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Posted: 10/5/2011 6:03:20 PM EDT
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Was car shopping and saw this unit installed in a Hummer H2. Quick look at FLIR page and it seems like reasonable price - $3500 or so. Are these units any good? |
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Sorry do not know anything about them but I have seen the unit themselves for sale as low as $2,200. Heck ATN has them for $2,500. I guess $3,500 gets you the wiring harness and monitor etc.
http://www.flir.com/cvs/americas/en/transportation/products/pathfindir/ The link lists vehicle harness etc. It even shows some type of headsup display. Heck I wonder if the PathFindIR along with this headsup display could be made into a poormans HelmetIR-50 (one on Ebay for $5K) http://www.armoroutlet.com/AOvaccess/AOva_flir.html |
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Quoted: They are common found in BMW's. Anyway, yes, they can be used as a starting point to make your own Thermal. You can make a helmet IR but you still need to get the image to your eye. Video glasses work OK though. For a bit of fun anyway. Regards David Yes, that is what I was thinking - video out to a small LCD you can hold and put away in your pocket, and a small belt-carried battery pack maybe made from a diver weight belt. I was really interested in whether this is a quality unit or not to start from. |
| It is a nice little unit. But you can get a new thermal PS24 monocular for less than $2K. It is all packaged up and ready to go. Or if you want, keep an eye out on Ebay for a Cadillac thermal camera (they call them night vision camera). Unfortunely they go for $1K or so. |
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If you stay with the PathfinderIR camera all is good. Be aware there are two types which have been fitted to BMW's one is the PathfinderIR from FLIR the other is an Autoliv camera.
The Autoliv camera does NOT have a video out signal its signal out is a low voltage signal (LVDS) which cant be used without the ECU fitted to the vehicle. There are a few EU forums which cover the topic, as yet I have been unable to find one with a solution. cheers Ian |
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Quoted:
They are common found in BMW's. Anyway, yes, they can be used as a starting point to make your own Thermal. You can make a helmet IR but you still need to get the image to your eye. Video glasses work OK though. For a bit of fun anyway. Regards David How come our American M3's do not have this? 
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Quoted:
Quoted:
They are common found in BMW's. Anyway, yes, they can be used as a starting point to make your own Thermal. You can make a helmet IR but you still need to get the image to your eye. Video glasses work OK though. For a bit of fun anyway. Regards David How come our American M3's do not have this? They are not members of the "Q" underground.  They can be if they want to but they will start at the bottom as I did. Tired of mopping the floors and need some new blood so I can advance to playing with the explosives and stuff . 
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It actually worked pretty well because it was near-unity magnification, but I wouldn't say it was convenient. But the Cadillac NV camera is a known quantity now and works quite well.  At the price, it's still the cheapest way to look for hogs and the best part is that it's designed for external mounting, so you can put it on a moving platform or modify it for handheld use. I've confirmed it will work down to 10.5v OK, so an 11.2v battery is OK without modification. A small LCD and you can either look at a screen, look through an eyepiece or record video... Regards David |
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