Thermal Image Camera?

[Lee303]

Hello there,

Does anyone use a thermal image camera to aid diagnosing faulty motherboards?

Kind regards,
Lee

[spidey]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

Hi, i am also thinking about that. if i find a cheap one, i'll buy and try if it works on laptop mobo.

[fddizon]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

spidey,

what tool can you recommend for testing current in mobo?

[digge]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

Never tried it on motherboards but i have on high voltage stuff. Come to think of it i think ill borrow the camera from work this weekend and try it out on a board i have thats acting up.

[spidey]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

A lab type power supply. You can adjust V and current and also screen.

http://www.google.com.cy/imgres?imgu...ed=0CDYQ9QEwAQ

[mariushm]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

Won't find something good under 6-800$ ... and not sure how much one would help you in diagnosing motherboards, considering the boards are 6-10 layers with lots of copper to dissipate the heat.

Flukes are about 1000-1400$, the cheapest... which would probably not give you enough resolution... see http://www.ticameras.co.uk/flir-i3-1.html .. 60x60 pixels...

It would probably make more sense to get a good multimeter, with 50.000 counts or something like that, so that you could spot minute differences in the resistance on the traces to spot what's shorted or partially shorted..

[amstel]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

What do you think about this DIY project?
http://www.cheap-thermocam.tk/

[mariushm]

Re: Thermal Image Camera?

It uses a single infrared sensor, like the text says. At 2-3 meters distance the spot the sensor "measures" is a circle of about 20-40 cm wide.

The camera would make a reasonable image of your room because the servo would move the sensor at various angles and the processor inside would take lots of measurements and merge them to generate each "pixel" in the image.

However, such camera would not have enough precision to generate an image of something close to the camera, like 20-50cm away from camera, it wouldn't work.

Just look at the pictures and the distance the pictures are made from, and how rough the heat map is, you can basically see the "pixels". You wouldn't be able to determine what particular IC on a motherboard is hotter than the rest, it's not that accurate/precise.