FLIR T4325ZS 320x240 25Hz PTZ cheap on eBay UK - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2021, 01:02:47 pm
content: There have been a few T4325ZS PTZ cameras on eBay (UK) recently from different sellers, seemingly concentrated around the Leeds / Rotherham area. They are on sale at about £650, which is a bargain. I managed to get one for significantly less than that because it was up for auction and nobody else bid!What I received was a brand new, factory sealed box with a very nice T4325ZS (320 x 240, 25Hz) thermal camera with integrated pan/tilt mount, cables and so on - it even included rawlbolts for mounting to a wall. The cameras work as IP, analogue or MPX (don't know what that is - can anyone help?) and take Pelco D commands.I cannotvouchfor any of the sellers but Icanconfirm that the cameras do exist because I've now got one. I believe FLIR has discontinued them, but given that the original list price was in the region of US$4,000, even paying £650 is a bargain and several have changed hands nearer the £400 mark.That is an absolute steal.When time permits I will post some photos and screendumps etc, but it's not likely to be for a few days at least.

author: Hydron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2021, 07:49:41 pm
content: Can't argue that it's a good price even at 650, if I didn't already have some CCTV cores then I'd be interested myself (my highest priority is to get a decent radiometric core).The "MPX" thing is an awful halfway step along the path from SD analogue CCTV to HD IP cameras - it is an analogue HD resolution composite video signal, I believe with some cable equalisation based on high frequency content (i.e. it guesses, and often gets it wrong). I've worked with the similar "HDTVI" and it deserves to die in a fire from what I saw.

author: Chanc3
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2021, 05:55:47 am
content: Ah I was watching that to see how much it'd go for and apparently, not a lot! Will see what happens to the current listings and see if they drop any more.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 12:29:36 pm
content: Hi, have you managed to get some photos of this yet?Im interested in getting one to work as cctv overlooking our smallholding. Weve had equipment stolen and cctv cameras installed on each of our buildings vandalised, so are looking into getting something that we can use and mount on the house which allows us to cover the entire area. Will this pick up people from a distance or does it only do close in work?One listing claims it will work with a standard ptz controller- is this plug and play or will i need computer language skills?Thanks

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 02:14:31 pm
content: Hi HappyhalfUnfortunately I haven't yet had the opportunity to do much with the camera apart from confirm that it works. Picture quality looks good, on the basis of what I saw. The camera assembly is about the size of a football and came with a wall mount.I don't have any experience with PTZ but from what I've heard it's simply a matter of connecting two wires between the controller and camera. It's one of those rare cases when technology from lots of different companies is interoperable and 'just works'.Without knowing details of your location I can't specifically advise on range and so on but if it's any help here's a test I did as few years ago with a generally comparable camera. The FLIR has a 19mm lens so is roughly equivalent to the bottom row of images. Please only look at the at relative sizes of the person at 10 paces and 100 paces; other aspects of the image quality arenotdirectly comparable. In particular, the image contrast is substantially worse than you'd expect to see from the FLIR PTZ camera.If you click on the images you'll go to a page that describes the test in much more detail, and have access to the original high resolution images.You may also find this informative. The 19mm-lens camera image was dropped over a phone camera image at exactly the right size to show the relative field of view. Again, click through for more info.I just realised I made those images some seven years ago. Time flies!

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 02:43:23 pm
content: This is the kind of image quality youcanget from a good quality uncooled LWIR camera like the FLIR PTZ we're discussing.This sample is actually fractionally higher resolution than you'd get from the FLIR but it is representative of that class of imager under good conditions.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 03:32:48 pm
content: This is representative of the image you might get. The person (red arrow) was behind a thin wintry hedge, not visible to the naked eye (but also not trying to conceal themselves either). Distance from camera about 30m.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 03:42:51 pm
content: Thanks to both of you. Looks like it may do the trick- with zoom identifying targets will be easier. I was looking at a flir photon on ebay with a 50mm lens but someone snatched it up. At least this has a wsterproof housing.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 04:06:02 pm
content: If you're thinking about putting a thermal camera outside then I would absolutely recommend you buy one specifically designed for the purpose otherwise damp will get in and wreak expensive havoc.One exception is that the ex Fire Service cameras (Argus 2, Argus 3) are designed to be waterproof (and even fireman-proof), but they're relatively bulky and it would be a pig of a job to fashion a swivel & tilt mount. Also, on eBay (UK) they have a habit of being priced way beyond their real value.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 04:22:20 pm
content: Hi sorry so is this t4325zs not okay to put outside then?I figured as its a "cctv" camera it would be.Do you know what cores are in the argus's and if these are capable of the same or better distances?!There is an argus 4 on ebay at the moment and seller has sent an offer.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 04:44:14 pm
content: The FLIR T4325ZS is designed for outdoor mounting in unprotected locations.You'll find a lot of information on the Argus cameras (and many, many others) on this site: I encourage you to look around. Information specific to the Argus cameras can also be found atwww.fire-tics.co.uk.£1000 for an Argus 4 would be a great priceifit was in the UK (or even in the EU). Leaving aside such niceties as import duty and VAT, do not underestimate the legal issues surrounding the international transfer of high resolution high frame rate thermal cameras. There are a whole load of arms limitation treaties that you would do well to read about before considering attempting to buy a thermal imager from beyond the UK. It even makes no difference that the camera was originally designed and built in the UK. Personally, I wouldn't touch a high-tech thermal camera that was supposed to be coming from India. Even if it wasn't from a seller with nearly 5000 items on offer and yet has fewer than 20 feedback ratings as either a buyer or seller in the last 6 months.I know I sound like a drama queen but peoplehavegone to jail for sending thermal cameras across borders.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 05:21:08 pm
content: No you are quite right to be wary and your advice about importing is welcomed. I want to catch theives not end up in jail myself.Ok so it sounds like the t4325zs is perfect of it is okay for outside use. Thanks for your help.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 08:45:02 pm
content: Just for clarity, I'm not suggesting anything has been stolen. The laws around 'dual use' (ie half-decent) thermal cameras are strict and have little to do with actual ownership.I have an American-made science-grade thermal camera that I bought secondhand, quite properly, here in the UK. But if I had bought exactly the same make and model of camera in exactly the same used condition, in person, in the USA, I would be in for a world of pain, particularly if I tried to bring it to the UK for my own use. We're talking massive fines and serious jail time. If a US Citizen bought it for their own use in the USA, that would be OK. But if my American friend bought it - perfectly legally - in the USA and then mailed it to me,theywould be in for the big fines and jail time.It's a strange world and it isn't just the USA who plays hardball. Have a look round this forum for "Wassenar", "ITAR", "EAR".I'm not trying to scare anyone for the sake of it. I'm just trying to make it abundantly clear that the Powers That Be tend to control decent thermal cameras with the same zeal as, say, nuclear weapons. (An exception seems to be anything manufactured in China, because the Chinese seem much more relaxed about selling their home-grown technology - but you can still get into trouble with (eg) the UK authorities for exporting a Chinese-designed and Chinese-made thermal camera to places like, er, China. Go figure.)

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 08:50:03 pm
content: I bought one of these - only had a very brief play, but definitely NOT suitable for outdoor use.

author: Bill W
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2021, 09:35:28 pm
content: Quote from: Happyhalf on June 08, 2021, 04:22:20 pmIf I can be forgiven a website plug, seewww.fire-tics.co.ukAll Argus fire cameras are 50 degree horizontal field of view, as are similar cameras from ISG / Bullard etc give or take a bit.Argus2 and Argus3 are Raytheon BST 320x240 30HzArgus4 is e2v own design electronics with ULIS sensors, but which sensor that is varies with model significantly.As for that camera on eBay...AVOID I will start a new threadBill

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2021, 01:06:29 am
content: What makes you say that?Ive read they are ip66 rated, which would suggest otherwise.Please do share, it may be cheap in the world of thermal imagers but £600 is still alot of money to pay if i kill it by putting it outside.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2021, 09:18:29 am
content: Just took another look, and actually looks rather better than I first thought, and there isn't an IP rating in the label or included leaflets.The "ball" appears fairly well sealed - water could get in the gap between the ball and the side pieces, but presumably the bearings are reasonably well sealed - seems to be quite a lot of grease.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 04:47:34 am
content: Sorry to pester again guys.Ive noticed the camera runs on 24vac.It was my intention to run this on the security sytem we already have- which is seperate from the mains as we suffer from powercuts often.Is it possible to power this from a 12v battery bank or would i need a converter of some sort. Cheers.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 08:42:08 am
content: Quote from: Happyhalf on June 11, 2021, 04:47:34 amIt will run on 24VDC

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 12:51:05 pm
content: Do you know what kind of amp 12v to 24v step up id need?Would 10 amps do it or do i need more. Cheers pal

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 12:56:31 pm
content: Takes under 1 amp at 24V

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 01:18:25 pm
content: Supurb. Thanks.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2021, 03:34:40 pm
content: There are plenty of step-up voltage converters on eBay and suchlike. Just make sure you choose one rated at least twice the power the camera needs. eBay watts are at least twice the size of engineering watts.A 50W converter will be fine. Within reason there's no major downside to having a converter rated at more than you need, but using one that's even fractionally too small is a recipe for pain.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2021, 12:57:59 am
content: Thanks for that- both of you.Ive fallen foul of the ebay watt befpre with a 200w solar panel that was no bigger than a shert of A4 paper.🥴I ordered a 12-24 step up 10amp 72w converter.Given what you say it should hopefully be adequate bit i can test when it arrives to see what it actually is.

author: Happyhalf
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2021, 04:06:43 pm
content: Thought id update this.Camera arrived, and its been hooked up to a monitor to test. Looks good.I bought a ptz control keyboard and it took a day to figure out how to get the two talking but it works. The instructions for the keyboard were all in symbols so many youtube videos later i stumbled across a video that connected a ptz direct to keyboard and a keyboard the same as mine. It worked.Flir do say they have their own gui but its not available anymore due to being discontinued. They called it the flir cloud client and it allowed you to access the camera settings over pc. I found a link hidden in the flir underworld away from the prodyct pages to something called lorax cloud which is essentially the same but for the life of me cant get it to connect to the camera via LAN cable which is supposed to auto detect.So i just have the keyboard.For that you have pan and tilt. Zoom doesnt work and you cant change colours or do anything else.I have asked flir for more information regarding functionality and how i can find a compromise as i dont want to have to set up an entire pc lab to be able to access all the needed, basic functions like pan tilt zoom and colour pallete. So far getting help from them has been rarer than hens teeth.Ive seen push button controllersfor zoom and colourbeing advertised here for the flir photon and have to say that having such a functionality for this camera combined with the ptz joystick would be excellent. Its well outside of my capabilities though.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 03, 2021, 02:21:19 pm
content: At long last I have gotten round to getting out my TCX camera, giving it volts and connecting it to the local area network so that I can share some images.Here's a view of the camera and supplied mount propped up on some shelves in my workroom, plus a view from the camera when I temporarily hung it out of an upstairs window. For scale, the red X would be about 100m away if it was actually nailed to that building. People moving around are perfectly visible at that distance although they don't come out too well in stills. I estimate you'd see people at up to about 200m.Video looks quite highly processed, though there are all sorts of tweaks you can do via a browser in the (quite comprehensive) user interface.I'm pretty certain the native resolution of the camera is 320x240, although the streaming software would have you believe it's actually 640x512.I have had it running successfully on one of the Arbor tablets (Win XP) from Fraser using the browser K-melion (no, I hadn't heard of it either, but it came up when I searched for a more-modern browser for XP).

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 03, 2021, 02:58:00 pm
content: And, since so many of you didn't ask, here's a shot of the UI running on the Arbor tablet in its chunky docking unit.I don't know why it has such a bright pinkish light on the dock and I haven't yet found out how to switch it off. My guess is that it provided some ambient light when the tablet was in use by a patient's bedside - but it switches off the moment you shut down the tablet or remove it from its cradle. And it's not a 'battery charging' light either.I might have to resort to reading the manual

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 03, 2021, 06:05:30 pm
content: That is absolutely a QVGA image, way too fuzzy to be VGA.

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 03, 2021, 06:17:18 pm
content: Quote from: ArsenioDev on August 03, 2021, 06:05:30 pmThe real joke is that the camera streams it at 1280x1024.

author: ArsenioDev
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2021, 03:35:32 pm
content: w...why? that's painful

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2021, 04:13:09 pm
content: I don't really know why. I believe there's a version of the camera that has a 640x512 sensor so one can sort-of see why a 2:1 upscale might make (marketing?) sense, but the aspect ratio of 320x240 simply doesn't play nicely with an upscale to 1280x1024.If anyone knows the answer then I'd be fascinated to learn the reason.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2021, 10:09:21 pm
content: This is CCTV so some standardisation in camera resolution between VL and different resolutions of thermal cameras comes into play. The Monitoring station displays the CCTV scenes at 1280x1024 and no matter what camera is viewed, the image fills the display. FLIR have a foot in both the thermal imaging and CCTV camps so such “standardisation” of resolution is possibly to be expected where their CCTV systems are concerned.As a side note, are all 1024 rows used for the streamed image or is it really a 1280 x 960 image plus telemetry in rows 961 to 1024 ?

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2021, 10:42:35 pm
content: Is the camera operating in letterbox mode with 32 pre image blank rows, 960 image rows and 32 post image blank rows ?

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 07:51:53 am
content: Quote from: Fraser on August 04, 2021, 10:42:35 pmNo, there are no telemetry rows or blank lines.It's possible to add telemetry-type info (date, time, your logo, several lines of arbitrary text...) but they are all overlaid in the active image area.I'm using the Arbor tablet to monitor the camera temporarily set up looking at my back garden. As I type this at 8.30 in the morning I saw what initially looked like a fox creeping across the distance. Then I realised that it was an illusion: I'd actually seen a cat, which had been made to look lower and longer than normal by the 4:3 > 16:9 distortion. (She's called Princess Leiaand belongs to a neighbour).

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 09:37:05 am
content: Thanks Ultrapurple. As you say, upscaling 240 image rows to a 1024 row display is an ugly thing to do

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 10:00:22 am
content: Almost as bad as those field scopes that upscale 320x240 or even 640x480 / 512 onto an 800x600 OLED.But not as bad as the manufacturer (who shall remain nameless) whodownscales a 1024x768 sensor onto a display of just 800x480...

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 12:54:23 pm
content: The penalty we have to pay for a pixel based display system rather than ‘gud ol’ anlog’ raster scan systemsI remember my first LCD computer monitor and was horrified at the blurry display until I read the manual and realised that my computers resolution should be set to the LCD panels native resolution. I was used to CRT monitors just auto adjusting to different video card output resolutions with no apparent issues. Relying on an LCD monitors ‘auto adjustment’ compatibility modes creates some pretty nasty results when the source and panel pixels counts are not directly scalable. I heard that some 4K TV’s make a real mess of SD images whereas HD 1080 TV’s manage a decent scaling of SD. Pixels, Pixels, Pixels…… it is all about the pixels

author: Ultrapurple
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2021, 01:11:22 pm
content: Oddly, my 4k TV seems to give a remarkably good picture on normal, 720p, 1080p and 4k material. Much better than its predecessor, which was supposedly full HD but which actually had a slightly-less-than-HD panel (I think it may have been 1680x1050), meaning thatnothinglined up, horizontal or vertical, leading to horribly soft pictures.Before I discovered that Marketing's idea of "Full HD" didn't necessarily mean 1920x1080, I spent endless frustrating hours trying to get a pixel-perfect display out of a Raspberry Pi (back when they were new). It was a lost cause.

author: tommyd
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 07, 2021, 11:26:41 am
content: hi allanyone know what camera core is inside one of thesecheers