New Thermal Aircraft...

jaja6009 · Aug 29, 2019

Hello everyone, I am the one who read dougs post and saw something wrong with the lack of his Lepton not working in near to total darkness. I have an Anafi Thermal but also a CAT S60 and CAT S61 phone. These phones have Lepton sensors in them I am pretty well versed in them. Anyway I ran some tests and videoed them to show the Anafi working well in darkness. I will provide a link at the end of the post. The crazy thing is that doug had some of the best information on the Anafi that I could find on any forum. It seems like the M2ED uses the Lepton 3.0 and the Anafi uses the 3.5 or maybe DJI used the 3.5 and disabled the radiometric aspect. Looking at FLIR and M2ED specs, the only clue I could find as to what Lepton it is is by the Scene Range High Gain, which the M2ED's specs show it to be a 3.0. All other specs are pretty much the same between the Leptons.

I am taking the ITC sUAS Level I thermography class in October and have been playing with some roof inspections in the mean time. The Flir Tools aspect is the main reason I chose the Anafi. Instead of choosing between the two entry thermals I compromised. I bought a M2E and an Anafi. The only thing I really dislike about the Anafi is the ridiculous range. I cannot get it even close to a mile out even when I fly in the middle of no where with no interference. Here is the link to my near total darkness tests that doug was referring to.

dougcjohn · Aug 30, 2019

jaja6009 said:
Hello everyone, I am the one who read dougs post and saw something wrong with the lack of his Lepton not working in near to total darkness. I have an Anafi Thermal but also a CAT S60 and CAT S61 phone. These phones have Lepton sensors in them I am pretty well versed in them. Anyway I ran some tests and videoed them to show the Anafi working well in darkness. I will provide a link at the end of the post. The crazy thing is that doug had some of the best information on the Anafi that I could find on any forum. It seems like the M2ED uses the Lepton 3.0 and the Anafi uses the 3.5 or maybe DJI used the 3.5 and disabled the radiometric aspect. Looking at FLIR and M2ED specs, the only clue I could find as to what Lepton it is is by the Scene Range High Gain, which the M2ED's specs show it to be a 3.0. All other specs are pretty much the same between the Leptons.

I am taking the ITC sUAS Level I thermography class in October and have been playing with some roof inspections in the mean time. The Flir Tools aspect is the main reason I chose the Anafi. Instead of choosing between the two entry thermals I compromised. I bought a M2E and an Anafi. The only thing I really dislike about the Anafi is the ridiculous range. I cannot get it even close to a mile out even when I fly in the middle of no where with no interference. Here is the link to my near total darkness tests that doug was referring to.

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Great work and nice info on the 3.0 & 3.5 sensor, excellent video showing all modes of thermal working nicely in darkness. Glad you contributed additional information; your Anafi performed thermally as expected... indicating my unit was a defective camera;. Based on your tests, the little craft is back on my list.

Have you had a chance in using the Anafi in any actual inspection, roof, etc to get a feel for practical usage? Was wondering what practical distance you found operational.

jaja6009 · Aug 31, 2019

Here are some scans I did of a building at work with a flat roof and is known to have water leaking in. I asked not to be told where the water was leaking so I could try to find the leak. I conducted this not at the best time but during civil twilight right before I had to land due to a lack of a Day Waiver.
I am not a certified thermographer, so take that into consideration. I have read the ANSI standard on roof inspections and have watched and read some information on this subject.

Conditions were a warm summer day. It has not rained in several days. There was a some wind and it was civil twilight. Best of all the one spot I found heat was confirmed to be a place that is a known leak. I was 10 to 20 feet over the roof while doing this.

I cannot wait to take my ITC sUAS Level 1 Thermography class this October. So far I see it as very possible that the Anafi can be used for roof surveys with its limited Lepton 3.5. It may be a bare bones approach but so far it seems like it will work. If I get any more info on how correct my limited skills in this and the Anafi's limited resolution I will update.

dougcjohn · Aug 31, 2019

jaja6009 said:
Here are some scans I did of a building at work with a flat roof and is known to have water leaking in. I asked not to be told where the water was leaking so I could try to find the leak. I conducted this not at the best time but during civil twilight right before I had to land due to a lack of a Day Waiver.
I am not a certified thermographer, so take that into consideration. I have read the ANSI standard on roof inspections and have watched and read some information on this subject.

Conditions were a warm summer day. It has not rained in several days. There was a some wind and it was civil twilight. Best of all the one spot I found heat was confirmed to be a place that is a known leak. I was 10 to 20 feet over the roof while doing this.

View attachment 1679 View attachment 1680 View attachment 1681

I cannot wait to take my ITC sUAS Level 1 Thermography class this October. So far I see it as very possible that the Anafi can be used for roof surveys with its limited Lepton 3.5. It may be a bare bones approach but so far it seems like it will work. If I get any more info on how correct my limited skills in this and the Anafi's limited resolution I will update.

Very Nice for the little 160 sensor.
You used FLIR Tools for the zone delta for Post Dx analysis, zeroing in on the roof section. That was one part of the Anafi I really liked... the post work with FLIR Tools and all normal array of Dx tools.

It's interesting that only 1 of the 4 AC Units showed any temp. Would have guessed they were all Hot on a Summer night, but your relative temp was only 71 so it was more of a cool evening.

Like the detail of the temp seperation in the 2 zoned Bx1 shots. For 20ft, that's actually pretty good seperation of temps for the 160 sensor.

I was planning on the Lv1 sUAV Thermo course too, but they sent a letter a few weeks ago indicating the Oct class in Iowa had been cancelled. I'll address next year.

jaja6009 · Aug 31, 2019

As for the air conditioner units, I had the span dialed in to a very narrow range favoring warm. In the original pics it looks different.

The total mission varied between to to 20 feet. When I took pictures it was probably closer to 10. There is hope that at close range on small roofs, this drone could work. I want to climb up and hit the suspect areas with a moisture meter.

Outta Control · Sep 2, 2019

jaja6009 said:
Here are some scans I did of a building at work with a flat roof and is known to have water leaking in. I asked not to be told where the water was leaking so I could try to find the leak. I conducted this not at the best time but during civil twilight right before I had to land due to a lack of a Day Waiver.
I am not a certified thermographer, so take that into consideration. I have read the ANSI standard on roof inspections and have watched and read some information on this subject.

Conditions were a warm summer day. It has not rained in several days. There was a some wind and it was civil twilight. Best of all the one spot I found heat was confirmed to be a place that is a known leak. I was 10 to 20 feet over the roof while doing this.

View attachment 1679 View attachment 1680 View attachment 1681

I cannot wait to take my ITC sUAS Level 1 Thermography class this October. So far I see it as very possible that the Anafi can be used for roof surveys with its limited Lepton 3.5. It may be a bare bones approach but so far it seems like it will work. If I get any more info on how correct my limited skills in this and the Anafi's limited resolution I will update.

Being not on-site to capturing those images I would say your temperature data could be way off. Don't know what material the roof is but looks metallic, and if it is, the Emmisivity should not be 1. Plus you have the wind certainly would have an effect to your data.

It is good you are taking the sUAS Level 1, that is if you are doing radiometric data.

Outta Control · Oct 3, 2019

jaja6009 · Oct 5, 2019

Outta Control said:
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I was working when it was live, but I watched it today. Pretty informative. I wish they did some sample data gathering on more scenarios.

Thank you for the heads up on this!