Flir E4 Thermal imaging camera teardown

[Taucher]

For the "cursor box", what file has the size for the large box?  All I found in toolbar-config_Z3.xml was the menu to select that mode, not the definition of the box's size. hhmmm...
Thank you again!

Example:
ADDMENU\FlashBFS\system\ui.d\presets.d\preset_hotSpot.rsc

Code: [Select]

.image.sysimgInstances.main.measureFuncs.mbox.1.height int32 75
.image.sysimgInstances.main.measureFuncs.mbox.1.width int32 107
.image.sysimgInstances.main.measureFuncs.mbox.1.x int32 106
.image.sysimgInstances.main.measureFuncs.mbox.1.y int32 82you should be able to test those settings over telnet using "rset"

[pomonabill221]

Thanks... Ill test it to see if I like larger bounding areas.
Frankly, I am not really familiar with telnet... can I just edit the .rsc file and perform the "update"?  Keeping the original or course!
Also, doesn't the CRC need to be re-calculated for new values?

[Taucher]

Thanks... Ill test it to see if I like larger bounding areas.
Frankly, I am not really familiar with telnet... can I just edit the .rsc file and perform the "update"?  Keeping the original or course!
Also, doesn't the CRC need to be re-calculated for new values?

All those answers have already been answered here MULTIPLE times - just give yourself a go and fire up telnet/ftp and poke around ... this way you're wasting other people's time for "baby me" stuff.
In short: "Man Up"

[pomonabill221]

JEEZZZ I'm sorry for asking!  You seemed to be helpful and then turned on me!
I just don't want to brick my camera!

[Taucher]

I just don't want to brick my camera!

Well, I had my cam stuck on (even cold) boot with an exception in appcore.exe - without telnet that error would have stayed permanent.
Telnet: It's simpler, its faster, it allows for more fun and to debrick in case something is a BAD setting ... - so if you want to do it the awkward way just because *yoda mode on* you don't want to learn the ways of the force...*yoda mode off* (read: how to use basic tools) ... well, then your path is taking you the wrong direction.
*EOF*

PS: Found a nice one: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

[pomonabill221]

I think you are assuming that I want to do it the awkward way.. I do NOT!
If there is an easier/safer/faster way to do it, I am all over it!
I do NOT need to have my hand held, but I am willing to learn.
I have just tried searching on telnet for what rset does (not listed in the typical telnet commands from what I found), and really didn't come up with any clear cut methods that a relatively new person could use, the threads I read were written by people that have been doing this for a long time.

I know for a fact, that ALL the people that have posted about telnet, HAD to start SOMEWHERE!!!

Now I don't expect ANYONE to "teach" me, but realize that I just spend close to $900 on this camera and I don't want to get into a situation that it becomes a doorstop!

If it is too much trouble for you, I apologize for asking and I will just live with what I have, rather than do something "by trying blindly" and bricking my camera.

[mrflibble]

If it's bricking you are worried about, then actually doing some rset commands over telnet has a lot of advantages.

With rset you can apply the settings live and do some testing to see if you get the results you want, without making those settings permanent just yet. So if you made an error, things turn out to be unstable, crash or whatever, you can just do a cold reboot and you have your old stable settings back. If on the other hand you change the .rsc file, then next time you boot up those settings are applied. So if those are the wrong settings, resulting in instability ... not so good.

Which is the long way of saying: to be safe better apply new settings with rset first over telnet, test it a bit ... and then when comfortable enough with that you make the settings permanent with a .rsc file.

Also, see my post here for an example on how to use rdump to save a part of the resource tree. As in, you make your changes (rset etc), test it, and then when done you save those settings to your favorite .rsc file using the rdump command.

PS: I've done a lot of mucking about with rset, and every curious state was  fixable with either a restartapp (most of the time this was enbough) or restart (win ce reboot) or power cycling. IMO rset is pretty safe. As long as you stay away from the eeprom

[pomonabill221]

Thank you Mr. Flibbel for 'splaini rset, rdump,restartapp!

I am VERY concerned about possibly bricking my camera, and I didn't know that rset is a temporary "test mode" that doesn't make things permanent.
This is THE way to test things out without making changes permanent!  GREAT!

YOU BETTER BELIEVE I will STAY AWAY from the EEPROM.... that WOULD be permanent and dangerous!

I will investigate your post that you have linked, thank you.

I feel alot better knowing that rset is NOT permanent and can be used for experimentation.
I have updated my Rigol scope (using Dave's method), and updated 2 E4 so far, with success, but I DO know that if ANYTHING goes wrong (power glitch, cable yank, mistyping commands, etc.) you NOW have a doorstop!  OUI!!!

[Taucher]

I feel alot better knowing that rset is NOT permanent and can be used for experimentation.

well, most settings there are on the fly stuff - but know that you can do damage there:
The camera will store information like "last state" and it will try to re-read it - if that value or state causes some memory corruption or other exception state, then you'll find appcore.exe ^{belly up} - possibly even on reboot (been there, done that - but it was due to missing preset files and delta-temp mode)
Fortunately most inputs are checked against allowable limits etc. by rset.
And as already stated: with telnet chances are WAY better that one still can fix the registry entry, restart the frontend without breaking the telnet session (restartapp) and have everything back living again.

[tomas123]

@mrflibble

I followed your link and found

When I show battery stats (hold LEFT + RIGHT cursor) it
shows Battery: 3%, 13mA ... but no charging (lightning) symbol.

I can't open the battery stats on the Flir E4.
What do you mean with "hold LEFT + RIGHT cursor"?

[Fraser]

Emissivity setting.... Possibly an issue on the E4

I did a very quick test on my E4 last night to see how its emissivity setting behaved.

Either I was too tired to be playing or my E4 does indeed have a problem when it comes to emissivity setting. As I believe has already been mentioned.....the emissivity setting appears to be acting inversely to that which I would have expected

A test for anyone interested....... aim your E4 at an object that is warmer than background, like a radiator. Have a play with your emissivity setting and see what happens.


0.1 is shiny Gold with extremely low emissivity. 1.0 is a perfect black body or human skin with excellent emissivity.

When looking at a painted radiator at say 40C, and setting emissivity to 0.1 I would expect the camera to over compensate for the low emissivity, and when set to 1.0 it would undercompensate. Mine does the opposite !

More later when I return home from work

[tomas123]

my flir e4 works correct:

refl. temp = 20°C

radiator emissivity=0,10 -> measure temp. = 208°C -> sensor_voltage_1 = function(10% of 208°C and 90% of 20°C)
radiator emissivity=0,95 -> measure temp. = 54°C -> sensor_voltage_2 = function(95% of 54°C and 5% of 20°C)
with sensor_voltage_1 == sensor_voltage_2

[Hypernova]

Mine is fine too, at lower emissivity skin temp. went up to 40+ C.

[Fraser]

I just did the same test on my E4 using my skin as the heat source. As you say, works normally. I was either 'tired and confused' or my E4 was 

I will play with the emissivity a little more and maybe repeat the temperature test with some lower temperature sources to see what happens below 40C and into the minus C temperatures.

[nacke]

Cold temperature behaviour is surely somehow perverted. When you decrease emissivity setting in room temperature, surfaces look warmer to the camera as theory suggest. When I do the same outside (-10 C), the effect is opposite, what's going on in there?

Absolute error in those temperatures is around 9-12 celsius

I also left camera outside for an hour to cool thoroughly to see how it changes things, and tested again. Error got even larger, to 14-17 C.

Did third test in -2 C conditions. 0.95 Emissivity shows temperature mostly correct, but camera goes crazy with 0.25: scale changes to -40 C -> - 40 C and spot temperature jams to -40 C.

[mrflibble]

I can't open the battery stats on the Flir E4.
What do you mean with "hold LEFT + RIGHT cursor"?

When the E4 is busy charging you press the LEFT button and the RIGHT button at the same time for a while.

Edit: to clarify, the camera should be attached to usb or charger (obviously) and powered down.

[pomonabill221]

I just did the same test on my E4 using my skin as the heat source. As you say, works normally. I was either 'tired and confused' or my E4 was 

I will play with the emissivity a little more and maybe repeat the temperature test with some lower temperature sources to see what happens below 40C and into the minus C temperatures.

That can happen... information SATURATION!

[pomonabill221]

One interesting thing I noticed about charging...
IF you use the Flir charger (5v at 2100 mA), the E4 indicates a max charge current of (about) 1.3A with a fully discharged battery.

IF you use a different USB power supply (I have a 5v 1A), the E4 indicates about 580mA under the same condition.

IF you use a computer's usb port (max current 500 mA), the E4 indicates about 380ma.

SO.... the E4 must be measuring the maximum available current from the supply and use (very roughly) half of the available current!
This would make sense as charging can be done from different sources and the E4 is trying to use the available current without overloading the source (wall wart/computer) while charging as fast as it can.

I did make a statement about not exceeding 400mA during charge, and the battery doesn't get warm, WRONG!, but IF the temp is monitored VERY carefully (and they do have a thermistor in the battery), then fast charging CAN be done as there is a little heat when using the wall wart at over 1 amp.

I measured the thermistor terminals after the battery had been charging for a while using the wall wart, and the measured resistance was about 8.7K, down from about 11.9K at room temp.  The battery was slightly warm too.
A Ni-Cd or Ni-Mh would be alot warmer!

Seems like there is a very complex battery management system in the E4, and not just a simple E/I monitoring.
Impressive!

[mrflibble]

One interesting thing I noticed about charging...
IF you use the Flir charger (5v at 2100 mA), the E4 indicates a max charge current of (about) 1.3A with a fully discharged battery.

IF you use a different USB power supply (I have a 5v 1A), the E4 indicates about 580mA under the same condition.

IF you use a computer's usb port (max current 500 mA), the E4 indicates about 380ma.

Yup, I can confirm all of the above. One additional result ... when you use a powered usb hub. I often have the E4 connected to the usb hub in my monitor (2407wfp) and then it also shows ~ 580 mA.

Crap, I just wanted to check it just to be sure I wasn't mixing up the numbers but of course .... 99% charged. Curse you reality, curse yoooooouuuuuuu! 99% charged when you want to test the charger, and 1% charged when you are testing power management features... 

[pomonabill221]

One interesting thing I noticed about charging...
IF you use the Flir charger (5v at 2100 mA), the E4 indicates a max charge current of (about) 1.3A with a fully discharged battery.

IF you use a different USB power supply (I have a 5v 1A), the E4 indicates about 580mA under the same condition.

IF you use a computer's usb port (max current 500 mA), the E4 indicates about 380ma.

Yup, I can confirm all of the above. One additional result ... when you use a powered usb hub. I often have the E4 connected to the usb hub in my monitor (2407wfp) and then it also shows ~ 580 mA.

Crap, I just wanted to check it just to be sure I wasn't mixing up the numbers but of course .... 99% charged. Curse you reality, curse yoooooouuuuuuu! 99% charged when you want to test the charger, and 1% charged when you are testing power management features... 

LOL!!!   WOW, your hub must be powered with a 1 amp supply then?

[mrflibble]

LOL!!!   WOW, your hub must be powered with a 1 amp supply then?

The hub is internal in the aforementioned monitor. It has 2 usb ports on the left side, which is quite handy. Well, 50% handy. It would be 100% handy if one monitor had the ports on the left side, and the other had the ports on the right side.

[pomonabill221]

I see... thought you were referring to an external hub.  Still must be capable of an amp.

[georges80]

I really doubt the E4 is 'measuring' the available current capability of the charging source. That would be a neat trick...

Typically (and very common with smart phones, e.g. Samsung S4) is that there are 'tricks' that are used to 'guess' the current ability of the source.

One is obviously with a real USB device, the target will request that the host provides a certain current (up to 500mA for USB2) and the host then informs the target if that is possible. Part of the USB enumeration process.

The common Apple ipod technique to determine the type of charger is to look for certain voltages (pullup/pull down resistors in the charger) on the D+/D-. The Samsung S4 also looks for a USB cable that has the shield connected end to end for the ground path connection. My S4 can charge up to 1900mA with a) the correct charger and b) the correct cable. If I switch to a normal USB cable it drops to around 1100mA. Change the charger (or use a PC) and it drops to just under 500mA. There's a free app that provides this info for the S4 in realtime.

cheers,
george.

[kanzas19]

Hi all.
This is my first post, so please bear with us.
Many thanks to Mike and Taucher for their great job.
In early December I bought E4.
number of cheese. 6390xxxx
num. part 63901-0101
1.19.8
In this area, I am completely ignorant.
I have read all about two times, from page 1 to 150
Google and YT hired for two weeks and now I have "E8 +". 
I confirm that EVERYTHING you need is in text. Even, to completely novice users - like me. Just a little effort(   ) to reach.
 Once again, thank you very much and best regards.

Mike, what do you think? Is it possible from E4 to do something a little like this: Flir Scout PS?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!

[tequipment]

Hey just wanted to drop you a note.  We use Ingram as a 3rd party warehouse in PA.  They have a shipping company.  All the stock we ship from there is OURS and is not bought from them. 

They have a logistics Part of their company:
http://www.ingrammicro.com/ext/0,,21910_21911_21912_21943,00.html

Thanks
Evan Cirelli

Vice President
TEquipment.NET