# Thermal Imaging



## LavaASU (May 17, 2013)

As part of a research project I'm doing some thermal imaging of projectors and moving lights. I know most people don't have access to these, so if anyone has anything they would like me to post pictures of (appropriate please), post/PM it and I'll try to make it happen. I'm mostly using projectors, so I have those sitting here and can do just about anything with them (thats not going to break them!).
View attachment IR000001.BMP

Energy vampire anyone? This is a projector that was sitting in standby (plugged in but not powered on) for about 30 minutes. Hot spot is actually a chip on the bottom side of the logic board. It appears to be a video processing chip, which is bad design if a video processing chip is active and producing that much heat when the unit is not on and therefore not doing any video processing! The power supply and ballast in the bottom right is also generating heat, but it's EMI shielding is blocking most of the IR wavelengths (that thermal looks at).

View attachment IR000009.BMP

Same projector, a little over a minute after the lamp was struck. Color scale is different. The three hot spots (little green spots) in the center left are part of the drive circuitry for the LCD panels. The large green/yellow/red area is the plastic top of the lamp housing.
View attachment IR000017.BMPView attachment IR000018.BMP

This is the same projector after it had been running for about an hour and reached full operating temperatures. The image on the right is scaled from ambient to the lamp temperature, so theres not much detail on the logic board. The image on the right is just looking at logic board temperatures (and ignoring the higher lamp temperatures) so that more details can be seen.


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## LavaASU (May 20, 2013)

So, I called the manufacturer to ask why the video processing chip was active while in standby. They were as surprised as I was to find out it is. Sounds like a copy of that image will be landing on the R & D department's desk.


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