Exploring the world in infrared with a thermal camera

[@farmerjim-fat-man-do]

I have been a certified thermographer for about 15 years and use a high end FLIR for inspections of electrical gear. Good explanation of reflectivity, emissivity and transmittance. Most casual users don’t know about these pitfalls of infrared thermography. Hollywood doesn’t help… When people see a movie and cops are using IR to see through buildings to locate bad guys, I have to explain that’s not possible. What you demonstrated with tinfoil is a great demo of emissivity and reflectivity. Tinfoil does serve a purpose in thermography while in the field. When using infrared on a items with high emissivity, I will use a piece of tinfoil to measure background temperature. Wad up the foil and unfold it multiple times so the surface is full of micro wrinkles. Point the dull side toward the area you need a reflected temperature then point the IR camera at the tinfoil. The dull finish and micro wrinkles provides a good average temperature of the area it’s pointing. I can enter the reflected temperature into the reporting software to obtain an accurate component temp. Obviously you want to shoot at an angle so your body temp is not included in the average temp seen in the reflection of the foil.

[@Cooper_42]

Sort of like an 18% grey card for IR, neat idea.

[@steverone7623]

Is this a good beginner model for just getting into IR?

[@farmerjim-fat-man-do]

@@steverone7623 depends on what you’re using it for. It is low cost and will get you familiar with the technology but has limitations. Personally, I would not use it professionally. It has a fixed focus. Resolution is low and insufficient for any work at a distance more than a few feet away where you need to discern temperature between multiple, closely spaced components. Thermal sensitivity on low end cameras is not good. If you want to learn about thermal imaging , thermal camera Las and basic thermal dynamics, take a course with infraspection institute. A level one course teaches you the basics of thermal imaging and how to take a good quantitative image. If you are considering using thermal imaging professionally, a level 1 certification is the first step.

[@metanoian965]

"tinfoil" ? So common and disposable now ? Does this have the same properties as aluminum Foil ? alloy foil ? copper foil ?

[@DavidLindes]

@@metanoian965 for reasons I don’t know well enough to relate, aluminum foil is often colloquially called “tinfoil”. I believe that’s all that’s happening here.

[@TroubleBKC]

The shot of the running water was so much more interesting than I expected.

[@eveanema]

I was really impressed with your ability to follow a fully loaded circuit through the wall/drywall. For those times when you have no idea where a wire is routed...

[@Varangian_af_Scaniae]

What a nice video. The water looked absolutely rad.

[@weldabar]

This is a smart company. They pay you pennies on the dollar compared to "real" advertising, yet your video is very effective at making me want to buy one of these. It looks very fun, but also useful. My favorites were the stud finder and wire tracer.

[@whitelotus_zero]

Welcome to youtube my early fren

[@blipblop92]

Not sure about pennies on the dollar cuz his channel size they would be paying 50k a pop, minimum, plus he earns royalties thru amazon affiliate

[@StopAndGo1]

I borrowed an IR camera a while back & went through a similar tour of the house and surroundings but even though I feel I'm a creative person you take it to the next level Matthias ! I obviously had a lot more exploring to do . I was particularly impressed with the see-thru garbage bag and the temperature difference you see in the Boot-prints while walking through the snow.

[@Watchyn_Yarwood]

The garbage bag was impressive indeed!

[@vengefulenigma]

I had a lot of fun discovering water pipes in the wall as well as the floor heating. Outside of the house was energy efficiency horror story though, as all the balconies glowed a nice bright red in the otherwise freezing weather.

[@Meg_A_Byte]

Funnily enough the most interesting part was the chair. I work in a 3D art industry and what I saw with the chair really reminded me of what we call "baking", which is basically fixing lighting or other data onto an object (specifically its texture) so it doesn't change. So the chair was lit in specific way and that was baked in, so when you turned it, the lit areas stayed the same, even though the source of "light" didn't match up anymore.

[@FishyBoi1337]

13:37 (nice) that pattern in the water is so cool! Looks exactly like some art you'd see at some nerd convention us viewers might attend

[@Superkuh2]

(nice)

[@schubertludwig]

Totally! I now want to experiment with boiling water over ice cubes and stuff like that. :D

[@perdedor3571]

all you need is a cup of room temp water. aim the camera at it and stick a few fingers in there.

[@tracersedge]

This is so genuinely interesting to watch!! The deeper snow is warmer, the electrical wires in the walls, the office chair!! Thank you!

[@ZefStudio]

So interesting! I really enjoyed the examples of infrared interactions at the end. I love that you included the ffmpeg command. The dual camera setup is great too! I hope these thermal cameras keep coming down in price.

[@donwilson2382]

As an engineer this is easily the most interesting video I’ve seen all year.

[@gorak9000]

As an engineer, you clearly should be watching Mikes Electric Stuff channel in addition to Matthias - he did a video on the P2 Pro thermal camera back in November, and years ago he was the one that figured out how to hack the low end flir handheld cameras to the higher model ones with software (because the low end ones were just software restricted in resolution and frame rate, but all models were exactly the same hardware).

[@jum5238]

When I watched this two months ago, I ordered one immediately. I've found it VERY useful for looking at the studs and wiring in the walls, and seeing where insulation appears to be missing in the far recesses of my ceiling. I worried that I'd have problems looking at things once the overall weather warmed up, but found that when I air conditioned my house to a low level in a quick fashion, the thermal components within the wall began to show the things I was looking for. Thank you for sharing this video! And for explaining the different issues with what you're seeing.

[@superoxen]

This is one of the coolest videos on KZbin. Crazy that it’s essentially a sponsored product placement on your second channel.

[@PeteLewisWoodwork]

Fascinating. I never knew such an alternative world existed but now that I do, I want one of those! As a carpenter, what an excellent way to find studs, cables, pipes and so on, anywhere in a building - but it's also a fun and unique eye-opener in everyday life.

[@janhugo]

I bought my Cat S62 Pro because of its FLIR cam, it is really usefull, as you have illustrated. During the cold winter here in Norway I checked all the temp. losses from outside, but the most important one was when I checked all the junction boxes in the house, I did find one were the connectors where going bad and I did fix that, no fire here! At work I can use my Cat S62Pro to check conveyer belt motors, and electric stuff that I work with. Really usefull phone!

[@Warrigt]

3:35 Thank You!! I've always wondered how it would work in a mirror/reflection.

[@robgatlas]

I have a thermal camera coming later today, so I'm going to be walking around doing something similar. Really fascinating video thanks.

[@Sevalecan]

"We have a cold spot right here" Don't you know that's a ghost? Those socks are haunted!

[@honumoorea873]

Thanks for your videos, always informative and fun....like life should always be.

[@bralex6669]

This was so cool! I hope they paid you highly for this sponsorship, because your video will surely make them a ton of sales.

[@bradley3549]

I've had a FLIR One for many years now and it's so handy to have around for a whole host of reasons. From automotive, home improvement, and electronic repair. I agree 100% with your assessment that an all-in-one device is probably the better choice now that they are reasonably priced. I have converted my Flir One from MicroUSB to USB-C - which should extend its useful life a few more years. But eventually, I'll have to keep an old phone around to use it and that's kind of a bum deal for what I paid.

[@gorak9000]

USB itself is always backwards compatible protocol wise, and every type of USB cable with whatever connector you want and in whatever orientation you want imaginable is available pretty cheaply. I'd be a lot more worried about some proprietary BS connector light every connector Apple uses. On a whim they can decide to make the protocol not backwards compatible (or even block specific devices as every device has to have the stupid apple security chip in it), as well as change the physical connector and not authorize people to make cables to go between the different connectors (again, because every cable has a chip in it that needs Apple's blessing). I recently bought a InfiRay P2 pro thermal camera - it's USB-C and I hope to be able to use it for a long time into the future with adapters and whatever. It also works out of the box as a webcam in windows and linux with no special drivers required, but only gives you the raw thermal image (no measurements / calibrations etc etc as that's all software based)

[@gorak9000]

The one cool feature of the P2 Pro that this doesn't have is a little magnetic clip on macro lens, which makes it very useful for doing circuit board repair. Mikes Electric Stuff did a video about them a while ago, and when he did the video they had a black friday sale too, so I got it for a pretty good price as well!

[@bradley3549]

@@gorak9000 While USB-C is clearly going to be around for the foreseeable future - whether phones start to do away with a port all together in preference for wireless only charging is likely scenario eventually. Apple undoubtedly going to lead the charge here. And more concerningly, FLIR will eventually stop supporting this first gen device in software, and or stop supporting the software on modern OSes. That's my bigger concern than USB not being compatible.

[@MikeKeeth]

Hopefully it keeps working. Mine died last week. They are notorious for the logic board failing due to poor BGA solder joints, can in theory be repaired but requires BGA reballing most of the time. I transferred the Lepton 3.0 thermal core from mine into the tCam kit on GroupGets (basically a build your own thermal camera kit, sensor not included) but didn't realize how limited it would be, the Lepton 3.0 doesn't do radiometric imaging on its own, it relies on a separate shutter thermal sensor and software calibration in the Flir One, so the tCam only gives the pretty images but no temp data. The newer Lepton 3.5 thermal core supports radiometry built in (I think the main difference is it has a built in shutter/housing temp sensor so doesn't need the corrections/calibration done externally) and does give all the temp info on the tCam. In theory should be possible to add thermal sensor and do calibration in software to enable temp display on 3.0 (just enabling temp display without that gives wacky results all over the place) but not sure that is a project I want to tackle. Kind of just wish I bought one of these TC004 instead, good res and framerate for the price compared to the competition, the tCam + a Lepton 3.5 costs more and is inferior in those specs (though way more flexible due to open source software/hardware + wifi connectivity.)

[@bradley3549]

@@MikeKeeth Yeah, I already had one RMA for that issue and if it happens again now out of warranty, I'll was planning on using the Lepton sensor for fun in the tCam. But now with the proliferation of cheap, non-ITAR devices with better specs all around, I'd have a hard time spending any more money on FLIR. I'll cross that bridge when/if it happens, but something like this is definitely on my radar.

[@dangkolache]

Wow, that water shot was really neat!

[@gregmize01]

That's crazy that you can see the framing!

[@hootis8]

One of the hardest things when insulating a traditional house is preventing thermal bridging of the framing. Basically you have to continuously insulate the outside of the house, and your better off leaving the framing exposed or uninsulated.

[@D2O2]

I've never been more influenced...great demonstration.

[@RambozoClown]

That is so cool. I can see a lot of uses for something like this. I have been on the fence about getting one, but now I will for sure.

[@12345NoNamesLeft]

Fun. Nice house tour too.

[@holbroak]

Well-thought-out examples, very concise. Will show the video to my daughter. Your best one yet, I think. Thanks!

[@cristiangeorge6039]

That was very informative and you really made it so interesting with all the experiments that you found out around the house!

[@brianmcquain3384]

fascinating thermal adventure

[@Curtis-Randall]

Immediate purchase for me. I’ve been wanting one for a long time and this is a darn good deal. Thanks

[@-Enginerd]

That was neat! Thank you for the tour and the explanations. Running around the house is exactly what I would do with new tech like that.

[@AllenSchmidtSr]

That’s one of the coolest videos I have ever seen!!!

[@nnamerz]

I bet TopDon is sure glad they contacted you to be a sponsor. Not only is Amazon out of stock (as you mentioned in your description), but so is their actual website. You may want to update that in your description as well, lol.

[@PhoenixRevealed]

The UNI-T UTi260B is equivalent to the Topdon TC005 (including second visible light camera) but priced like the TC004 (only IR camera) and it's widely available.

[@okkrom]

Fascinating stuff!

[@raindropsrising7662]

😂 Thank you. You got me buying a IR thermal camera. Appreciate your review and explanation of things all these years

[@Produkt_R]

This is very nice to see

[@PeterSmithwoodsmith]

Wonderful video. Thank you.

[@isavedtheuniverse]

Man, what a super fascinating video. It was really neat to see so much IR video all at once like that. You just get so used to seeing the world in visible light that its always a bit startling to see the world differently like this. Maybe TOPDON will release a UV camera one day and you can build a triple mount.

[@Marc_Miller]

Really interesting video!

[@jenkinseric2]

I was thinking "I wonder how he did the camera setup" and the next scene was the camera setup. bits of wood by MW. excellent as usual. thanks.

[@chiparooo]

That was really a good demo of this. Probably the best one of actual uses. Cool product. The price is a little high for me,but I would definitely use it if I had it. Thanks for sharing!

[@justavian]

Neat. That was a fun one. Thanks for sharing it.

[@tommysedin]

1:27 reflected IR in the tile - but only the glossy tiles reflect, cool! :)

[@aliensexist6634]

just like a kid who got a new toy. i know the feeling very very well. sir matthias never fails to entertain and educate

[@RickRolling-tc7vb]

Very interesting, and an excellent demonstration of the utility of thermal imaging. The emissivity of different materials and surface finishes is fascinating too, so I would be keen to see how you tackle that subject Matthias. Thank you, always learning with you.

[@ddutton0]

This super cool, the water was I think one of the coolest things

[@JakeSpurlock]

Those last few minutes were amazing.

[@aegis3d]

We picked one of these types up at work, great gadget to have around. Fun fact, few years ago the cheap FLIR ones were only 9hz because of US export restrictions on IR cameras. Now the cheap chinese ones can give you glorious 25FPS / Hz IR!

[@markm0000]

Thanks for another neat video :-)

[@longshot789]

Turning that office chair was a SUPER cool effect.

[@knock-knockwhosthere9933]

You are the perfect person to market this product. I hope they are paying you eventually... Genius.

[@kf6948]

When you had your hand down at the bottom of the door you could see your reflected ir from your hand. Super cool.

[@louisfkoorts5590]

Impressive. Smartly demonstrated. You have my attention and are curious on how and where we are going to see this camera in your videos. 👍🏻

[@ZoruaZorroark]

when you explained and even demonstrated on how ir works with various materials reminded me of how i had to mess with the settings of a laser thermometer i have if i want to get an accurate reading of certain materials like metals or even reflective surfaces

[@truckguy6666]

This strikes me as main channel content. Excellent

[@wobblysauce]

You did a great job, that and the camera is quite nice also

[@kossmonaut]

this was an awesome video. my local library has these cameras for rental

[@PaulNorman]

About 15 years when I was working in the university physics demo room, we built a similar contraption with a side-by-side IR and visible light camera. It's amazing how much more capable and cheaper these setups have become, although the IR is still limited by export restrictions.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

Those export restrictions aren't a problem if it's made in china!

[@gorak9000]

Yes, there's a new crop of IR camera manufacturers that have popped up in china. There's no longer a restriction on resolution or frame rate, as long as the camera isn't manufactured in the US, putting the US manufacturers at a severe disadvantage now. How sweet it is when stupid laws come back to bite the people they were designed to give an advantage to! I recently got an InfiRay P2 Pro (which this might actually be using the same IR camera core), and it's higher res, not frame rate restricted, and WAY cheaper than anything from any US manufacturer.

[@RDhali]

@@matthiasrandomstuff2221thanks for replying. Had no idea export restrictions existed on this

[@knallpistol]

I have a HTI 301 small usbc android camera, excellent framer ate and resolution. But the real kicker is the software! It's called thermviewer. Way more features than what came with the unit.

[@StuffTested]

@@RDhali That'd explain why they're still pretty expensive. $250+ for a decent brand.

[@Studio23Media]

This is so cool!!! I've always wanted one of these to play around with, but I can see so many useful applications even around the house! Hopefully they'll come down in price soon.

[@ophello]

This is absolutely incredible.

[@itsunoshiyuga]

just bought UNI-T thermal camera. great tool to have at home. as you have it nearby you find more uses than you thought when you were buying it. really helpful :)

[@honeyforce996]

Well, I was expecting to be annoyed by another sponsored video in such a short period of time. But it was at least more informative than 99% of the shill videos on yt. Seeing the studs and wiring was pretty neat; I had no idea thermal cameras were so capable. Thanks for putting effort into it

[@Trace842]

Matthias has addressed sponsorships before, and really makes a point of being honest and independent in his reviews. Personally I would trust a Matthias review far more than most KZbinrs; hopefully marketing teams realize the value of that!

[@ahbushnell1]

I just bought one of those. It works really nice so far. I have used IR cameras to find the faulted chip. A chip that is shorted and pulls down the voltage rail is hard to find. but with a IR camera you can see the trace light up that runs straight to the sick chip. Sometimes the chip may not good too hot because it's a dead short. Nice Video

[@hernancoronel]

SO COOL!

[@genericuserid7283391]

The reflector vs emitter part was awesome. Can't wait for the series on maximizing the thermal efficiency of your house!

[@halfbubbleout]

The water view would be a really cool (hot?) live wallpaper on a phone or computer. I could watch that for a long time.

[@harrysheppard3745]

A good thermal camera is the best thing to get as a sponsor lol There just cool

[@bclarkca9113]

That’s super interesting!

[@Don.Kiwitas]

Pretty cool!

[@DeluxeWarPlaya]

Just in the first 30 seconds, it looks like it works by the potential difference in temperature on a plane and colours accordingly. Cool.

[@andrewt9204]

I love using my IR cam for verifying wiring and connection integrity, and also circuit board diagnostic.

[@nemo4907]

I work for a infrared camera manufacturer. I get to play with high end military grade IR full motion HD cameras daily. It’s kool as hell to watch a bird on a tower from 6 miles away.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

any chance they want a sponsored video?

[@bubba1234824]

You look insanely cool on the thermal imaging with those glasses lol

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

not the look I'm going for!

[@smitcher]

When Matthias tells you to buy something using his codes then you know it must be a good product! Very interesting video... can see these having a use for electricians, plumbers, builders, etc as well as just for investigating airgaps and cold spots.

[@stevesasfai9971]

This was super interesting and fun. I hope you help them sell a million of these and get all the credit !

[@virtualfather]

When you mentioned future projects first thing I thought of was view of a wood joint failing

[@Superkuh2]

It's neat that you can see your thermal light reflection in the shower tiles at 1:27

[@MrCheesywaffles]

That's impressive

[@tracersedge]

Yes please, I really enjoy your take on gadgets and cool things. You can do more sponsored things like this, please?

[@zachlafond2652]

Just ordered the Topdon that hooks to my phone. I've always wanted one of these and the price is right.

[@schubertludwig]

Man, fantastic attention to detail here. Thanks so much for this tour! This makes me curious about also extending visible range into UV… (and got me so close to just ordering one for fun and to show people xD)

[@201081hero]

Really enjoyed this one, and even though I don't like them too much this would be great content for some Shorts videos.

[@MrTrollHunter]

Cool video. I also got myself a thermocamera a little while ago and played around with it, but you uincovered many more cool things than what I did :)

[@sixtofive]

Very interesting!

[@dalmatharu5852]

Impressive to have this as a household tool and if nothing else, a cool toy! In cricket they used cameras like this for several years. Even the faintest contact between bat and ball can be detected using IR as the ball leaves a 'hot spot' on the bat...

[@DestroManiak]

Ive always wanted something like this, i can imagine it can help debug problems really easily some circumstances.

[@fredio54]

Well done, covered everything I would have, and a bit more :-)

[@Sqalman]

Wow! Really cool, or Hot! ;) I had no idea about the opaqueness and transparency in the IR band!

[@fc3sbob]

I used the same IR camera the other day to track down the paths of heating vents in my house, and leaks. I would have never of known the path they took in the walls and floors without it. Nice thermal imaging camera, My buddy got it just a few days ago. I could not find anything wrong with it, The quality was pretty amazing actually.

[@bboomer7th]

Super interesting. I’d be curious/worried to examine my old house closely.

[@tom314]

I used to use one at work to look at microwave waveguide patterns, you put something like a piece of paper in the way and it tells you where the E-field is. I found it great fun walking around looking at other kit, finding problems with electronics etc. etc. I keep getting tempted to buy one to use at home partly for checking for insulation issues, this video hasn't helped that temptation....

[@Gizmos_and_stuff]

i got to use a thermal camera and it was super cool and i want one now

[@austinheyne3710]

The thermal reflection of your body in the tile was very interesting.

[@tiemanowo]

I'm really impressed by the framerate of this camera and fast dynamic temperature scaling. And the resolution is also quite good.

[@ThedfordFox]

I've been waiting on these to come down to a reasonable price for years. I don't like the phone addon version because the framerates are so bad. I was able to use your amazon link and pick one up with next day prime delivery!

[@macedindu829]

This was interesting indeed. I've been fascinated about this since watching Predator way back in the day. xD

[@asailijhijr]

I'd definitely like to see an attempt at objective comparisons between table saw 'feeds and speeds' for various species and grain directions. This infrared camera could be useful in that.

[@barry99705]

Was messing around with my thermal camera outside at night, you can see the moon! Wasn't expecting that.

[@matthiasrandomstuff2221]

hadn't thought of that, but lit by sun, it's no doubt warmer than outer space

[@MCsCreations]

Really interesting indeed, Matthias! 😃 I just hope you don't start hunting for ghosts... 😬 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@perdedor3571]

your demos were great! Though I may be biased because I teach a course on this and those are all demos that I frequently use! 😅