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John Larkin
Guest
Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:53 pm
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
Rich Webb
Guest
Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:34 pm
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
<jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
I keep looking for a good enough excuse... TEquipment.net has the FLIR
I7 for about $2000 and it has just enough resolution / minimum focus
distance to put one 0805 into one pixel, which seems to be about the
threshold of usefulness.
--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA
Guest
Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:44 pm
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
<jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
Robert Macy
Guest
Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:49 pm
On Jan 12, 12:53 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
Doesn't CenTec, out of China, make a thermal imager for REALLY cheap,
as I recall $299 or such.
John Larkin
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 12:26 am
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
Quote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
miso
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:44 am
On 1/12/2012 11:53 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Quote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
In the dark ages, at least for chips, we used liquid crystals to find
hot spots. If the device on the chip wasn't getting hot enough for a
phase change, you would bring a soldering iron nearby to "prime the pump".
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 9:50 am
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:44:22 -0800, miso <miso_at_sushi.com> wrote:
Quote:
On 1/12/2012 11:53 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
In the dark ages, at least for chips, we used liquid crystals to find
hot spots. If the device on the chip wasn't getting hot enough for a
phase change, you would bring a soldering iron nearby to "prime the pump".
I also use a hot spot finder with audible enunciator...
If the component is very hot when the finger-probe is drug over the
top of the hot part, it emits a loud "OUCH !"
boB
Robert Macy
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:25 pm
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
Did you calculate the chip temperature?
Everybody seems to forget that it's temperature rise ABOVE ambient!
The concept was reinforced for me once when the office got to 90 and
the rise above ambient for the monitor went beyond that to provide a
'burn' on my arm as I laid it across the top of the monitor
Temp all adds up.
John Larkin
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:30 pm
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:25:35 -0800 (PST), Robert Macy
<robert.a.macy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
That may be a little deceiving. The PCB itself is fairly reflective at
thermal wavelengths; copper is an almost perfect mirror at thermal
wavelengths, so some of what you see is the reflection of ambient,
specifically the ceiling of my office on July 21. That's the big
gotcha with thermal imaging or thermometry: if the object's emissivity
is not 1.0, what you see is some mixture of actual object temperature
and reflections from elsewhere.
Two tricks: dab the object with black whiteboard marker, or put a bit
of Kapton tape on it. Both are almost black at thermal wavelengths.
The epoxy used to encapsulate transistors is pretty good as regares
emissivity. The point of that photo was that one transistor of the
pair can get pretty hot without much warming the other.
Quote:
Did you calculate the chip temperature?
No, I was just interested in differentials.
John
qrk
Guest
Fri Jan 13, 2012 7:46 pm
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
<jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We use the Fluke TiS ($2500) which has a focus control. Allows you to
get within 6 inches of the subject. This works nicely for electronics
and is an invaluable troubleshooting tool as well as sussing out heat
issues in new designs. The FLIR cheapo model has fixed focus which
limits the closest useable distance.
Fluke claims the image is a 120x120 pixel image. If you process their
image file, you'll find the image is really 160x120 pixels.
Guest
Sat Jan 14, 2012 1:40 am
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:30:01 -0800, John Larkin
<jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Quote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:25:35 -0800 (PST), Robert Macy
robert.a.macy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
That may be a little deceiving. The PCB itself is fairly reflective at
thermal wavelengths; copper is an almost perfect mirror at thermal
wavelengths, so some of what you see is the reflection of ambient,
specifically the ceiling of my office on July 21. That's the big
gotcha with thermal imaging or thermometry: if the object's emissivity
is not 1.0, what you see is some mixture of actual object temperature
and reflections from elsewhere.
Speaking of reflection and emissivity, do you have a good idea for
what the emissivity adjustment of say, a TO-220 mounting tab should
be ??
boB
K7IQ
Quote:
Two tricks: dab the object with black whiteboard marker, or put a bit
of Kapton tape on it. Both are almost black at thermal wavelengths.
The epoxy used to encapsulate transistors is pretty good as regares
emissivity. The point of that photo was that one transistor of the
pair can get pretty hot without much warming the other.
Did you calculate the chip temperature?
No, I was just interested in differentials.
John
miso
Guest
Sat Jan 14, 2012 3:14 am
On 1/13/2012 12:50 AM, boB wrote:
Quote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:44:22 -0800, miso<miso_at_sushi.com> wrote:
On 1/12/2012 11:53 AM, John Larkin wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
In the dark ages, at least for chips, we used liquid crystals to find
hot spots. If the device on the chip wasn't getting hot enough for a
phase change, you would bring a soldering iron nearby to "prime the pump".
I also use a hot spot finder with audible enunciator...
If the component is very hot when the finger-probe is drug over the
top of the hot part, it emits a loud "OUCH !"
boB
I was thinking for board level use, there should be some device to wave
over components. It would have to be fast, not a thermal couple. Maybe
PIR film.
John Larkin
Guest
Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:18 am
On 13 Jan 2012 18:40:25 -0600, boB wrote:
Quote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:30:01 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:25:35 -0800 (PST), Robert Macy
robert.a.macy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
That may be a little deceiving. The PCB itself is fairly reflective at
thermal wavelengths; copper is an almost perfect mirror at thermal
wavelengths, so some of what you see is the reflection of ambient,
specifically the ceiling of my office on July 21. That's the big
gotcha with thermal imaging or thermometry: if the object's emissivity
is not 1.0, what you see is some mixture of actual object temperature
and reflections from elsewhere.
Speaking of reflection and emissivity, do you have a good idea for
what the emissivity adjustment of say, a TO-220 mounting tab should
be ??
The metal part? It's so reflective that an e correction probably isn't
worth trying. Put a dab of black whiteboard marker on it, or a piece
of electrical tape.
Measuring the epoxy body shouldn't be bad.
Or use a thermocouple!
John
mike
Guest
Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:43 am
John Larkin wrote:
Quote:
On 13 Jan 2012 18:40:25 -0600, boB wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:30:01 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:25:35 -0800 (PST), Robert Macy
robert.a.macy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
That may be a little deceiving. The PCB itself is fairly reflective at
thermal wavelengths; copper is an almost perfect mirror at thermal
wavelengths, so some of what you see is the reflection of ambient,
specifically the ceiling of my office on July 21. That's the big
gotcha with thermal imaging or thermometry: if the object's emissivity
is not 1.0, what you see is some mixture of actual object temperature
and reflections from elsewhere.
Speaking of reflection and emissivity, do you have a good idea for
what the emissivity adjustment of say, a TO-220 mounting tab should
be ??
The metal part? It's so reflective that an e correction probably isn't
worth trying. Put a dab of black whiteboard marker on it, or a piece
of electrical tape.
Measuring the epoxy body shouldn't be bad.
Or use a thermocouple!
John
Back in the day, I was using a thermal imager to find board shorts.
If you spray foot powder on the board, it becomes uniformly emissive
and much easier to diagnose.
I was elated until I discovered that I couldn't get the foot powder off
the board. Bummer. But at least, the board never suffered from
athelete's foot.
John Larkin
Guest
Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:57 am
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:43:41 -0800, mike <spamme9_at_gmail.com> wrote:
Quote:
John Larkin wrote:
On 13 Jan 2012 18:40:25 -0600, boB wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:30:01 -0800, John Larkin
jjlarkin_at_highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:25:35 -0800 (PST), Robert Macy
robert.a.macy_at_gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 12, 4:26 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On 12 Jan 2012 16:44:01 -0600, boB wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:53:37 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
Thermal imagers, from Fluke, Flir, and Wahl, have come down hugely in
price in the last couple of years, with decent looking units around
$2500 now. An imager is a fabulous tool to have around.
John
We have a FLIR E40 which are around $4K The E30 is cheaper
and most likely would have sufficed but there were evidently none in
stock at the time. The first thing we found that was absolutely
necessary was the manual focus adjustment.
We looked at an imager over 10 years ago and it was around $50K and
probably not as good as today's instruments.
It is truly a wonderful instrument for production and engineering.
boB
K7IQ
We have an E45, which we paid about $12K for a few years ago. It has a
close-up lens that will resolve the hot-spot temp on an 0603 resistor.
I wish we'd paid less for it, but it was sure worth it.
Our test people use it a lot. If some power supply is being bogged
down, just peep the board and see what chip is running hot.
It's great for stuff like this:
ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/UPA800_80mW_one-side.jpg
That's a dual transistor that, thermally, isn't much better than two
separate transistors.
John
Wow! almost 90F background. Seems a little warm already, no wonder the
transistor went up to 50+C
That may be a little deceiving. The PCB itself is fairly reflective at
thermal wavelengths; copper is an almost perfect mirror at thermal
wavelengths, so some of what you see is the reflection of ambient,
specifically the ceiling of my office on July 21. That's the big
gotcha with thermal imaging or thermometry: if the object's emissivity
is not 1.0, what you see is some mixture of actual object temperature
and reflections from elsewhere.
Speaking of reflection and emissivity, do you have a good idea for
what the emissivity adjustment of say, a TO-220 mounting tab should
be ??
The metal part? It's so reflective that an e correction probably isn't
worth trying. Put a dab of black whiteboard marker on it, or a piece
of electrical tape.
Measuring the epoxy body shouldn't be bad.
Or use a thermocouple!
John
Back in the day, I was using a thermal imager to find board shorts.
If you spray foot powder on the board, it becomes uniformly emissive
and much easier to diagnose.
I was elated until I discovered that I couldn't get the foot powder off
the board. Bummer. But at least, the board never suffered from
athelete's foot.
Snow has an emissivity of almost 1. Maybe sprinkling snow on a board
is the way to go.
John
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