Hikmicro B20 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: matej_cro
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2022, 06:00:01 pm
content: Does anyone have Hikmicro B20 camera here on forum? I was searching for infiray C210 camera, but its not anymore in production, so they advise me for C200 PRO, but infiray response and tehnical support was not good and detailed, so i was looking further and look for Uni-t uti260B and similar... And at the end I order Hikmicro B20 from my local distributor. Price was 720 euro and delivery is 2-3 weeks. So i openanyhis topic to collect useful informations and everything that somebody have. I will give my review when i get it and i will draw and upload .stl for macro lens holder too.https://www.hikmicrotech.com/en/product-c-detail/15

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2022, 09:06:24 pm
content: Hikmicro = HikvisionThis thread may be of interest to you as I would expect the build quality to be the same. The electronics design may also be similar.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/hikvision-ds-2tp31-series-thermal-camera-teardown-307840/Fraser

author: matej_cro
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2022, 09:44:14 pm
content: So overall this camera is blessed by you and pass the testWhen i get mine I will post pictures, videos and info for other.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2022, 10:22:37 pm
content: The Hikvision thermal camera that I have been looking at is certainly well designed and builtThe Fever Detection version that I have tested is not standard in terms of frame rate so I cannot comment on that side of things.Fraser

author: thermalengineer
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2022, 02:33:32 am
content: hikmicro is attached to the parent company hikvision, both of them have very good marketing strategies. Actually hikmicro products need to be more stable in system and algorithm.

author: Thermal Michael
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 21, 2022, 04:03:48 am
content: From the information I learnt, InfiRay C210 is the same thing as InfiRay C200 Handheld Thermal Camera. The only problem here is that the InfiRay C210 is only available in their online stores. And if you want to get an InfiRay C200, then you may have to contact their customer service or your local distributor. As for Hikmicro, I think they are good in some way while their thermal image quality is not as good as InfiRay.

author: matej_cro
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2022, 06:15:45 am
content: I contacted the Infiray... the C210 is not same as C200 or C200 PRO. C210 have 25hz and real time view on PC, C200 is 25hz without PC live view, and C200 PRO iz 20hz with PC live view. Thats the differences i got from Infiray. And tehnician tell me that C210 is discontinued product and it will not be produced anymore. So you can only pick C200 PRO as replacement, but with 5hz less refresh rate.Hikmicro B20 that i buy, have similar specs as C210, but it have additional Wifi and manual temp range, that is very usefull thing to me. I will post later the specs of those 3 that i have.

author: katzenhai2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 01:15:14 am
content: I have a HIKMICRO B20 since a week. My main area of ​​application is to measure theleaf temperatureof orchids in order to be able to recognize stress in advance and counteract before it becomes visible - which is usually too late. Orchids grow very slowly so anearly warning systemis a good idea. I've read about it in various studies. But I'm not quite sure yet if I can get any practical use out of it.I need a thermal camera for thermography (measurement), not for thermo-photography like outdoor hunters. But my budget is limited. At first I thought it should be between 500€ to max. 1.000€. But now after examing the whole field I guess I had to adjust my budget a bit to reality and now it should be no more than 2.500€ which is already big buck for my type of usage. But since you can use it also sometimes in the household (though not regularly) it could pay for itself.Otherwise I have done the natural fun with the device first since this is my first thermal camera and I have to familiarize myself with this measurement technique:- check underfloor heating- get to the bottom of the black spot on the wall above the fridge- fever measurement on people (see vid from FLIR below)- moisture measurements on surfaces- look at the PCB of my fanless PC (and wonder how hot some components can get there)I planned to check my fanless PC since two years ago with a thermal camera when I build it because I was unsure how good it would be for the components without airflow due to the lack of fans in my PC. Well, some chips do get very hot in the process contrary to what the manufacturer of the fanless case stated.I was also very amazed to see how big the temperature differ between an orchid leaf and the soaking wet moss underneath which can be up to 6°C lower due to evaporation.On the subject of "fever measurement" I saw an interesting Youtube video from FLIR:https://youtu.be/uvkh6K_dZqQ?t=1878Interesting the statement that even standard thermal cameras (accuracy +-2°/2%) can sometimes be accurate in the range of 0.3 to 0.5°C if you use them accordingly. Or was that just an attempt to increase general sales?But there is a whole lot about the device (HIKMICRO 20) that bothers me personally which I had already thought about when I was researching thermal cameras in general:- low resolution of 256x192- fixed focus (min. distance 0.15m), could be better- "Fusion" looks very bad. There is a firmware update, but I haven't installed it yet, which should improve it- no removable battery. If I keep the device longer, it could lose battery performance quite quickly- the display quality seems very low: It looks like only 256 colors are displayed while the thermal image on the PC has a higher color bandwidth. You can see real "gradient areas" on the display- Photos are only saved as JPG and not as PNG. The export function in the "HIKMICRO Analyzer" software produces an even worse pictureBy the way I bought aZnSe lens FL 50mmfrom eBay because I read about macro measurements here on the forum. It arrives tomorrow so I'm excited to see what new things I can learn about thermography. Maybe this will also help me to gather some insights into leaf temperatures. So far I had the impression that the B20 didn't get close enough to the leaves.There are also two things that surprised me:- I underestimated the high sensitivity of the device- the connection of the device to the smartphone and the use of the Android app (HIKMICRO Viewer) ran absolutely smoothly!As I have seen there seems to be very slow development in the thermal camera sector. In contrast to the outdoor area where the manufacturers outdo each other at short intervals. The handheld thermal cameras are also more intended for the industry, they are more solvent and less development was needed, higher prices and fewer developments. I'd rather have a 640x480 and possibly interchangeable lenses as well. But all this moves in price regions that will remain closed to me forever. And even if I did: I would never spend that much money on it, somehow the cost-benefit factor is missing. I just hope that there will be some movement here due to the growing outdoor area. There are 640x480 devices running at 50Hz and <25mk NETD for 3.4k. That would still be affordable, but the temperature measurements are missing.Personally I can't do much with smartphone thermal cameras because I want to use my own device and don't want to be dependent on the smartphone. Also the quality seems not to be very decent. I think I will return my device and later choose a HIKMICRO M30 as it has a few advantages:- higher resolution 384x288- manual focus up to 0.7m- replaceable batteries- maybe a better display quality?There is also the FLIR E4 (liberationupdate) with a higher resolution. But after testing the B20 I know I wouldn't be happy with only 9 Hz and it also has only a fixed focus with a wide angle lens.Luckily I found this forum full of thermal camera nerds.Apparently there are many more cameras in the world than I found at first glance. What I learned from the forum so far is that the lens and the focal length play a very important role in the quality of the photos and that the resolution is just another factor.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 06:29:43 am
content: I bought one of the DS-2TP31B fever detection cameras for a delivered cost of £76.I was already testing one for a friend and for less than £80 it is a bargain. It does have limitations in that it has limited displayed temperature range (25 to 50C) and there is some image stacking being used so moving the camera causes unusual pixelation patterns.I bought this camera because it was being offered so cheaply compared to its normal retail price, plus it offers improved temperature accuracy over a generic camera. Stated as +/-0.5C. For anything involving animals it is great. Maybe it would offer something for plant observation as well ? To be noted, the saved images contain the full -20C to + 150C data so may be analysed in the provided free software.Fraser

author: katzenhai2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2022, 02:37:45 pm
content: @Fraser:I saw your post (teardown) for the fever detection camera. Very good work!I only have a problem with the resolution of 160x120. Otherwise the price seems good even if I had to pay 25 euros plus for shipping + taxes to Germany...

author: katzenhai2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 12:56:04 am
content: Here are two examples of how poorly the display resolves the colors on the HIKMICRO B20 (see attachment):One shows how it looks on the display and the other photo as it comes directly from the thermal camera (as JPG).

author: katzenhai2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2022, 10:24:07 pm
content: Example resolution of HIKMICRO B20 with 'ZnSe FL 50.8mm (2")' lens arrived today:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-imaging-gallery-ii/msg4050592/#msg4050592

author: matej_cro
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 03, 2022, 01:38:48 pm
content: I designed and printed macro lens holder for Hikmicro B20. If someone need it download it here or from thingversehttps://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5339476I use 20mm ZnSe lens (50.8mm focal distance)