what seek camera for home insulation inspection - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: chofroa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 05, 2020, 10:35:02 am
content: Hello,I'm here because I've to look for the defaults of my 30 years old house :. shrinked insulation. wet insulation. thermal bridgesand find where, then how, to improve the house envelop.readinghttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/seek-reveal-pro-ff-review-by-ultrapurple/msg2941380/#msg2941380this one seems attractive but for me, at about 640 € (£570) it's quite an investment !will the quality of this camera improve the precision of the building diagnosis in relation with the price increase, in comparison with the less expansive seek cameras ?any alternative(s) ?thanks in advancechofroa

author: IwuzBornanerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2020, 09:13:28 am
content: Hi chofroa, welcome to the forum.As far as one Seek vs. another...While I do not own a Seek Reveal, I do have 5 Seek Compact "dongles" and from what I have seen posted on this forum the image quality from the Reveal units is very close to if not the same as that of the dongle units. There may be some unit-to-unit variation in both products, though. So if image quality is your only reason for avoiding the Compacts I think you need not be concerned.Beware if you buy used, though. I don't recommend buying any used Seek that was bought new prior 2017 because noise was significantly reduced sometime in 2016.Then you might wonder whether or not you need the higher number of pixels of the Pro vs. the non-pro units. The difference there is detail & field of view. The Pro has about the same field of view as the plain Compact so will provide more detailed images at the same distance from the scene. But the Pro has the same "magnification" as the CompactXR, so the level of detail will be the same as that of the XR at the same distance, but you will get a larger scene (wider field of view) with the Pro (about 50% on each side).I attach a couple examples relevant to your use case. These are images of my cathedral ceiling taken from the Seek app. The outdoor temperature is about 17C cooler than the indoor temperature and you can see the studs in the ceiling as well as some cool spots where there might be less insulation (you also see the heat vents). I have no idea just what the situation is because I cannot access that area above the ceiling. At the bottom (which the forum turned into the top) of the image is the top of the wall between the room and the attic over the garage and you can see some similarly cool areas on the wall. These things show up better with greater temperature difference inside-outside, as you would expect.First the plain CompactThen the ProI'd include one from the XR but it is out on the windowsill keeping an eye on the driveway.It's hard to see a difference between these overly magnified images other than more "crispness" in the Pro image & I'm not sure if that's entirely from the higher pixel count or if I don't have the non-pro focused as well.

author: chofroa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 06, 2020, 09:58:41 am
content: Helloand many many thanks IwuzBornanerd !that's a great help and the compact pro seems to be a good choice for my application with its larger scene compared to the xr.Quotein the price range of the Seek compact pro, any alternative for this application ?

author: IwuzBornanerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 08, 2020, 11:36:43 pm
content: Quote from: chofroa on November 06, 2020, 09:58:41 amI was hoping someone else would respond to this question.I have experience with only Seek thermal cameras so I suggest you use the forum search function to search this board for "Perfect Prime", Xinfrared, & HTI. You will find comments & sample images from several different models. These are from China & some models may be lower cost than Seek. Read spec's. carefully.

author: chofroa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2020, 11:41:27 am
content: Hi IwuzBornanerd !and thanks againone fact of the dongle that bother me is that my android phone, galaxy note 3, has a micro-usb type b, and i didn't succeed in finding an adapted cable. Plus I wonder if it wood be easy to use both phone+dongle-via-cable in a home inspection.will look for the other models you mentioned.

author: kripton2035
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 10, 2020, 01:38:35 pm
content: for me the first price for a good thermal camera is around 1000€, starting with these seek modules around 600€anything less is completely useless to get good pictures and be able to interpret what the camera see...don't forget that 2-3 years ago good thermal camera were around 10000€ !don't go under 320x240 sensor resolution if you want to have something meaningful !

author: chofroa
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2020, 08:32:16 am
content: Hi,Bonjour kripton2035,and thank you !what would be your stand-alone choice for the home insulation/moisture inspection ?