EEV ARGUS 1 & 2 Repair posts coming soon to Fire-Tics forum

[Fraser]

Hi all,

On several occasions I have been asked if I will run a 'how to' guide on repairing thermal cameras. Doing so is complex for me as I earn pocket money from repairing such cameras and releasing all my hard learnt knowledge would be kind of shooting myself in the foot.

I have a number of EEV ARGUS 1 and ARGUS 2 cameras that I will be working on soon. These cameras are now quite old and are appearing on the secondary market at quite reasonable prices. The prices are such that it is unlikely to be worth me offering a repair service on such cameras.

With this in mind, I will be documenting my repair attempts on these two models of camera and also providing reference measurements to aid others who decide to carry out repairs on them.

Note that the ARGUS 2 is still subject to Various information release restrictions due to its USA sourced sensor. That will prevent me publishing certain information and I will be taking advice on that from the administrator of the Fire-Tics forum.

I initially intend to post the ARGUS repairs and investigations on the www.fire-tics.co.uk forum as that appears to be the most appropriate repository for such. I may duplicate the information on this forum later but most people looking for information on the EEV ARGUS cameras will likely visit the fire-tics site first due to its focus on EEV cameras.

Once I have made some progress on this planned series of posts, I will advise here. As some already know I have some health issues that limit how much I can achieve in a day so prioritisation of tasks is in play. Whilst I intend to carry out this interesting series of repairs, I offer no tight time scale for start or completion.

This post just lets you know that it is my intention, so if you buy a faulty ARGUS 1 or 2, there will hopefully be repair information coming along soon.

For information, there has been a significant increase in eBay auctions for ARGUS 1 and ARGUS 2 cameras. Fire brigades in the UK may be upgrading to newer models. Please note that an elderly ARGUS 1 (Yellow case) uses a Pyro-electric Vidicon tube and, even if working, will likely need a tune-up of the tube bias voltages to obtain the best image.  I have written a post on buying 'project' ARGUS 2 cameras in the appropriate ARGUS 2 area on the Fire-Tics forum. There is also information on the remote control protocol used with the ARGUS 3 cameras there

Fraser

[Fraser]

Further to my last, I will also be repairing some ISG Talisman Classic and WASP thermal cameras. The Classic uses a Pyro-electrical vidicon like the ARGUS 1, and the WASP uses a BST sensor array like the ARGUS 2.

Fraser

[efahrenholz]

I used to own an ISG Talisman. Heavy camera. The batteries were like solid bricks and didnt hold a charge very long. My unit didn't have the digital zoom feature, but it had the remote transmitter option. Also had the visible camera overlay. I opened mine up to see if I could hack in a button to activate the digital zoom option but the construction inside was pretty intricate. I was too afraid of damaging the unit.

[Fraser]

The ISG Talisman cameras are somewhat more agricultural in terms of build when compared to the EEV ARGUS cameras. I can understand your hesitation in wanting to delve deeper into the electronics. Lots of hot melt glue holding things in place !

The ISG Talisman Wasp apparently uses a very similar Raytheon sensor and associated controller board to that of the ARGUS 2. Raytheon effectively supplied a 'kit' for OEM's to incorporate into their camera design. Raytheon make some very nice thermal camera sensors so as long as the OEM does not screw up the ancillary parts such as the video board and the lens,, you get a decent thermal image out of the camera.

iIRC I own one Talisman Classic and four WASP's.

Fraser

[Bill W]

The oddest part about the Raytheon kit in retrospect was that they were happy for the OEM to make their own detector PCB using a standard circuit.  That meant that the interconnections and control signals were far more accessible than the current crop of cores.  I think you had analogue gain and offset controls as well as access to digitised and analogue video outputs.

The only common parts across the camera manufacturers' were the sensor, chopper wheel / motor and the processing PCB (which was paired with the sensor and held the calibration).

Bill