idea into a usable tool, [Max] picked up an LED flashlight and saved the existing LED array for another day. After stuffing the guts of the flashlight with a few RGB LEDs, he added the infrared thermometer sensor and an Arduino to change the color of the LED in response to the temperature given by the sensor.

After that, it’s a simple matter of light painting. [Max] took a camera, left the shutter open, and used his RGB thermometer flashlight to paint a scene with multicolor LEDs representing the temperature sensed by the infrared thermometer. It’s an amazingly clever hack, and an implementation so simple we’re surprised we haven’t seen before.

A Thermal Imaging Camera For Your Phone

December 15, 2012 by 23 Comments

When last we heard of a cheap thermal imaging camera accessory for any smart phone, we were blown away at how easily a very expensive electronic device could be replicated with an Arduino and enough know how. Now, that thermal imaging camera is a kickstarter project and provides a cheap way to put a thermal imaging camera in the tool chest of makers the world over.

It’s called the IR-Blue, and simply by connecting your phone to the IR-Blue with Bluetooth, you can overlay the output of a thermal imaging camera on the output of your camera’s phone.

The thermal imaging sensor is basically a low-resolution camera (16 x 4 pixels) for infrared radiation. This sensor is factory calibrated to detect heat in a range between -20 and 300 ˚C. This range allows anyone to easily see where drafts in a house are coming from, where heat in a computer is being generated, or figuring out how to cook a steak.

It’s an awesome and well designed product, so we’ve got to hand it to [Andy] and the IR-Blue team for putting very expensive tools in everyone’s hands.

Building A Thermal Imaging Sensor From Scratch

November 12, 2012 by 45 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIb1scnD67o&w=470]

[Rob] lives in a 100-year-old house, and with these antique lath and plaster walls and old window frames comes a terrible amount of drafts. The usual way to combat this energy inefficiency is with a thermal imaging camera, a device that overlays the temperature of an object with a video image. These cameras are hideously expensive so [Rob] did what any of us would do and built his own.

The build centers around a Melexis MLX90620 far infrared thermopile that can be had for about $80. Basically, this sensor is a very, very low resolution camera (16×4 pixels) that senses heat instead of light. By sticking this sensor on a breadboard with an Arduino Mini and WiFly network adapter, [Rob] is able to pull the data down from the IR sensor to his iPhone and overlay it on the feed from the camera.

The result, as seen in the video above, is a low-resolution but still very useful thermal imaging camera, perfect for looking for cold drafts in an old house or tracking down [Arnie] just like a Predator.

Tip ‘o the hat to [Ronald] for sending this one in.