Which thermal camera to buy. FLIR bad practices & their ridiculous non standard RCA cable

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UNI-T UTi260B thermal Camera

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Low Melt Solder

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[mikeselectricstuff]

The biggest ripoff is that all FLIR cameras in each range, with different resolutions, have identical hardware, just crippled in software. Fortunately the more common ranges (Ex and Exx have been hacked to upgrade the lowest end ones to the highest model spec, with extra features)

[alupci]

It has always been like that. Companies would do anything to raise their profit, even by playing dirty. The laws enables them to do so. We should be thankful to internet where we can learn from people like Alex and others who disclose the truth and show us the alternative ways.

[cccccc]

I use the Cat s60 for my home electronics repairs. It doesn't have a great camera, but it helps me a lot and hey, I paid about $70 (used) for it in my country.

[VenkatesanS]

One of the best YouTube channel where both content and comments give lot of information/Knowledge.

[bar]

4:44 Dunno if 60 fps was a repeated console gamer joke or serious, but FYI human eye can definitely perceive more than 60 Hz, exact number is hard to determine as we don't see in frames, but in continuous stream, and it may vary from person to person, alertness level or even specific parts of vision field. Also TVs typically have 60 Hz panels, though TV signal typically is interlaced (refreshed 60 times a second, but only half of the pixels), it's cinemas that are typically 24 fps.

[davestevenson]

There are a number of wirings for those 4 pole 3.5mm jacks. Tip/ring/ring/sleeve can be either left/right/ground/video, left/video/ground/right, or left/right/video/ground. They aren't fully standardised.

[MBrulla]

I've used the cheap USB ones (in a pinch - not by choice) and yes, they're lower res...so you move them closer to the heat spot. The closer you get, the more clear the location becomes.

[nixxonnor]

A 160x120 pixel thermal resolution (19200 pixels) is perfectly good for troubleshooting (if the camera has manual focus and focuses down to 6 inches / 15 cm away from the DUT). And usually 9 Hz frame rate is perfectly OK to spot a stationary, failing component getting too warm. This is due to the slow and gradual heating/cooling nature of regular components (thermal mass).

[Warekiwi]

I needed a thermal camera but couldn't justify the Flir prices. After some searching I found some reviews of the Topdon Tc001 which rated it highly for the price ( resolution 256x192 and frame rate 25hz) Here in the UK it cost about £250 but probably cheaper over there? It works with any Android phone or tablet with usbc connection. but can also work with any Windows PC. I've been amazed by the sensitivity and ease of use of this great little device.

[stefanlechner]

Hi alex, very good explainings about the thermal cam. Its always good to get some tips and let us be a part of your experience, from a pro like you are.
Well with your flir-experience and the spareparts, there are a lot of companies out there who cheat on their spareparts to let customers buy the expensive ones instead of the third-party parts. They all use tricks, change the position of plus and minus-pole, build up another connector, and so on. we are exposed to the industry and in times like these they try everything to get you to buy the expensive parts. So you have to be interested in technology, have a watchful eye and also think a little logically. Do a lot of research on the internet and then you usually realize that you just have to swap the plugs. there is often a lot of trickery.
My question for your low-battery problem, why dont you buy just new batteries in the same size with the same volt and mAH, wouldn't that much cheaper for you? Or is there maybe a "counter" or something you had to reset on the board from the original battery?

[nilamelody]

The company is deploying the same tactic as Printer & Ink Catridge industry. Serialize everything that their user will replace at some point and jack up the price. Except this time the main product is not being sold as cheap as Printer, yet both battery and any other utility are sold at higher price tag.

[monsieurduchemin]

Im using the UNI-T Uti260B thermal camera. It is really affordable (around 200 to 300$) and delivers good performance. I really like it

[powerchisper]

once I had to order a special "protocol converter" to deal with AXA power devices´ parameters via PC. It was 350 euros, so we thought it should be like the siemens MPI or something. We received a small box with male and female DB9´s . We opened the box and it was normal rs232 with no circuitry inside. Just moved pins 2 and 3 to 4 and 5. Same happens with lots of brands like Leica.

[lesliepieterse]

That just sucks that FLIR rips us off. Thanks for this very useful information.

[paulstir]

18650 cells aren’t that expensive for the top brands, I would replace them myself, great content

[picturetech]

YOU SIR are AWESOME! I subscribed noting your concise evaluation for us to see and understand and most notably not bash an entire product just because of some of its shortcomings. You experienced, evaluated, defined, and even offered solutions to those shortcomings and shared it all with us in order for us to learn.
. People like YOU, Mr Rossman, Project Farm, Torque Test Channel and soooo many others make youtube what it should be, a qualitative informational guide that can be applied to most products if we are to use what we learn from channels like these. It IS why we all need to vote for Right to Repair legislations as well.
I thank you for making this video. Now to binge watch your channel.

[techroom]

that's what always turned me off from flir, they make decent cameras but they overcharge for everything since you're paying for the "flir" name

for anyone looking for a "cheaper" alternatives the seek compact pro with a macro lens is great for this type of work, there are also bench top cameras designed like microscopes such as the qian li supercam and dytspectrum owl made specifically for board repair

[ctecrwp]

Few yrs back I got inquiry for a Flir camera. At first I thought it some normal camera but I checked prices it was about ..… and I became aware of this brand and it's speciality. The customer was electric company and they used it to check wiring temperatures on high tension lines....

[GregM]

Flir also crippled some of their lower cost cameras to limit their features. Those features though as people discovered could be unlocked with a script. That caused a spike in their lower cost cameras a while back.

[ricklambert]

We are using a (relatively) cheap thermal camera now and have had great success. It has an ok resolution but only does 9fps which makes it feel very laggy. It has helped tremendously with those situations where the cap, chip, etc stays hot. I think our next investment might be a better camera to catch even more repairs in the future.