Hello to everybody ... I have a consulting firm for yachts, and want to buy a Infrared camera for marine surveys ... does anybody have any experience with this tehnology ? Also I really dont know which model ( type ) of camera to buy ? I thank all of you for any help or advise you can give me !
Hi, I used the search tool and typed in "infrared" since I remember it has been up before. Here is the thread; http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1830&highlight=infrared
It depends on what you like to survey - there are civilian products on the market that are good but far away from military quality. As these pages are intensively monitored, if you have interest in the latter type you could contact me for an advise.
Infrared Camera / Radar System In the German Yachting Magazin Boote Exclusiv, Issue 4 Year 2000 i found an articel about Infrared Systems in addition to the Radar system. Here is the link: http://www.zeiss-optronik.de/uk/default.asp Click on sensor systems and on the right you will find the technical data etc. I think what you are looking for is exactly this: http://www.zeiss-optronik.com/uk/222200.html It looks a little expensive but is for sure the future also in private Yachts Hope this will help.
A friend of mine came up with a VERY nice infared system. They took an ACR remote spotlight apart and installed a very high end infared camera. It is hooked up to an 18" monitor on the bridge. I bet it cost a fraction of what the camera pictured above costs and it looks a whole lot better!
The combo is done a lot for entry level systems. What you end up with though is a system that is not very rugged. The pan/tilt mechanism on the ACR is not anything like a military grade mount. It can freeze and malfunction at cold tempertures and generally will not last very long if it is used a lot (cheap bearings/light load capacity.) Higher end mounts often times have a heater built in so they have a wider operating range and therefore can be used in colder environments. When you build your own unit, you have do not get a warranty if you burn up the expensive core, and you still have no way to know if it is actually sealed correctly. Also, if you use put a piece of glass in front of the thermal imager, you lose about 25% of your resolution. You need to use germainum (or other IR pass through lenses) in thermal imagers.
There are several different makes/models available, costing anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And each has a specific use. There are "cooled" systems (long range, good resoution but very expensive and high maintanance), and "un-cooled" systems (very reliable, affordable but shorter range and less resolution). The term "marinized" has different meanings to different people. For example, one manufacturer claims their camera is marinized, yet they have "weeping" holes in the bottom of their housing where the water can escape. NVTi 1018i model does in fact use an ACR housing, and the "shell" is the only piece that's used, because of it's proven durability. It also has continuous 360 degree panning. The 25mm thermal camera, used in this model, resolution is 160x120. So you can detect a 10m speedboat at approx. 1000 meters. Other NVTi models have larger lenses, increased resolution and multiple camera systems (thermal, low light, color and light intensified GEN lll) for vision in any light conditions. I hope this information helps.
