FLIR camera recommendation

Hi everyone,

I'm considering the purchase of a FLIR (infrared) camera to help with debugging circuits by detecting local hotspots on PCBs. Unfortunately I don't have experience with FLIR cameras yet, making it difficult to choose a good one.

What are your experiences with infrared cameras for electronics debugging? Pros and cons? Any types you could recommend? My budget is around € 7k.

Thanks in advance!

I have used a fluke in the past, cant remember what make... I think they are brilliant, shows hot spots on prototypes and makes thermal engineering easy (you do have to do a prototype board of course). But when compared to using some sort of simulation they work out quite cheap.
Try the different cameras, the reps will be quite willing to come and see you...
Also buy some black electrical tape for shiny components.
Emissivity...

Buy the camera with the highest resolution you can afford.
I know, this sounds intuitive.....but pixel count does increase cost rapidly, and thus one tends to choose lower priced models..

Heat tends to spread out and smear on a board. But if there is a particular SMT component which is running hotter than its surroundings, the higher resolution will help you spot it out.

Edit;
once that you have a FLIR camera, you'll find many useful and interesting stuff to do.
The one that surprised me the most, is how trees become aglow at night in the summer time. Tree leaves act as heatsinks which remove heat from the surroundings and radiate it back to space. I had known that LANDSAT and similar satellites use FLIR cameras to detect vegetation, but seeing it yourself is a sight to behold.

We use the FLIR E8 regularly. It is expensive, but there are other brands that are much cheaper these days that can give you similar performance. Try to get one that overlays a normal picture on the thermal picture. It makes life much easier to identify different components. On the FLIR, it is called MSX enhancement.

Thanks for the responses everyone. Are there specific brands that you would recommend, or that you would advise avoiding?

Maybe this guy's reviews can help you choose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_t8FNb7Wu0

Just bought a FLIR One for android:

**broken link removed**

Its excellent for its price/performance ratio.

Gatekeeper, would you recommend this kind of solution over a "dedicated" FLIR camera?
Whichever is better, a FLIR camera with an integrated screen, or one that streams images to a laptop over bluetooth or wifi?

I am sorry, I think they are a lot more people on this forum more qualified than me to answer that question. I am new to the usage of these cameras as I have never had to use them before.

I decided on FLIR One purchase at work and it is used for checking PCBs of units under test to quickly find hotspots that may need further investigation. For that usage it is very helpful and quick with its spot temperature metering as well as mixing the image from a phone camera with its own thermal image sensor to display a much more accurate and human visible/understandable image.

Other "dedicated" FLIR cameras are a lot more expensive then FLIR One. I can imagine they are more sensitive and have more features, it really comes down to your usage and budget as dedicated types run in to many $1000 as oppose to the FLIR One only a couple of $100. Google will show you the features, quality and price as well as previews, then it comes down to you.