Lightweight device to read and record from Seek Thermal Camera? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2022, 11:39:13 pm
content: Introduction: I have Seek Thermal Pro (amazing for it's price) and dji mini 2 drone. I want to try attaching the former to the latter.Mini 2 can carry around 100 grams without too much of an issue (less is better, of course). Seek Thermal Pro by itself weights around 16 grams, so the drone should lift the camera by itself with no problems whatsoever. However, Seek camera dongle will not work without a smartphone (obviously).Now, one way to go about it would be to buy the cheapest lightest android smartphone available (those exist for under 100$ and under 100 grams) and just strip it of everything other than the bare minimum components required to run the camera app. Then strap the resulting abomination to the drone and record away.To clarify: an this point I don't expect and kind of real-time video feed transmission to the ground. Just a setup that would continuously record images in flight and allow you to view said images after landing.My question is, can someone think of a more elegant solution? Would it be plausible to run software required to record data from the Seek camera on something lighter than a (stripped-down) smartphone?Speaking a bit broader — is there some other thermal camera (with comparable image quality and about as expensive as seek thermal pro) that would work notably better for this kind of setup? Perhaps even something easily compatible with lightweight wireless transmission module for real-time video feed to the ground?

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2022, 07:54:02 pm
content: SighUnfortunately due to%current events%you are unlikely to find help.

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2022, 09:16:07 pm
content: Quote from: ArsenioDev on May 16, 2022, 07:54:02 pmYea, looks like I picked the wrong year toquit smokingadd thermal to a drone.On a more serious note, the setup I'm trying to achieve is already widely available inmuchbetter quality for civilian purchase. The only different here is I'm trying to make it happen in a very crude way on a very limited budget.

author: Vipitis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 10:21:08 am
content: if you were to have a core with analog out, you can use any of the cheap and light DVRs that are already used for drones. I don't think there is such a miniature core available with the Seek QVGA sensor and analog out but I might be wrong.There might be some project around where the seek phone dongles work with a single board computer, but I don't know that off the top of my head.

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 10:53:46 am
content: Quote from: Vipitis on May 17, 2022, 10:21:08 amFrom my current understanding, the actual 320×240 imaging core exists in at least 3 products: dongles with usb-c and lighting ports and a stand-alone "Reveal" device (that's smartphone-independent).It does make me wonder, in this context, what exactly is "Reveal" running as the software? Some simplified android build, or something else entirely? And, perhaps more to the point, if whatever "Reveal" uses for software can be extracted and ported to a different platform?

author: tonykids
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 02:56:29 pm
content: You can find the "protocol"(not official) of seek thermal USB some where on githubbut you can not get the accuracy temperature.connect it to raspberry pi zero or other board that running linux and record the raw data on sdcard

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 04:12:30 pm
content: Quote from: Tamiore on May 17, 2022, 10:53:46 amreveal uses a Cortex A8, which seems overkill. No idea what, if any, software platform it runs on.

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 17, 2022, 08:44:47 pm
content: Quote from: tonykids on May 17, 2022, 02:56:29 pmSounds like an interesting option. The funny thing, however, is that — after checking the actual prices for raspberry pi zero — they are somewhatmoreexpensive than the cheapest lightest android phones. And not even that much lighter, it seems, after you add the battery weight in. I guess I'll give those smartphones a try first...

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2022, 06:36:46 pm
content: Ok, so the plot thickens: I went to the nearby electronics store to try out the lightest android phone with the seek pro dongle. (Before buying anything, that is.)Tried out the one shown in the picture: DEXP A440In theory it runs Android 11 Go.In practice it refused to install seek thermal app, siting that "this device is not supported". (Without any explanation as towhythis model was not supported.)And no one in the store could come up with good way to know beforehand which, if any, of the small androids phones WILL support the device.Trying out these github repo's next, I guess.

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 21, 2022, 11:41:28 pm
content: In the meantime, I've asked around and got a fairly old galaxy-something smartphone (that was no longer in use) for free.Guess what? You can strip it down to nothing but the motherboard and it still works! Even after you disconnect the display it keeps recording from the Seek camera.And the motherboard itself is just 14 grams.Trouble is, the stock battery is whopping 42-ish grams. Not the end of the world, I guess, but the Seek camera and the motherboard combined weight around 30 grams, so 42 grams for battery seems like an overkill. So I'm off to hunt for a smaller battery.

author: jonincanada
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 08, 2022, 04:48:11 pm
content: Wow. What galaxy style phone is that? (saves me from trial & error).You know you can run android on a raspberry pi 4...

author: sephalix
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 08, 2022, 08:41:38 pm
content: Quote from: Tamiore on May 15, 2022, 11:39:13 pmA Lepton FS + the DroneThermal board would fit that bill.https://store.groupgets.com/products/dronethermal-v4-micro-uav-thermal-camera-boardhttps://store.groupgets.com/products/teledyne-flir-lepton-fs

author: jonincanada
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 08, 2022, 09:02:50 pm
content: I'm going with a 9 gram raspberry pi zero W (python opencv) + 15g seek pro (320 pixels). Then I can pop the shell off my mavic mini (26g) and still be under the 250g weight "limit".

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2023, 04:22:27 pm
content: Quote from: jonincanada on December 08, 2022, 04:48:11 pmHaven't checked this thread in a while, sorry about that.Long story short: I switched to raspberry PI zero (Version 2 with wifi). All things considered, it proved more practical for the task.Initial tests worked fine-ish. Namely, the camera was working on the drone and all, but there were a few practical problems:- without a custom mount, camera plugged into the board directly was facing downwards, making it rather impractical (effective FOV when facing downwards is the smallest).- custom mount increased usb cable length (or, rather, introduced it), and that, surprisingly, made communication with seek thermal unstable- raspberry PI zero being of top of the drone (where it's easy to mount) interfered with GPS signal reception on the drone itself (making it rather unwise to fly it long distance like that), while sitting at the bottom has other issues (there are sensors at the bottom). Plus, wifi signal from the PI was interfering with signal from the drone in general, reducing it's effective range.- once the snow fell, field tests were put on pause until spring

author: jonincanada
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 08, 2023, 04:30:00 pm
content: Good tip on the gps interference. I'm curious what library you ended up using for the seek<>pi?

author: Tamiore
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2023, 05:04:10 pm
content: Quote from: jonincanada on February 08, 2023, 04:30:00 pmThis one:https://github.com/OpenThermal/libseek-thermal

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 08, 2023, 07:16:04 pm
content: You may want to try the Infiray P2 Pro- much smaller/lighter, better framerate, and works OK on RasPI