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Got a Thermal Camera

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Hon1nbo

Fri Apr 10 2015, 07:59PM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: Pacific Northwest USA
Posts: 1042

Hey all,

I recently got a Thermal Camera to experiment with for my Red Teaming work as a security consultant.
I know it will have a lot more uses than that, ranging from Circuit Board tracing (by heating a trace with an iron or just running the normal operation), to thermal reactions.

Just thought I'd take some suggestions of cool things to try with it. It's not a particularly nice camera, just a Seek camera for my Android phone (I have the one with the zoom).

I know I don't pop into this board as much as I used to, but I figured people here would have the best ideas for putting the thing to use.

Cheers,

-Jim

Mads Barnkob

Sat Apr 11 2015, 08:42AM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

Could you please take pictures of the receptacle / wall plug when you have had common household items running for a few minutes or more.

I would like to see what kind of temperature rise there is from a vacuum cleaner, water boiler, microwave oven at full power and other high power devices.

Maybe if you would do like 1 minutes intervals up to 10 minutes?

Kizmo

Sat Apr 11 2015, 09:26AM

Registered Member #599 Joined: Thu Mar 22 2007, 07:40PM
Location: Northern Finland, Rovaniemi
Posts: 624

Thermal camera is something i have been looking for a while too. Really handy tool when debugging electronics. At least i have been in a situation many times where i can smell something getting hot but i cant find it and its not safe to "probe" things with your finger

Its also great tool for finding short circuits in complex boards. Just run Amp or two of constant current through the shorted rail and see what components/traces heat up :)

You could try how easy it is to actually find short circuits on junk PCBs

Ash Small

Sat Apr 11 2015, 10:24AM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

It's a shame it only goes up to 330 Centigrade.

It may be useful for re-flow work and soldering SMT components, etc.

Presumably you require an Android phone which supports 'USB Host'/'USB OTG'?

(Curiously, all the Android phones I've seen that support USB OTG don't comply with the international USB OTG standard, which states that a micro-USB 'A' plug should be used on the 'host' and a micro-USB 'B' plug on the 'slave', they all seem to have a micro-USB 'B' plug on the host, which doesn't conform to the international standard, so it isn't actually 'USB OTG', they seem to call it 'USB Host' to get around this.)

(The fifth wire on the micro-USB cable is there to identify host and slave)

Conundrum

Fri Apr 17 2015, 05:43PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062

Interesting Ash, thanks!
I've also heard of thermal cameras being used (combined with special infrared transmissive heatsinks) to identify hot spots on GPUs allowing die revisions to be done or turn off particularly hot cores to meet design specifications.
A lot of cheap cards are actually expensive ones in disguise but with substandard coolers and some cores disabled so the chip doesen't fry.

Hon1nbo

Thu Jun 18 2015, 12:04AM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: Pacific Northwest USA
Posts: 1042

my word, I seem have have fallen behind on quite a few things due to work travel.

Below are some pics form the camera. The first one is the plug of a vacuum cleanerand (barely visible) 120V outlet. This was after the vacuum ran for about 2 minutes. It held pretty constant after that. I have to try to get to the outlets and all for the heavier appliances, which I have not had time for due to travel.

1434585349 902 FT170476 Vacuum Cleaner 2 Minutes

The second image here is of a common household appliance, a clothes dryer.

Interesting in this third one is that while most people expect a car engine to be hot, most forget about the friction heat in the braking system:

1434585565 902 FT170476 Img Thermal1285722809

(no idea why the thumbnail appears to flip for me, but clicking and viewing the actual image shows the correct orientation).

Last one is a little image trivia. Based on this thermal image below of a motorcycle, what can you tell about its recent operation? (approximate miles, time, time of day, or anything you can gather from the image to explain your hypothesis):

I will be trying to get more in, but my travel has become a lot more time consuming than expected. Looking forward to having more fun with this though for sure.

Cheers,

-Jim

Ash Small

Thu Jun 18 2015, 12:32AM

Registered Member #3414 Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245

DaJJHman wrote ...

Last one is a little image trivia. Based on this thermal image below of a motorcycle, what can you tell about its recent operation?

Looks like a Triumph twin to me. Unit engine. Exhausts look like ~'66 TT model.

Hon1nbo

Mon Jun 22 2015, 06:50PM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: Pacific Northwest USA
Posts: 1042

I honestly don't know much about the motorcycle, but you can tell a lot about the recent operation from the thermal still there.

First, the engine has been idling but the cycle has not traveled recently before the photo, as indicated by the lack of heat on the rotors and tires. The sun is still out, or the rider would be an idiot, as the headlight is not on (you could also argue that if the bike wasn't running long then it may simply have not been activated yet). One can tell the engine has not been running too long, at least from being stationary, since the heat hasn't spread far from the engine. The drive chain/belt for the rear wheel is still too cool to either have been in motion, or for heat to conduct down its length. Also the areas outside of the engine and its exhaust are still fairly cool, save the top of the bike where the heat would radiate up.

You can tell a lot of things by heat :)

Cheers,

-Jim

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