First look: Kaiweets KTI-W01 thermal camera : Using a Thermal Camera for electronics projects

Kaiweets sent me their KTI-W01 thermal camera to take a look at, so let's see what it's all about.
They're calling it "The Best Budget Handheld Thermal Camera". And it is the best one I've tried out so far.
Buy from official webstore: kaiweets.com/products/kti-w01...
Discount code: PS15
(Available sitewide at Kaiweets.com and it never expires.)
Buy from Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B0CB7Q6J79
10% off code: WVEUH3HM
$40 coupon: Apply on product page
(Save 10% plus $40 in total)
#ElectronicsCreators #thermalcamera #thermalimaging #thermalimager #Electronicprojects #DIY
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This isn't the only way to do it.
It's probably not the best way to do it.
But it's how I did it.

[@robinbrowne5419]

A fun and interesting review. Thank you. I have a Kaiweets clamp meter/multimeter and I like it a lot. That thermal camera is a bit pricy for me and I don't think I would need one because I always plan my circuits and calculate the power dissipations. I learned this the hard way about 20 years ago. My friend and I were building a 10A power supply and we had a 30A bridge rectifier. So we thought we were safe. But a couple of minutes after powering it up and testing it under load we started to smell a burning smell. Feeling around for what was hot I touched the bridge rectifier and it was boiling hot. I still have a smooth spot on my finger from touching it. After reading the datasheet more carefully it said that it needed a heatsink. If you work it out it makes sense. At 10A it drops about 2.0V x 10A = 20W. That was a lesson well learned. Cheers from Canada. 🙂👍

[@loveminis31]

Wish I had. One of these for home. I have to us a candle to touch parts with to tell how hot.

[@RottnRobbie]

11:44 - the manual says +/- 2 _degrees_ OR 2 _percent_ . At 330 deg, 2% is 6.6 deg. So a 5 deg difference is well within that spec!

[@johncoops6897]

Yes 8:40 - Always remember that measurements will be incorrect unless Surface Emissivity is set correctly. Default usually set for 0.9 which means Matt black.... glassy surfaces, light colours, and even glasses of beer 🍺will not necessarily be correctly measured by emitted IR.

[@TheDefpom]

They sent me this to review also, did it a few weeks ago, in many ways I like it more than the UNI-T uti-260B unit I got a few years ago, have the same resolution and refresh rate but this can record video.

[@pileofstuff]

Yeah, the form factor, dual camera and video recording capability make this one the preferred IR camera of the ones I have available.

[@K5HJ]

Amazon order placed. Thanks.

[@K5HJ]

I've since looked at the Kaiweets web site and found they have a $99 discount. Oh well.

[@tiagoferreira086]

Just a tip, as you probably noticed, you can use a bit of kapton tape on aluminum or IR reflective surfaces to be able to measure, and i'm saying kapton tape due to its high temperature resistance.

[@mr.makeit4037]

It's alittle pricey, but on my list. I wonder if an 18650 battery holder can fit within the kaiweets handle? If so, this unit could be upgraded.

[@pileofstuff]

The space in the handle is a close fit to the 18650 - close enough to prevent rattling. I doubt you could fit a holder in there.

[@gfodale]

'Spot' setting should have been reserved for checking your dogs temperature and make sure it doesn't have a fever. :P

[@romancharak3675]

I'm wondering if that hot-spot on the battery is the Protection Circuit for over/under charging of the battery?

[@pileofstuff]

That pack is built with unprotected cells. It's just a weak connection

[@lematindesmagiciens8764]

Do you think this camera could be used for house inspection? To find spots of bad insulation in a house?

[@pileofstuff]

Absolutely. I've used the older ones for exactly that in the winter.

[@Phr3d13]

I don't know if it's been suggested or not, but WINE is a windows to linux compatibility layer, meant to allow linux users to run a lot of "windows only" programs/games.

[@pileofstuff]

I tried WINE with this one and it failed to install.

[@Phr3d13]

@@pileofstuff I mainly throw games at wine when I use it, so that's probably why I have a better success rate. Might be able to get it to run in wine if you install it on a windows machine and then copy/paste it into a wine thing. But that's a might, and only if you're interested in the software enough.

[@pileofstuff]

@@Phr3d13 Yeah, for my use case the tool does everything I need by itself without the extra help.

[@CezarySiw]

it's probably rebranded HT-18 from HTI

[@skypatrol716]

Okay but can it see a gopher under the soil?

[@pileofstuff]

Might be able to find a mouse under a bit of snow.

[@rasz]

They all use same Infiray (actual manufacturer of those sensors) sensor so higher temp range is marketing bullshit.