How to get FLIR one 2G to boot, or how to repurpose lepton
After getting a red FLIR one gen2 w while back (2 years, 3, can’t remember exactly) and using it for a few months, one day the orange light went solid while charging and the unit refused to boot up (where the green light goes on). Looking on line and including here it seemed this happened when the battery went bad, Which is did regularly. So I got another battery and followed the guide here and installed a new one. It seemed to be correct and when the button was pressed the orange light would come on solid, and nothing else would happen until the battery drained and the light went out. I could charge the battery with a Lipo charger, and restart the process but the FLIR camera would never boot up. Reseting by holding the button down does nothing, with or without removing the battery. Looking around it seems that when this would happen under warranty they would just replace it, But no warranty and FLIR has washed their hands of this model. Not surprising as the FLIR business model seems to be to exploit customers into buying products that work well when they work but are often defective and FLIR’s solution to the defects is to get you to spend more money on the next generation’s equally defective product. Rinse and repeat.
I have seen some comments that this error is a flaw in the firmware that throws the camera into a loop, but it looks there is no new firmware and it seems to require being able to boot to update firmware anyway. I’ve also seen some commentary saying it is associated with bad soldering on the microprocessor connections and might be solved by reflowing it, for which I lack the equipment and skill.
From what I understand, if you ask FLIR about any of this they just invite you to spend more money on their newest FLIR one. I have to admit, that with everything I found out about FLIR’s businesses practices while trying to find out how to fix this, I doubt I would buy another camera from them even if they paid for most of it. And as someone who bought it secondhand, they won’t even acknowledge my existence anyway. It’s too expensive to buy another.
I pull it out every once in a while to try again because while it worked it was useful. I’m doing it again and decided to make requests not just see what is out there. Any ideas of what to else to try? Anyone know anyone repairing the gen2 units?
Finally, I’ve seen some DIY projects for making IR camera’s using a the FLIR lepton. There was a kit for while based on a project published in MAKEzine, but it hasn’t been made in a while. Has anyone had any experience with repurposing a lepton fron the FLIR one gen2? Did it work? How difficult and expensive was the build?