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Cheap-Thermocam V2 | A cheap thermographic camera for everyone !




After some time of research I want to share with you my latest project called "Cheap-Thermocam".

The Cheap-Thermocam is a low-cost thermographic image scanner. With it you can analyse your house, electrical devices, etc. and identify for example thermal lacks.

Current FIR cameras on the market cost more than 2000€. My idea was it to reduce costs by using one single non-contact temperature sensor to create a thermographic image. This is done by moving the sensor with two servos over the target area. The popular arduino is used to control that procedure. All data is stored on a SD card. The thermal image can be created on any computer and combined with a normal optical image from a smartphone or a usual camera.

You can buy the newest version 2 either as a kit or pre-assembled. If you want to build the old version by yourself, you also find the instructions and software downloads on my website.

www.cheap-thermocam.com

[Reply #1 on:]

What sort of information you get out from the device? That is so simple idea, but it never crossed my mind.

Cheers,
Kari

[Reply #2 on:]

What sort of information you get out from the device? That is so simple idea, but it never crossed my mind.

Cheers,
Kari

The Arduino transmits the measured temperature of each point via the usb serial port to the JAVA programm, where they are all saved and processed.
It would also be possible to save them on a SD Card to make the device independent from the PC while measuring (plus adding a lipo or so for energy supply), but that makes the whole project more expensive.

[Reply #3 on:]

I like the idea and could be quite fun to play with.

I would be interested to read more 

[Reply #4 on:]

The Arduino transmits the measured temperature of each point via the usb serial port to the JAVA programm, where they are all saved and processed.
It would also be possible to save them on a SD Card to make the device independent from the PC while measuring (plus adding a lipo or so for energy supply), but that makes the whole project more expensive.

Heh, what I ment, is it serial data, analog or something else?
I formatted my question badly.

Cheers,
Kari

[Reply #5 on:]

Hugely impressed!
Congratulations!
I used to work with very expensive military thermal imagers and had a good deal of fun with them.
You've inspired me...

[Reply #6 on:]

Thanks to Groove & Targettio for the positive feedback.
It's my first project withh the arduino or any other microcontroller at all, so it wasn't easy for me to learn all the required skills.

The Arduino transmits the measured temperature of each point via the usb serial port to the JAVA programm, where they are all saved and processed.
It would also be possible to save them on a SD Card to make the device independent from the PC while measuring (plus adding a lipo or so for energy supply), but that makes the whole project more expensive.

Heh, what I ment, is it serial data, analog or something else?
I formatted my question badly.

Cheers,
Kari

The sensor is a MLX90614 from Melexis (a special version with a teduced field of view), so I used one of the already existing code examples (http://interface.khm.de/index.php/lab/experiments/infrared-thermometer-mlx90614/) as a basis to talk to this ir sensor.

[Reply #7 on:]

The homepage is now online !

-> www.cheap-thermocam.tk

[Reply #8 on:]

Homemade IRST, that's pretty cool.
Did you consider scanning a mirror rather than the infra-red sensor?

[Reply #9 on:]

Homemade IRST, that's pretty cool.
Did you consider scanning a mirror rather than the infra-red sensor?

Excellent point, very small mirror will do the job!

Cheers,
Kari

[Reply #10 on:]

Homemade IRST, that's pretty cool.
Did you consider scanning a mirror rather than the infra-red sensor?

Excellent point, very small mirror will do the job!

Cheers,
Kari

Do you mean i should focus the sensor on a movable mirror instead of moving the whole sensor ?

[Reply #11 on:]

The child in me would turn it into a heat seeking foam missile launcher 

Awesome project.

[Reply #12 on:]

Your homepage is annoying, all those pop-ups...
Here's the direct youtube-link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fVilpSSpkDc

I don't know if there's more advantages for moving the mirror only, but the fact that there less mass to be moved for servos. Your version moves softly, and it doesn't seem to suffering about the device on it.

Cheers,
Kari

[Reply #13 on:]

Your homepage is annoying, all those pop-ups...
Here's the direct youtube-link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fVilpSSpkDc

I don't know if there's more advantages for moving the mirror only, but the fact that there less mass to be moved for servos. Your version moves softly, and it doesn't seem to suffering about the device on it.

Cheers,
Kari

Annoying ? I don't get popups and I haven't implemented any, maybe they come from the hoster .tk and I can't see them because of Adblock..
I tried the mirror version but however, it's not working with my infrared sensor at all... Otherwise it would have been a good idea.

[Reply #14 on:]

I tried the mirror version but however, it's not working with my infrared sensor at all... Otherwise it would have been a good idea.

I was going to tell you to avoid this, because it wouldn't work; ordinary glass mirrors don't reflect heat (long IR). The infrared sensor you are using is a heat sensor, not a light sensor (short IR - otherwise you could use an ordinary digital camera with an IR filter - but this won't work, because it doesn't see into long IR - and is also why a real thermal imaging camera is so darn expensive).

Ah, well.

I've been trying to think how you could speed up the scan rate, and I thought about the scanning mirror idea, but because you can't find such mirrors (ok, they do exist, but they're not very cheap), that idea was out the door...