I recently decided to pick up another infrared. I’ve had 3 Flukes and love them. My TI-32 has great quality, but I was looking for something smaller and lighter with decent clarity for just dragging around a home inspection with me AND for something more inexpensive to demonstrate to my home inspection school trainees.
I went to a seminar and saw about 9 Flir’s in use and decided on the Flir E6 with the MSX technology. Ordered the camera on 1/31 and it showed up on 2/12. Next day I charged the battery and started testing its features around my shop. I had it on probably 1/2 hr and it worked great. Next day was a different story.
It would come on 1 time, get used for 5 minutes … get turned off. Then next time I’d go to turn it on, it would try to start, then turn off … try to start, then turn off … try to start, then turn off. It might do that 5-6 times before it would start up again.
Once it’s turned on, it is good to go BUT it has kept doing this maybe I’ll start / maybe I won’t. Twice when I turned it on I got real weird screen images (Once it was like a TV set with no antenna … just all fuzzy and blurred with images barely visible through the maze. Once I had a black & white checkerboard pattern on the screen). Once it does come on I’ve turned it upside down, wiggled it, etc and I never loose an image BUT coming on is iffy.
I’ve recharged the battery twice and looked at contacts on battery AND down inside the handle AND see nothing that looks weird to me BUT …
Called FLIR, customer service & tech support AND they’re sending me another battery to try. They had no answers other than … maybe battery, battery contacts, switch, imager OR ???.
I have NEVER had an issue of any kind with any of the 3 Flukes I’ve had and wonder if this is common on FLIR’s … Very disappointing and makes me really re-think promoting this to home inspection trainee’s.
Anybody else had issues like this on less than 1 week old FLIR camera???
I had same problem second day i used mine also. Had the fuzzy screen. Said WTF also. Has never did it since because i believe what caused it was that i had the unit in its big case in the car for an hr with no heat on and it was about 15 degrees that day. I assume it was too cold and it messed it up. Not sure but thats only time it happened to me. Maybe there is a glitch somewhere that they will fix if continues to us users
I bought a back-up to my Fluke, cheaper and lighter for bringing to home inspections. I was told it had some features, which it did not. I was not too mad because it was the back-up. After using it we found many times it would not find the memory card or indicate it was full. We would pull the battery, turn on and off a few times and move forward. Last week we did a home inspection and it did not save any of the images. I went back to the Fluke and will be returning the Flir for repairs. It will be for sale after that point.
I have the T420 and this has also happened in the past. There are two things I have found, battery is not making a good connection, remove it and re-install it, and not having a fully charged battery.
Having loose battery or not storing images(it give confirmation that they have) is not acceptable. I have played the battery game and am not willing to risk using it again. They have one chance to make it right. It is only a couple of months old.
The cheap one E4 I think. Like I said it is a back-up. I think I will have to buy a better Fluke. My fluke is Tir160x120 and I have used it on thousands of inspections without an issue.
I forgot that part … the memory card. The E6 does not have one.
BUT twice when I turned it on and went to pull the trigger and shoot, **I got a message saying either “Memory card full OR Can’t find memory card” **(can’t remember which). Only did it twice BUT made me stop and think … WTF
That’s a sub par entry level camera in my opinion. I don’t have any experience with the new E series imagers, but I use the i7 for a back up and it works great for quick scans and attic work.
Interesting, I have seen these hacked E4’s on Ebay. I still can’t imagine the E4 has the same detector as the E8. Isn’t that where the true resolution is determined?
I’m not sure. I haven’t taken the first class on thermo and know even less about it components. But the author mentioned it had the same electronics as the e8, just different firmware. Maybe John can take a peek inside and let us know.
Many people debate that same thing at the bottom of the story. You would have to decide for yourself.
If I buy a GoPro, add my own lens to the front making it better, did I steal it? If I mount the GoPro to a drone, did I steal it? I just made it better.
If you design the firmware to make it better, how can you steal your own firmware, or a firmware that was released to the public.
Read how he does this hack again. It is the “key” to open up what one did not pay for. He is not writing his own firmware. He is allowing you to access Flir’s firmware. Theft.
I forwarded his site info to Flir. Up to them to deal with it or not.