Chinese infrared cameras compare pretty well to low-end western models like the mentioned Flir E8. E3 was the budget king years ago as it is same hardware as E8 with software crippled resolution. With firmware update/hack you got E8 performance with less than 1000usd."good AND cheap"
Pick one. You will not get the other.
At a minimum, you need 320x240 ACTUAL (not software interpolated) sensor resolution. Anything less is only a toy.
I have a FLIR E8XT:
Support for FLIR E8-XT - Discontinued | Teledyne FLIR
Get support for FLIR E8-XT. Find contact information, downloads, and other resources.www.flir.com
that I am pretty happy with. Also a now-discontinued T360, which cost me $12,500 when it was ne
Use them mostly for leak detection of various kinds.
The attached image taken with the E8 shows a barrier terminal strip I had temporarily installed for a couple days as a "poor man's" panel combiner until I could secure the proper components. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and IR imaging pretty much confirmed it. If your imaging can't deliver this level of detail, you won't learn much, if anything.
There are, as is the case for everything electronic, cheap Chinese knockoffs. No idea on those. I stick with what I know works.
320x240 vs 256x192 on cheapest chinese cameras doesn’t make much practical difference. For me far More important is manual focus or close-up lens. Flir E3–E8 has ” sort of” manual focus option if you make your own tools. Chinese cameras you need extra lens in most cases but some of them have real focusing capability.
Cheapest of cheap lack manual span in software and it is extremely helpfull to have for little bit more advanced use cases. Cheapest ones with manual span are afaik Hikmicro b20 and guide pc210, around 300-500usd price range.
