InfiRay T2S+ Thermal Camera

A module the size of an eraser that plugs into a phone's USB-C port and turns it into a thermal camera. A 256 × 192 sensor is 49 thousand points where temperature is measured, and for electronics that is more resolution than you usually need.

The real point of the T2S+, though, is its manual focus over a wide range. Most clip-on cameras, including distinctly more expensive ones, are fixed focus, and on a dense board that means a blurry smear instead of a component. Here the lens turns, so you can focus until individual packages are distinguishable and you can tell which one is the hot one.

A thermal camera answers questions nothing else will. Which of the forty parts on the board is getting hot. Where exactly the bad contact in a cable is. Whether a chip is working at all or just sitting there cold. What is happening inside an enclosure you cannot open while it runs.

What it is good for

• Finding the part that overheats on a board: it shows up at once, long before anything smells
• Catching a short circuit — the shorted spot heats first
• Checking whether a 3D printer's heated bed warms evenly
• Seeing what actually runs hot inside a power supply under load
• Finding a cold solder joint by the fact that nothing past it warms up
• Household work: heat leaking round a window, underfloor heating, a blocked radiator

How to use

1. Take the module out of its case. The phone is your own, and it needs a USB-C port.
2. Install Xtherm from Google Play — it is free.
3. Plug the module in. The app starts by itself, or asks for permission to use the device.
4. Aim it and turn the lens ring: focus here is manual, and an out-of-focus thermal camera shows a blurry smear instead of a component.
5. Capture frames in the app; they are saved to the phone.
6. Put the module back in its case and the case back in the container.

A phone with the app already installed and set up is due to join it in the same container — after that you will not need to get your own out.

What to understand about the readings

A thermal camera measures radiation, not temperature directly, and converts one to the other through an emissivity figure. For a board, for plastic and for paint it is close to the truth. For shiny metal it is not: a polished heatsink shows the temperature of whatever is reflected in it rather than its own. To measure something shiny, stick a piece of matt tape on it and look at that.

Glass is opaque to thermal radiation: through a window or a glass lid you see the temperature of the glass itself.

Renting it

The module goes home with you: usually to see what runs hot in your own equipment, or to find the cold spots in a flat. The phone is yours and needs USB-C. The daily rate and the term are in the rental block on this page.

Access

The module is in a container on the shelf in the hackspace room, so a plan that includes hackspace access is required. No induction is needed.