Thermal Imaging and Its Applications

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Don’t you know what a thermal camera is or what it’s good for? Here’s what you need to know:




For god’s sake! I can’t believe how many people don’t know what a thermal camera is good for! And believe me I’ve seen a few already. So I had to explain it here.

A thermal camera is like a normal camera, but instead of visible light, the sensor just picks up the infrared generated by a warm surface. Any material radiated infrared, with a strength proportional to how warm it is. So if some area has lots of detail but all of it is at the same temperature, then it looks blank to the thermal camera. On the other hand what looks completely flat to human eye, could have many details due to thermal difference on the surface, like water leakage or hot water pipes and such.

You cannot see behind a wall, through clothing or glass. Because infrared is a low frequency light and has a hard time passing through objects in general. The light you are looking for is X-Ray if you like to see through things. So the thermal infrared is what radiated from the surface, but yet it shows very valuable information.

Different material have different infrared emissivity that usually should be accounted for for more accurate temperature measurement. Also material reflectivity effects the temperature reading. The more reflective a material is, the less accurate the thermal reading becomes. Because rather than radiating its own temperature, it reflects the heat from surrounding objects.

Sensor pixels are each a infrared thermal sensor. The lens in front of the camera is a special glass filter that can pass infrared.

Also when you use such cameras, you hear a constant clicking every few seconds and thermal image freezes for a fraction of the second. That is a shutter used in all these cameras during the period that the camera re-calibrates its sensor. It needs to re-calibrate the sensor as the temperature sensing starts to drift while the camera temperature or conditions constantly change.

I listed a number of applications for it in my video which are:

  • Detecting broken and heating components in a circuit
  • Understanding the thermal performance of a circuit or a product in general
  • Detecting over loaded circuit and wiring at home
  • Finding spots of water leakage inside the walls which are at different temperature than dry wall
  • Finding locations where energy is lost around a house, or where the cold air is getting inside
  • Seeing in the complete dark, of course environment’s thermal signatures only
  • Finding wildlife at night
  • Finding cold spots which are likely ghosts 🙂
  • Any many more




A Quick Review of SEEK Compact Thermal Camera

My SEEK Compact Thermal camera has been pretty useful and I have been using it many times at work to detect broken components on PCBAs. It may sound a bit expensive for its size. But I assume thermal imaging is a special technology and is not as widely used as regular cameras, which adds to the cost. Yet SEEK is one of the cheapest thermal cameras out there.

I compared SEEK Compact and FLIR One and although the FLIR leaves an impression of better image due to its image overlay technology, the thermal image is not different from SEEK, and SEEK has way more functionality built in its software and they are planning to release an even more elaborate app for the phones.

Of course with anything cheap, comes some negative points compared to high-end cameras. There are really two things that come to mind:

  • Image resolution is not great, and yet thermal resolution is higher than its peer, FLIR One.
  • Thermal accuracy is low, around 0.5 degrees Celsius, which results in lower image quality compared to high-end cameras

At the end of the day the most important differentiating factor in the price of these cameras is the sensor resolution. But never the less, I like my SEEK and it has been pretty useful for me for professional work, and also pretty fun in dark nights in a jungle or beside a lake.

I needed to get a thermal camera for my work and videos and I contacted SEEK Thermal. So I like to thank them for providing the camera to me and one of my patrons for free. Make sure to use the promotion code if you want to get this camera.




16 thoughts on “Thermal Imaging and Its Applications”

  3. I have used my flir to find mice holes going into buildings but in the ground near the buildings. You can usually see rafters and frames inside your house. You can take a rock you think has hunk of gold in it and take pic with flir to see the dense spot where nuggets of gold are….if its gold ok. Maybe its beryllium or something. By the way I see you are or are from that aryanish place also known as Persia or iran. I am old enough that I went to military school with Iranians back in 1975 in millington Tennessee. Also knew a crazy guy from iran who tried to get into all kinds of businesses but seemed overly amped or something all the time smoked cigs like crazy…but his father cooked me a meal once that was simple but awesome. The persians should be our friends but we make enemies it’s crazy. Normal people we all have much in common with right now are being made into some evil bunch of guys by really stupid news organizations and government suckbags who never have experienced war. People who have been in real wars wont even cant even talk about it it’s all so bad. My solution is for iran to start their own chain of gas stations like shell or exxon but run it differently like the more has you buy you keep getting a little cheaper. Or also customer pays ahead to save or even invest in his her gasoline ticket to fake freedom in cars….a very crazy idea cars are for average person man or women to need to have or especially drive past you other way on 2 way roads going 50 miles an hour and passing within a few feet of another. If I was Shah of America you could drive on roads if you take some forced March pills but never booze. The fact that Gov policy dictates by law the opposite shows how stupid they are and why they like to create problems with iran in order to justify their cures.nice work guy.a little wound up but hey…its all grooves

  4. Pingback: Thermal Imaging and Its Applications - Info Corners

  5. MoviTHERM is a FLIR distributor and systems integrator. The company sells thermal cameras for online, remote monitoring and automated thermal imaging applications. MoviTHERM offers products for infrared non-destructive test equipment.

  6. I think that thermal cameras are so cool. I’ve never used one before, but I’ve heard about them. I actually think that some people use them for night hunting, which is pretty cool. I’m thinking about buying one for my husband, he’s always talking about thermal cameras with his friends.

  7. Very sorry but can I ask you a question regarding the musical tesla coil? I connected it to 32v VSUP with 10A and a good 12v supply for control but the MOSFETs get REALLY hot and there is only minimal sparks. Also, I cannot tune the circuit to the 1.58MHz of my coil. The control only goes up to 1.42MHz. I have tried swapping my coil connections and my chip was not blown. My circuit has a HUGE amount of noise at R6 and the Schmitt Oscillator output. I have also tried changing the duty cycle higher or lower and also the voltage to 45V. I have no idea what is wrong with my circuit as the sparks that fly are almost invisible and also much more feeble compared to my Slayer Exciter circuit at 24V, where my sparks fly more obviously. Pls help?

    P.S. the tesla coil website is this
    https://www.electroboom.com/?p=575

  8. i wanna make a voltage multiplier that turn 1kv to almost 4-6kv in your opinion which capacitor should i use ? i think i have to double voltage in almost 15 levels !

  9. your work is great. Please what ref no for comparator in tooth rush speed control circuit?

  10. As always another great video review. You would be such a great science teacher ( a little tamed down tho ) for kids showing science can be Fun !!! I used the Fire Dept. TI once to find where insolation was missing in my home. Worked great. Can’t wait for your next FB positing !!! Please enter me in the contest. Thank You

      • I LOVE U SIR PLS CREATE VIDEOS I DONATED A DOLLAR TO UR PATREON MY NAME IS Markus thanks for the vids keep it upp

  11. Could ou please enter me in the contest, I love , love your videos. So glad you did a review to the Seek thermal imager. Ive been looking to pick one of the babies up. Keep up the Good work , Thanks
    MIKE
    rmallen68@msn.com

  12. Please enter me in the contest to win that thermal imager! I like your YouTube channel, but I just found it today, so I am not yet a Patrôn. Please tell me how to support you so that I am eligible for the contest. Can I donate using PayPal?
    ~gbe

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