FLIR One thermal imager - home brew uses..

[MattSR]

Hi Guys,

I recently went to a Silicon Valley to visit a mate that works over there and had a chance to pick up some cool geek toys. First purchase was a FLIR thermal imager. I figure it's useful for "seeing" how full kegs are, how consistent a mash temperature is among other things.

A mate took this picture of me at a restaurant holding a hot cup of tea and an cold longneck of beer..



Will see how useful it turns out to be..

 

[CrookedFingers]

If not useful....just really cool !!


Try and find Sasquatch.


CF

 

[r055c0]

Trying to tell myself I don't need this.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/FLIR-ONE-Personal-Thermal-Imager-fits-Apple-iPhone-5-and-5S-NEW-SEALED-/261584849446?pt=US_Other_Cell_Phone_Accessories&hash=item3ce7ac0a26

 

[TheWiggman]

Holy smokes how much did you spend on that? Thermal cameras are expensive units, even for the cheap ones. With FLIR being a reputable brand they're about $3k for the cheapest (RRP).
They've dropped dramatically in price over the past 10 years, the past 5 moreso. Our $9k unit at work can now be had for the low $3k mark with more features and a better resolution.

Would be very handy for mashes but be wary of using them on stainless. Some materials have a habit of reflecting IR light. As a test, try and see the temperature of some plush toys in one of those prize machines. The result will be pretty amusing.

 

[klangers]

In industry we use them to do a quick preventative maintenance check on electrical cabinets. Any items that "look" too hot are investigated. Also handy for checking bearings etc on motors.

I can't think of anything useful for homebrewing that justifies the cost.... but that's not to say that I don't want one h34r:

 

[TheWiggman]

It's amusing pointing them at girls saying "you look hot today".

 

[klangers]

"you look hot today".

Like a sunrise

 

[StalkingWilbur]

Damn! The picture on that is insane. We have one that we use for underground search and rescue and while I've only used it while wearing a closed circuit breathing apparatus, so my vision wasn't perfect, the resolution is no where near that good.

 

[Bridges]

I've used one on a mates fridge to find the refrigerant lines in the side before holes were made for the tap shanks. Excellent!

 

[MattSR]

Well this one cost me $350 USD, it has a low resolution thermal camera, however it adds a 640x480 visual camera to add detail (like the logo on my shirt).

For the price, it's quite good, and FLIR just released an industrial camera that uses the exact same sensor as the FLIR One (called the Lepton core) which tells me it's reasonably accurate.

My theory that it will show the contents of a keg seems valid - here's two photos/measurements of a beer that was out of the fridge for only a couple of minutes:-





Of course, stainless steel ain't a good material when it comes to thermal emissivity, but it should be good enough to judge how much beer I have left!

Cheers
Matt

 

[StalkingWilbur]

Ahh. That visual camera explains it. I was told ours was significantly higher than $350 and being an industrial one I'm not surprised, I just didn't know if the one I had used was a real old model or something.

 

[Edak]

I love the idea but I think it will fail because one doesn't want to lift kegs out of the fridge to measure them. In the fridge no temp change on that amount of stainless either.

 

[Edak]

I would like to add that I want one of these cameras desperately and hope the Mrs will let me buy one.

 

[MattSR]

I love the idea but I think it will fail because one doesn't want to lift kegs out of the fridge to measure them. In the fridge no temp change on that amount of stainless either.

I've got a hunch it will work - when opening my fridge when it's very humid causes condensation on the keg, it only appears on the keg where there is liquid inside... But time will tell. Once I've finished moving house and I have it all set up again, I'll give it a test. Sadly keg fridges are low on the list when it comes to moving important things (like beds and chairs and normal fridges etc lol)

Cheers
Matt

 

[Edak]

Yeah tell me about it, I just moved everything about 50km from where I was. Keezer was the second last thing to my brewery to move.

 

[Golani51]

You do know that you can get these metal things from a hardware store that sit under one edge of the bottom of the keg and compress according to how much weight it on it Ie how much the keg weighs. Easy to calibrate and about $5.......just saying....

 

[MattSR]

Yes, I am aware, there's a few other ways too. I just thought this way is a bit heat and interesting that's all

 

[Yob]

My missus would hate me having one of those... I'd be up to no end of mischief

 

[dave81]

Is that purple on your shirt visual detail or did you spill some on yourself ; )

 

[Edak]

Is that purple on your shirt visual detail or did you spill some on yourself ; )

I think that's evidence of a bottle hug.