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Make a thermal drone

hurunge1

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Nov 21, 2024
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I have a dji mini 3.

Just saw a thermal camera made for phones and started to wonder if its possible to put the camera on the drone?

I guess i would need a battery a and connect the camera to something that can send the video signal to my hand controller.

Anyone knows what I would need?

The thermal camera i was thinking of is the infiray t2 pro.
Seems like a great camera and its possible to detect animal over quite a big distance.
 
Last edited:
The thermal cameras for phones are setup in a hardware On The Go mode, which makes them difficult to interface with other computer types, also is the problem of interpreting the thermal camera signals being returned and building that into a picture that is human viewable. There are forum discussions on adapting the FlirOne to the raspberry pi and how. to do it. Its seriously complex to do and the results are so so. If you want true thermal keep an eye open for a Yuneec Typhoon H with Flir thermal, its fully integrated and works awesome. (find one used.)
 
$3 - $4000 Options
Autel Enterprise Lite with 640
Used Mavic 2 Enterprise Advanced 640

$4 - $6000 Options
Autel Evo 2 640T 640
Mavic 3 Thermal (Best Option) 640

$25,000 +
Matrice 350 with H20T or H30T

There are other options but the above are still supported by their respective manufacturers and others are not that main stream.

OP, no offense you are not going to add any video signal to DJI software unless DJI wants you to through SDK.
There used to be thermal add-on kits, but the business that made them went belly up when the prices of a fully integrated thermal drone came down. The kits did not display into DJI Go/Fly etc., you needed an add-on screen.
 
So my idea is this:
1. Buy a light weight phone. There are some really small ones around 100g.

2. Buy a mini thermal camera like the xinfraed t2 pro, weighs only 25g.

3. Plug the thermal camera to the phone.

4. Attach the phone to your drone, not hard to do with some glue and sticks.

5. Put a sim card in the phone and start the 4g network.

6. Use some RAT software or screenrecord the screen online so you can watch it on your och maybee if you have a second phone.


So you are basicly screen record your phone thst has a thermal camera, and you are watching everythning over 4g network on a other phone/pc.


Im 100% sure this will work.
Best thing is to have a RAT on the phone so you can controll the camera settings.
Also, the phone will be in a fixad angle but I dont think thats a hughe problem.
 
Your mini3 won't be able to lift that much weight, and no gimbal means your image will constantly shake all over the place. Apart from that it's standalone, so it'll "work".
 
Your mini3 won't be able to lift that much weight, and no gimbal means your image will constantly shake all over the place. Apart from that it's standalone, so it'll "work".
It sure will. I have tried a 190g payload and it works just fine.

No gimal is needed since the drone is very stable for most of the time, and espacially if you fly slow.
 
You can find 640 thermal drones fro $3000 and up if you look and are patient.

Why not enjoy integrated, high resolution thermal.
 

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