Teardown of the UNI-T PRO UTi690B thermal camera | Hacker News Reader

Teardown of the UNI-T PRO UTi690B thermal camera

wizeus.de

41 pointswalterbell13 comments

Only tangently related(they are both thermal cameras). but it does get into why the frame rate sucks on thermal cameras. it is by marco reps who is pretty legit .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gluLOD_6HU

There is another reason why (especially cheap/"normal") thermal cameras have low frame rates. Basically higher (than 9!) fps cameras can be restricted for export and travel under ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations).

https://www.flircameras.com/export_conditions

How is it that can I just buy this drone, then? It fields a 640 × 512 px camera working at 30 fps:

https://www.dji.com/mavic-2-enterprise-advanced

Because Teledyne FLIR is a US company and DJI isn’t?

Edit: also according to the specs it’s 160x120@9fps

https://www.dji.com/mobile/mavic-2-enterprise

640x480 isn’t native sensor size.

Enterprise advanced != enterprise. I'm quite sure it's higher than 160x120. This toy costs about 5k USD.

But yeah it must be that it is a non US company. Puts into question the utility of this ban. These mavics (all models, and not only mavics) fly in huge quantities over the front line in Ukraine.

That's something cost more than 100x of the camera posted here...

Cooled MCT detector and much higher requirements on readout electronics to reach 9k FPS.

Tl;DW?

the video explores the electronics of a high speed thermal camera. and then compares it to a more common off the shelf camera.

Recent sub-thread on 25fps thermal cam imports for a few hundred USD, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33890299

I did some research on adding my own aftermarket thermal imaging for deer detection to my car and found there really isn't much of a market for it.

The sensors out there are all targeted at automative OEMs, and the brands/models offering the feature are pretty sparse.

Would happily spend up to $1000 or so to rig up a camera & small display for night driving in rural area with a lot of deer..

There are a few "deer trail cams" on the market, could one of those be adapted to driving? https://greatdaysoutdoors.com/deer-trail-camera/

Range and response time would be the challenge. This $2K thermal driving camera has a 3000 ft range, https://speedir.com/nightowlplus-thermal-driving-car-camera

Speedir was the most competent LOOKING option, but was based mostly on their marketing material..

Really couldn't find anything out there from independent reviews / YouTube that inspired any confidence.

If it would work, $2k is doable.

I know we are not supposed to complain about form but geez are those carousels terrible. They move by themselves, their height changes so you end up clicking the image instead of the arrows, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com