Hey everyone,
I recently ordered a Q1 Pro from thermal-expert at work, and after getting a chance to use it a few times thought I'd give my impressions. I couldn't find a ton of info about cameras like this prior to the purchase so I hope this helps someone.
Coming from a Seek camera I was looking for something with a bit more performance. I considered the Seek Pro but at the price it just wasn't compelling given the inferior noise/image performance compared to options that aren't *that* much more expensive. I narrowed it down to the Thermal Expert and ThermApp. Ended up going with the Thermal Expert due to the lower price, supposedly better sensitivity, and promising images online.
The package we ordered was:
- Q1 Pro w/ 6.8mm Lens - $1195; the slightly more expensive "thermography" camera with an extended calibrated range up to ~250C
- Tripod - $75
- Accessory Holder - $75
- 13mm f1.0 lens - $350
Total cost $1695.
The tripod seems a bit much but is actually quite nicely built, solid metal construction. Of course you can get a very nice Manfrotto tripod of this size for $30 but hey...
The accessory kit included a spring loaded clamp for holding both a phone and the camera, the whole thing threads into a tripod. The camera holder is hinged and has magnets to hold it in either the front-facing or rear-facing position, in case you like taking selfies.
The ordering process was reasonably straightforward, I sent an e-mail and they responded in a few hours with a price sheet. Tell them what you want and send the money via PayPal. Everything arrived a few days later in a nice box.
The camera itself feels quite good quality-wise. Metal construction. The lenses are beautiful for sure. Solid aluminum with an aluminum lens cap. Very nice. They both screw out (after about 15 turns) and can be swapped easily, and the plastic case has room for 2 lenses - one on the camera, one spare.
If I had one complaint about the lenses it's that there is just a little bit of "wiggle" between the lens and camera body. Not much but it's there. Practically speaking it's a non-issue although when focusing you do get little "jumps" in the live image as the lens moves.
The cables I ordered from Amazon, and I definitely recommend the extension cables else you won't be able to use it off your phone.
The image quality I think is very good for the price. The update rate via phone is slower than via computer, for sure, but for still images it's fine and if you use the tripod videos are acceptable. The image IS stretched to fill the screen which is annoying, but I can live with it. The stretched image issue is not a problem on the PC.
Both lenses focus quite close actually, closer than the specs say. You just have to be careful not to unscrew it so far it falls out!
The PC software won't win design awards but does what it's meant to do. On both the PC and app you can draw a box to get min/max/average, do a line plot, mark as many points as you want, calibrate the sensor, and manually adjust the min/max scale. Many other measurements available too. One annoyance this has that's common with the FLIR One is that the temperature indicator mark/text is white, and you can't change it. So if you use any color scheme except black-hot you may well not see the cursor and text. You also can only do one measurement type at a time. For example, you can draw a few boxes and measure the temps within each box simultaneously, or you can place multiple markers, but you can't draw a box and then also place a marker. The PC software might allow this. One very nice thing about the PC software is that once you save the thermography data you can change the scale, do measurements, change the color scheme, etc... after the fact.
Anyway enough rambling
here are some pics! The pics with vertical scale bars were taken from the PC, note the scaling difference.
The line measurement tool was quite useful to see the temperature variation across a bank of motor drivers. The camera has already saved me quite a bit of work on a board I assembled. I had it set up imaging the board with the live feed on the screen as I powered each one up to test. One I powered up and immediately noticed an IC shooting way above the typical ~40C temperature. I inspected the board under a microscope, no shorts, everything looks good...after a few minutes I realized I'd installed the chip backwards! Tossed it in the trash and installed a new one and all was well. The camera made it super easy to pinpoint and see that nothing else was getting hot aside from the chip, so chances are the problem was there. The alternative would be poking at it and saying "ow that's hot."
All in all I'm quite happy with it. It certainly makes it easier to characterize thermal performance and has already saved me some time troubleshooting.
For comparison,
here is the atrocious FLIR One imaging the same board. That damn MSX feature can't be turned off and is garbage when you're trying to focus up close and can't get the parallax right. No contest. For the price I'd much rather get a Seek, but if you've got a little cash then I definitely recommend the Q1 as of today.
The ThermApp probably has better software, at least I would expect it to. I imagine the actual imaging performance is very similar, but an equally equipped ThermApp setup will also cost nearly $1k more.
For those wondering about prices, here is the quote sheet they sent me:
http://imgur.com/a/PrM2BIf they just had an extended temperature range V1 (640x480) @ 25Hz for <$3k, I'd be all over it.
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