Northpoint AKIR-01 Teardown - Pico384 (384x288 50hz)

[gamerpaddy]

As found on ebay, there is old stock of a product that was sold on german ALDI and Otto which is supposedly a Thermal camera for inspecting buildings.
eBay auction: #225083807494
it doesnt feature a recording function, nor any temperature readout.

there was a listing for one where the seller wasnt sure if its broken or not, for half the price. so i bought it.
apparently (some said, it might be fake) it uses a 384x288 sensor running at 50hz, 60mk sensitivity, 17µm.



Its fully made of aluminimum, every part inside even the cage housing the Core pcb's. just like most chinese flashlights nowadays.
just the screen protector is made of plastic and glued in. rest is easily accessible and screwed in. everything is plugged, no soldering.


oh yea, about the core.  User "Vipitis" wrote its a french core, either ULIS or Lynred.  the writing on the front-pcb gave it away,
its a ULIS / Lynred Pico384 Gen2 in some sort of oem module with a bunch of connections and everything on board.
any documentation about this would really help turning this into something useable.  i hope theres some sort of communication interface available to the outside.
https://lynred.com/sites/default/files/2019-10/Pico-384Gen2-datasheet.pdf
http://www.tecotec.com.vn/en/uncooled-thermal-imaging-sensor/pico384-gen2-qgva.html

its missing a calibration shutter, maybe thats why there is no temp-readout.
the core's output (analog video composite signal) goes straight to a cheap monitor found in 99% of rear-driving camera kits, but fully housed in Al case.


it has a 3 element germanium or silicon adjustable focus lens, but its quite zoomed it. 19mm at full frame, not at this sensor size apparently.
i also havent found a way to get it out. the lens somehow has to come off.
also it has a quite shallow depth of field. f1.0 it says on the listing.

its useable for pcb fault finding, but when working over head, you might wanna detach the monitor.
min focal distance was about 20..25cm.

the display cable gets bend pretty badly, some wires got fixed in the past and one had open insulation. when it touches the case, it shorts to ground. maybe this is why it was sold as defective.
its just carrying the button signals, video and vcc gnd.
for me it worked out of the box but still gonna fix these issues.




(that smell is gonna stay for a while..)

[gamerpaddy]

more pictures.

[gamerpaddy]

more

[Vipitis]

Glad it is actually working, I believe it's a good price. As in documentation - that will be difficult to find before knowing exactly what OEM type core it is. But I have had people message me with documentation and software for cores.

If the lens says 19mm, it will be 19mm, the sensor is rather small, so it's a narrow fov, but the radial resolution as in pixel per degree is better. It will give you better looking images. F/1.0 is not just shallow dof, but often required for thermal cameras. f/1.2 has been more and more common, but I would prefer to get more of the signal.

Will take at look at the videos once I am home.

[gamerpaddy]

looked at the IC's and drew a diagram

unmarked chip on Power board, maybe to translate data from the button board or something. command handling

2 cables coming from the display.
3pin red yellow black, most likely power and video for display
4pin for button board, maybe serial, maybe i2c. gotta look into this more.

2 wires with power going to the top board P104, which contains a
LTC3677-3 PMIC https://www.digikey.be/htmldatasheets/production/699882/0/0/1/ltc3677-3.html
LTC3458 dc-dc converter https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/3458fa.pdf
FXOS8700  axis accelerometer(??) https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/FXOS8700CQ.pdf

connects to the board D470 where a flat flex goes to the power board aswell. they are sandviched together with thermal pads and silicone, missed it on the teardown photos.

it contains a
MX25L25635  256mbit flash
DRAM IC, cant see markings.
FPGA Xilinx.. forget to write down its model.
ADV7391 10bit SD/HD Video Encoder (digital to analog) https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7391.html
MAX3232 RS232 transceiver https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/max3232.pdf?ts=1672917972671&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F

then it goes to another board A075
with a AD9245 14bit. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/AD9245.pdf
and a 212FG2S PhotoMOS https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/2146/AQY212FG2S.php

and some smaller components with just a few pins i didnt bother looking at.
the flat flex might be for comms, 8 pins.

[gamerpaddy]

managed to strap a video grabber to it, so i can use it with my phone (better display, recording possibilities)
next is printing a smartphone holder so i can replace the stock display with it.

i made / ordered some flatflex MITM boards to see what the button panel is actually sending to the module without messing it up with bad soldering.



this is how it looks with one of those cheap stk1160 usb grabbers recorded in vlc.

[Bill W]

it has a 3 element germanium or silicon adjustable focus lens, but its quite zoomed it. 19mm at full frame, not at this sensor size apparently.

Sounds good so far, a good find.  19mm is the focal length, not the image circle.

Bill

[Vipitis]

I was browsing ebay once again and spotted another two lots for these. Seems to be even better deal than last time!

"new" at 699.90€ https://www.ebay.de/itm/325277509651
"open box" at 399.90€ https://www.ebay.de/itm/225975638832