Phantom V4.1 high-speed camera teardown

[@mikeselectricstuff]

As well as the manufactrurer, it may be worth talking to distributors & rental companies for info

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder if they selected the mask position based on defects on the sensor die.

[@andreabak]

+mikeselectricstuff Wouldn't then be defects there in the inner region of the mask as well?

[@Spirit532]

+mikeselectricstuff It's probably just one sensor for a whole range of cameras, not defects. This is built to a standard, so I wouldn't be surprised if they canned 100% of the defective or not-to-spec dies right off the fab.

[@superdau]

+mikeselectricstuff Don't you think the covered part could be temporary storage area where the whole image is shifted to before being read by the ADCs?

[@TheShivABC]

+mikeselectricstuff Mike please do some more teardowns, your videos are so intuitive

[@stonent]

+mikeselectricstuff Maybe the insides of the camera load the image data and can see the masked off region and shift the sampling to those pins automatically. I wonder what would happen if the mask were removed.

[@ceriand]

If the sensor is a CCD, the extra area is probably for some dummy rows/columns, dark reference, and for image storage. A lot of full frame shutter CCDs, actually transfer the charge to a shielded parallel array to get sensed while the next frame is being acquired. See here for an example www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tc236.pdf

[@whitcwa]

+ceriand That's what I was thinking. At least one early CCD had a rotary shutter sync'ed to the frame rate.

[@AimedResearch]

Hopefully you received my personal email, that it didn't go to spam. I have everything you need including a Phantom v5.0 for your next teardown. Drivers, various software versions, pin-outs, I might still have the power supply.

[@tesla500]

+AimedResearch Yep, ended up in spam. Got it now, thanks.

[@HackerL96]

+AimedResearch Are you selling the Phantom v5.0? I am very interested.

[@AimedResearch]

+Dennis3Run If it goes up for sale, tesla500 should get the first opportunity to buy. Thanks for your offer. Go ahead and email through the contact form of the website Aimed-Research and ask to get on the list of people actively looking for affordable cameras.

[@shayamaddex996]

Have any other older model highspeed cameras available for sale?

[@AimedResearch]

Send me an email at my website and I'll see what I can do for you.

[@DrTune]

Thanks for that, I like your teardown style. Good commentary - calm & well informed, less grating than EEvblog :-)

[@redtails]

31:13 CAT

[@frizstyler]

+redtails i lol'd bad @ 34:05

[@Spirit532]

This video in my feed made me positively tickled. Here's a wall of text as I'm watching the video. From what I can find - the large circular connector was only used to carry power, trigger, and video output for a viewfinder. All the control is done via FireWire, so I suggest waiting for a response from VR. The memory sticks are similar to the CT64M64S4W75, except double the size. It's regular 512MB SODIMM, two of them in there. It was used in very expensive computers, and each of the modules cost around $500 back then. I like the little pre-designed bodge you mentioned. They drilled a hole as a last measure instead of re-spinning the boards it seems. I've seen the sensor somewhere too - and I think not in a Phantom. I have an NAC Memrecam fx K5, and this is making me think of opening it up just to see the insides, but I'm not sure I can put it back together, and it's a functional piece of kit(somewhat up to date, too). I sent you an e-mail regarding the software download.

[@andrewsweet43]

Actually you can search for a driver by the hardware VID and PID you found at the device manager :)

[@3D_Printing]

1:50 Some cameras have 3/8" inch tripod mount, (for heaver mounting), they can use a converter, (that can be unscrewed), to make them into 1/4" inch No.20, (Whitworth thread think), tripod mount

[@digitalbroadcaster]

We (company I work for) have destroyed four Phantom Flex 4K cameras this year in the process of film making. Two are in the ocean, one was crushed by a tank track and one fell off of a high speed road vehicle, getting caught in the wheel with its tether line and getting completely obliterated. I'm just glad they weren't mine. Our camera funds budget per year is £2million, yet when I ask for a pay rise.......

[@DextersTechLab]

Thanks for the teardown, looks like a well made and finished product, one of these days i'll get myself a high speed camera.

[@trenzinhodaalegria8012]

The construction of that thing is so freaking robust o.o

[@sc0tte1-416]

I wish everything was built as solid as this thing

[@Edu_RJR]

You got two cannon plugs on the phantom, if you can find the partnumber on them you can order the appropriate connector, pins and backshell. All you would need is a pinout for the phantom and then you could at least make your own cables. you would ned male pins for your smaller connector, and female pins for your larger.

[@pouncytaur]

Look up the numbers for those "ram" packages you are pointing to at 16:33. I think you are looking at a combination of ROM and RAM chips. the thin ones with the legs on the ends are usually a non-volatile memory chip for configurations and on-board storage, while the legs on the side are volatile RAM for fast data cache. the thicker chip is usually an EEPROM for firmware.

[@stantontec]

Enjoyed the teardown. I have a Phantom V4.3, actually for sale, with a laptop and capture software. I think the cameras are not supported anymore but still software available on the Phantom website. I was hoping to hear I could convert to larger frame size by removing aperture but guess not.

[@TheAtomstrike]

k6t4016c3b-tb55 is static RAM (256k x 16), is NOT flash. Thank you for teardown!

[@DantalionNl]

phantoms where and are the kings of high framerate camera's

[@megabytephreak]

The WAS7.4 may be for the Anti-Blooming voltage. i.e. V_AB = 7.4 volts. I've worked with Kodak/Truesense CCD sensors before and they were individually binned and marked at the factory for this. I can't quite explain the W, but it otherwise fits.

[@ScottieNiven]

There is a piece of software called "Driver Identifier" that may be able to find a driver for the camera.

[@SO_DIGITAL]

the big round multipin connector looks like a plug Sony used on their Trinicon camera

[@rich1051414]

Ha, love allen keyed screws for how hard it is to strip them, but man can they hold on with all their strength to the key.

[@AUSTORMCHASERS]

Hope your personal high speed camera is still in production. Aka, want. Merry Xmas

[@tesla500]

+AUSTORM CHASERS Still in progress, hope to do a kickstarter early next year.

[@AUSTORMCHASERS]

+tesla500 excellent news mate

[@felixhirt9284]

Hi! I just got a Phantom v7.3 from ebay... I didn't watch the whole video, so sorry if this has already been answered: At the homepage of vision research you can download the PCC software. included is a helpfile "camera.pdf", with all the pinouts for ethernet, capture connector etc... AFAIK PCC software still supports phantom v4.1, and the best part is: its free! At least, i can add a simulated v4 camera, i guess thats a good sign ;-) the v4.1 is marked as obsolete, and they define this as "These products no longer receive full support from Vision Research. All development has stopped and no new features will be added. No service contracts will available."

[@tesla500]

+Felix Hirt Thanks for the suggestions! I did find the software there, but it wouldn't work properly on my computer. I got an older version thanks to Aimed Research, which did work. I'm curious, how much was the V7.3? Was it hard to find on ebay? The last time I saw one of those on ebay was a few years ago.

[@felixhirt9284]

+tesla500 hi! sorry for my late answer.... i paid 300€ for it. and i got 2 v4.3 too. one defective, with low chance of repair. 100€. half a year ago, i got a MotionPro X4 for 120€. I filmed the 3 videos in my channel with it. currently, i am building high power lamps, and my very own destruct-o-tron ;-) Finding these things was remarkably easy, as i didnt really LOOK for it. i just sort of... stumbled over the camera. and the last thing i was expecting, was to find a second one! I didn't make more videos in lack of both time and light source... But the v7.3 got some weird defect: (bought it as "stripes in picture") the lower 60 pixels (yes, 60, NOT 64!) looks like this: hxxp://www.fingers-welt.de/imghost/up/20160229_1416__91-21-253-16_abladertmp-5.jpg (its a picture of a chair) it only occurs on contrasts. if the picture is unsharp or uniform, there is no defect. the stripe always uses the same Area, so with smaler ROI, the stripe gets larger. with 512x256, the camera is entirly useless, as the stripe fills the entire picture. at first, i thought, maybe its defect RAM, but i swapped all the RAM-bars already. fault is persistent. i can only guess, that the fault does occur somewehere on the interface board, as the live picture on FBAS-out is perfect. no fault. i guess, that it must have something to do with Ethernet. i want to write to vision research, maybe they have some information that could help.

[@dzweben]

Great teardown, very interesting.

[@scissorfightmedia]

I know this video is old now, but you showed something that may be helpful to me. I have an NAC Memrecam K4 High Speed camera. It has a "D-VGA" output for a proprietary round 16 pin connector that is used with a custom made monitor. My understanding is that there is a composite NTSC signal also within those pins. This is what made your video such an incredible find! Could you please tell me how you safely sniffed for the NTSC video signal with a scope? Did you actually attach to the main power ground? If the board DID, in fact, have isolated ground, where would you attach? The camera actually has Ethernet (100B-T) and Fibre Channel FCAL for computer control and capture. I've successfully built a workstation that can communicate with the camera (FCAL) however, the settings are somewhat unknown (IP address and CID). That brings me to the NTSC Composite signal... If I could see the display, I could get the IP address and CID of the unit (it's a static IP). Once I have that, the full operation of the camera would finally be available. This is incredibly similar to your setup, and you managed to find that signal fairly quickly... Lucky you. Would you mind giving me a little advise on how I might proceed? Amazing videos BTW!

[@MaxKoschuh]

Great upload. Worth watching.

[@JaredReabow]

is that RAM slot is a standard socket could you try some large capacity ram in it?

[@Megabean]

That's a really cool piece of kit. Hope you find the required drivers and software.

[@mfx1]

Top tip for hot snot, apply a little Isopropyl alcohol to it and it will lose it's adhesion, become brittle and be easy to pull off cleanly.

[@SuperTOBcarioca]

Soo nice. KZbin VIDEO 60fps very smooth. Phantom V4.1 high-speed (128x32 32051fps). ultra slow motion.

[@pvc988]

Samsung parts at 16:40 are 256Kx16 SRAM chips.

[@aknewhope]

I believe those connectors are made by Amphenol. They have many subdivisions, so find their main website and it should lead you to the right place.

[@Leonelf0]

+tesla500 any tips on how to develop an embedded system (e.g. raspberry-pi-ish thingie)? Did you just lookup the pinout of the processor and connect ram etc according to the pinout? Or did you learn specific stuff?

[@tesla500]

+TheTrueM3ga Kind of hard to write this in a summary, you could write a series of books on the subject. Basically, look at product overviews to select a chip that does what you want, then design a board taking a lot of guidance from the reference designs, dev board, and datasheets/technical manuals. Once your board is done, you need to port the PSP (platform support package) that includes the operating system and drivers to work on your particular hardware configuration. For example, on my camera, I had to change some serial port settings in low level boot so the boot messages would go out the right port, since my pinout was different from the dev board that the PSP was written for. Porting the PSP can range anywhere from minor modifications taking a few weeks, to something like the raspberry Pi OS that probably took thousands of hours of work to complete.

[@Johnsmith-wh1sx]

I wonder if you could use that full sensor

[@naeemmaqbool4804]

you can check the pin description from the manual and make your own cable as well.

[@blakephillips8891]

I wonder if u could find a 1-2 gig ram stick to put in there. Would it be a lot faster or the same?

[@charleshodge9807]

Hey man are you the one who had a a f425 esc with a regulator problem on 2 escs.?Ha e same problem but with all 4 on a brand new one that has never powered .Just wondering if u ever fixed it.

[@TheShivABC]

That looks like you could theoretically add boards to this, I know it wouldnt fit in the small casing but if you made a custom housing for it then maybe you could add a few more boards for memory expansion?

[@DanFrederiksen]

Interesting to see, funny oversize packages. But at 1000fps 512 aren't there cheap consumer alternatives today? it has to be pretty precious to be worth getting involved with win98 today :)

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

34:06 surprise

[@Phoen1x883]

+Justin Bell Suddenly, ponies. I was wondering if anyone else noticed it.

[@1ajs]

seen those memory sticks befor in industrial equipment

[@RobertLukierski]

Thanks for the teardown. Nice piece of kit. Manufacturer's software would be the best, but give linux libdc1394 a try. If the camera conforms to IIDC/DCAM standard you might at least get some basic functionality, maybe even full frame rate / resolution via Format7. damien.douxchamps.net/ieee1394/cameras/ A lot of FireWire machine vision cameras that I've used (although not of high speed variety) work with libdc1394 + coriander pretty well. Also, in theory (specification), FireWire could power this camera, but I'm not sure if it is wired that way (or if your host controller can provide that much power). The sensor might be 1MPix, but it can also be that they cover the bottom (where the readout is) and operate it in a manner similar to frame transfer CCDs?

[@thomasguillory410]

I THINK I've seen those double-height so-dimms before, maybe on older RAID cards? I really want to say that I had a Dell PERC card with one like that at some point. And yeah, the back of that image sensor looks like a Pentium Pro!

[@kyoudaiken]

I see cat, I upvote!

[@mfx1]

I'm guessing they would have machine the case out of thick walled U section extrusion rather than a solid block.

[@andreabak]

At the end of the video it looks like you put the camera back together with the mask in front of the sensor. Could it be that the smaller image being displayed on the screen was also due to that? If the sensor was actually higher resolution than the specified output of the camera, maybe removing the mask would also produce a higher resolution output on the NTSC out signal? Unless they cropped that out via software also for that NTSC output. But why would NTSC output be that small of a window (unless it has something to do with your setup) if they knew they were going to crop the rest out, wouldn't they zoom it to full size? Could that NTSC output never have been intended for customer use? Someone please stop me, I'm speculating away here...

[@Spirit532]

+andreabak That output was intended for customer use, the connector shows a breakout. But the mask on the sensor is probably designed that way, to cut off a part of the sensor. The output you see is that small because the camera is set to a very high frame rate, as he mentions in the video - over 7kfps, when he looks at the strobe signal.

[@JaredReabow]

is this the camera I emailed you about when I found it on eBay ?

[@tesla500]

Hmm, I don't recall getting an email, when did you send it?

[@JaredReabow]

+tesla500 14th november, this is the link: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NAC-HSV-200-High-Speed-Colour-Camera-/351576318521?hash=item51db94e239:g:qykAAOSw~bFWL5me obviously not the same camera haha

[@coondogtheman]

Looks like those RAM modules are laptop Modules. I wonder if you find one that fits say 4GB and throw it in here and get 16 seconds of recording.

[@nathandean1687]

kool tatulom caps / compenants. those are worth more than gold is per pound.

[@fknrdcls]

Chassis looks die cast to me, the die would have been machined, hence the markings. You could definitely buy DIMMs like that for PCs back in the day.

[@boonedockjourneyman7979]

Mike’s point, I called a friend. All they’d say is “contact the lab library/museum/visitor center.” Interesting. Known them a long time. Classified?

[@pmkwiek]

using device manager, in that screen you were at, find something along the lines of venXXXX and devXXXX and use PCIdatabase.com? to search drivers using either ven or dev (vendor or device ids,). pro tip also helps with other unknown devices

[@alexsimonetti8522]

1024x1024 is 4 times the resolution of a 512x512 camera.

[@cnxunuo]

i think trying out the RS422 command will be more useful and straight forward, i did it on my photron camera, and uses STM32+touch screen to make a control pad in less then a week....i just sent my teardown and test shot to ur hotmail, abt 4G on my onedrive with share link.

[@LiquidSnake1988]

Can anyoen hear me out, Im looking for away to extend the battery life of my Fujitsu F02D Flip Phone (Refer to Google Image). Im looking for a battery that would fit into my phone or is there online company that would like to make one for me. I dont i care if it cost $500 as long as it wil llast 3-5 days!. Or is even possible to make one? any info related to my request pls?

[@thetezz0001]

didn't realise how many board' would be in that wow

[@wareznorth]

The current version of their software may work, theres a firmware list with compat cameras www.highspeedcameras.com/Service-Support/Downloads/Details/ID/349

[@aserta]

I wonder if Gavin Free from Slomoguys has worked with one of these in his earlier days, it is a phantom after all.

[@LyokoisGreat2]

i was thinking the same thing and most likely has

[@beamboi2775]

I have this camera I use it a lot

[@tesla500]

Cool! What do you use it for? Is it for work or personal things?

[@beamboi2775]

tesla500 I use it for fire works

[@beamboi2775]

And I use it for fun

[@gamerpaddy]

the driver for the unknown device you can find here: binarydb.com/driver/Ricoh-1394-OHCI-Compliant-Host-Controller-v291147.html as software i would try WinDV Could you remove the plastic cover on the sensor and try live video signal again? maybe the whole sensor is used in live preview.

[@TheEPROM9]

Going to have to set up an eBay watch list.

[@emerybryant]

that ram module looks like a custom ram module lol looks like they double stacked the chips instead of running them in a straight line.

[@douro20]

Nowadays these things would be packed full of custom chips, all of which are industrial or military temperature grade, and the memory would be custom industrial flash made entirely to their specs.

[@petarpetrovic6590]

+douro20 Not even today no one would use custom parts (and now all is made off the shelf parts) only difference now they would put custom markings on off the shelf parts. For product like this it is stupid to develop custom parts, they are not made in big enough quantities to justify making custom parts (only price of starting production of single custom part is in order of 1M$ so that would make product too expensive on quantities that it will be sold).

[@ozonozonoski2363]

34:09 CAT////////////////// :)

[@baksban74]

i watch it today, maybe a hour ago, then i watch other videos in russian, and then i clicked on english speaker video and i forgot, was this video on russian or english=D

[@zufalls]

34:06 :D :D :D

[@ernststavroblofeld1961]

Ah. A Mexican camera. Yes they make good things.

[@ismaelgoldsteck5974]

why isn't it possible to record high-speed with a normal sensor?

[@Spirit532]

+Walter Spurer Speed of the ADCs, light sensitivity(and/or gain), noise, clock rates.

[@sugarbooty]

It won't be able to pick up enough light, when you go at a higher framerate there's less time for photons to hit the sensor. In slowmo cameras, the sensors are bigger to have more area per pixel to pick up more light. Even then, you need a lot of light for slowmo shots

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

have a chat with Grant Immaharra he should have what you are looking for as they use high speed video cameras.

[@zakathzakath6184]

Tesla500 30 Days Aros Challenge! You have to build it from old computer parts! Would you take it?

[@IIThund3rII]

70,000th view!!! :D

[@Peewee0413]

the old camera had better resolution than this video?

[@albear972]

Someone who worked at Sandia National Laboratories must have gotten a five finger discount and then dumped it on e-Bay. What secret stuff would this camera have filmed?

[@Razor2048]

Why was it so expensive? that device couldn't have cost more than the $200-300 range when it was first released.

[@kilrahvp]

+Razor2048 LOL.

[@Spirit532]

+Razor2048 The sensor alone cost a good few thousand. So did the RAM.

[@Inesophet]

warranty voided...

[@htwt]

deeaa ;)

[@stargazer7644]

Zero anti-static precautions. Sigh.

[@Aff3ct000]

Just a shit-ton of RAM, I assume.

[@nativetexan5457]

lol. no...firewire was never popular. It was as popular as HD DVD and LaserDisc

[@nathandean1687]

JUST GOOGLE THE SOFT WARE

[@gustavgnoettgen]

High speed, as if. 37 minutes in real time footage 🤦‍♂️

[@jovanjanevski3747]

You paid 150$ for useless junk.

[@WolfmanDude]

+Jovan Janevski Also have you seen the ending? The thing works!

[@jovanjanevski3747]

Okay little fella, calm down, The Fuher is just sleeping.