FLIR Boson 640 Teardown and USB adapter board - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 05:11:19 pm
content: Got a 9Hz Boson 640, with 40mK NETd option, it was a complete garbage for its price, noticeably noisier compared to Tau2, but make sense for its 12um pitch, just like APS-C vs full frame....

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 05:13:02 pm
content: teardown was easy, dont touch the bond wire

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 05:16:42 pm
content: adaptors boards, dcdc buck from 5 to 3v3superglued to the back, with usb cable epoxy glued to the pcb, plug n play, reg as a webcam

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 05:24:15 pm
content: its truly tiny, but kinda useless for its noise level, comparable to lepton...But in a sunny day, it's still a nice 640x512with photomerge or hugin, can get some nice shots

author: Vipitis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 06:10:32 pm
content: I almost got a Boson640 myself. In the end it was far to difficult(and expensive) to get it here and I dislike that they don't want you to do any lens change. Can you tell the Movidius Myraid2 chip anything or does it just handle the sensor?As we are on the hunt for comparisons on the forum recently, you compared it to a Tau2 and Lepton3. Would you be able to supply us the equally stretched side by side images - should you still have the other cores.

author: Hyper_Spectral
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 06:46:56 pm
content: Did you purchase it as a core..? Why did you need to modify the i/o?

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 07:31:16 pm
content: Only have the boson now, Tau is on loan by DJI,The only thing I can do a comparison shot with, is ULIS Pico 384, which is inside a thermapp.However, although that has similar (a bit worse) performance compared to tau2, there's a much better alternative with extremely low noise, the Chinese made iray t3s (VOx knockoff but somehow managed with better performance) , I will also compare that in the future.If you dont need 12um for lens size, just get a tau2....ignore Boson and other uncooled 12um for now

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 07:32:45 pm
content: As for the movidius, they didn't provide any SDK to me, and I dont expect any machine vision to work properly with only 640x512...

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 07:34:47 pm
content: I purchased it as a assembly with lens, and I didn't modify any IO....its not something worth the time doing. If it's a cooled MWIR I will consider getting a frame grabber of some sort, for this, especially 9Hz, USB seems good enough.

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2019, 11:08:46 pm
content: Comparison: Boson 640 vs Therm-app 384 (which basicly equals to performance of FLIR E4 mod E8)Actually compared to the unusable thermapp, it isnt that bad.Cuz I am currently in the UK, cant get hold of any Chinese knockoff VOx, cant do a comparison yet, but certainly will in the future.

author: mahony
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2019, 06:35:34 pm
content: I assume the ThermApp images are on the left side? Then it looks pretty good in comparison. But I do not like the artifacts produced by the noise suppression / image enhancement especially in the 3rd image - but I think this can be turned off.Anyway - thanks for the images of the disassembled core. I was about to buy a Boson 320 but the sales guys told me about the open bond wires and that they suggest to not change lenses w/o clean room conditions. Interesting to see some details here.

author: Vipitis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2019, 11:21:38 pm
content: I am not that sure about the claim of not switching lenses. If you only unscrew the lens the shutter assembly covers the wires around the sensor. And if your lenses are the same screw mount - this doesn't look like much an issue if you are careful. No window for sure but maybe a shutter wipe could help.

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2019, 04:12:20 am
content: There's a strong spring and 2 very very tight o-ring, the lens seems to be air tight sealed to the body, maybe that's why they dont want people to mess about it although bond wires are covered by shutter assembly, you still can see them between the gaps, which makes poking q tips etc dangerous,but we know what we are doing, why should we care about what flir thinks.....

author: cnxunuo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2019, 04:16:02 am
content: just dont get dust on it, normal household conditions are just fine, if you are careful by operating under common sense, nothing different than a mirrorless camera...Did Sony forbidden its user from changing lens on their a7r3? no...you will see a blob artifact if you got dust onto the sensor, it happened to me at least 5 times, just blow it off and you will be fine.

author: hap2001
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2023, 06:12:46 am
content: Quote from: cnxunuo on May 10, 2019, 11:08:46 pmPictures on the left is better because they show more details.What's the point of "cleaner" images if informations are lost?