I suggested that last idea at a previous company I worked for, doing temperature monitoring. The owner loved it, and thought it would make a ton of money for us.
And then did nothing with it. * Drew Van Zandt Artisan's Asylum Craft Lead, Electronics & Robotics Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld) Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D. Masquerade aVST * On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 2:32 AM, Tom Metro <[email protected]>wrote: > Thermal flashlight 'paints' cold rooms with colour > http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328546.200 > > The device comes from the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and > Science, a non-profit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that > develops open-source tools to allow ordinary people to investigate > environmental issues. > ... > Standard thermal cameras are prohibitively expensive for ordinary > people. > > Right, a Fluke Thermal Imager, for example, will set you back $2000 ~ > $3000. > > > In contrast, the thermal flashlight prototype costs about $40. What's > more, it can easily be assembled by someone with no electronics > expertise. > ... > The thermal flashlight is built around a single infrared thermometer. > This scans an area of wall and picks up varying levels of radiation > emanating from it. This temperature information is fed into a > microprocessor, which controls a multicoloured LED light. Shine the > flashlight against a surface and the colour shows you a real-time > temperature reading. Areas of the wall with a cooler temperature show > up blue, while red light shines on patches that register as warmer. > > Even easier, you can buy one for $24: > http://www.amazon.com/Black-Decker-TLD100-Thermal-Detector/dp/B001LMTW2S/ > > I bought one of these a couple of years ago when they cost $50. It's > essentially a run-of-the-mill non-contact IR thermometer, with a slight > twist. They stick a multi-color LED on it that lights up the target area > with green, red, or blue light depending on whether the current spot you > are pointing at is warmer or colder than your starting point. (I forget > some of the details, like whether the color change is relative (I think) > or tied to a fixed absolute temperature. And whether it is continuously > variable (intensity) from red to green to blue, or if flips from one > color to the next when a threshold is tripped (product description and > my vague recollection supports the latter).) > > My first thought when getting this device was how one might hack it to > emulate an expensive thermal imager. The initial thought was that you'd > stick it on a tripod, mounted to a computer controlled pan/tilt security > camera mount. Then a computer could make it raster scan a wall. How > you'd capture the color information eluded me. > > > An image of the light-painted room showing exactly where heat is > leaking can then be captured using a webcam with an online app called > Glowdoodle or just standard time-lapse photography. > > Ah! Glowdoodle (http://scripts.mit.edu/~eric_r/glowdoodle/) is the > missing piece. Looks like you need to use it in a fairly darkened room, > which also would work for an old-school solution using a 35mm analog > camera with the shutter held open. > > To really emulate an IR imager the Black and Decker thermometer wouldn't > cut it. The wall would appear in only 3 color, and no varying shades. > This is perhaps where the D-I-Y thermometer is superior. > > I think the B&D thermometer also has a laser pointer to help you aim (as > is common for IR thermometers), and I don't recall if you can turn the > laser off. That bright red dot would mess up your captured heat map. > > One of the sales claims for the B&D was "Helps homeowners track down > power-draining drafts." Before buying I was skeptical how it could do > that. After buying it became apparent that they were stretching the > truth and not directly detecting drafts, but just temperature variations > that are often affiliated with drafts. There are tools that can actually > detect drafts, but this isn't it. > > In any case, after playing around with it for a while, I lost enthusiasm > for the tool and never did really make use of it. (I was really far more > interested in detecting actual drafts than measuring insulation quality; > on a first pass for weatherization, you have a far higher impact by > stopping air leaks than by improving insulation.) I should dust it off > and do something with it. > > The real question is why hasn't some manufacturer created a low-end > thermal imager that employs this technique. There are no recent > developments that have just made it possible. All the tech involved was > pretty much available a decade ago. > > For example, you create a tool a bit larger than an IR thermometer, > stick a cheap CCD camera into it, and a motorized mirror assembly in > front of the IR sensor so it can scan the field of view. Stick in a > micro to drive the scanner and composite the thermal data over the > video. Add on an LCD for aiming and image preview, plus an SD card and > USB port to get the images out of it. Presto, thermal imager for under > $300. It'd be slow. You'd have to stick it on a tripod. Pros wouldn't > want it, but you might sell enough to non-profit energy conservation > groups and early adopters to get the price under $200, at which point > you'd interest homeowners. > > -Tom > _______________________________________________ > Hardwarehacking mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking >
_______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
