An alternative is the 8x8 Grid-EYE from Panasonic, costs around £30. The Melexis equivalent is a 16x4 which costs about the same. Note you'll need to fill in a fairly lengthy export/release form to get hold of the Grid-EYE sensors. I haven't had any problems ordering them from Farnell, just tell them what your project is.
Both are fairly easy to talk to over I2C. You can make a passable wireless (low-res) thermal camera using something like a Particle Photon.
The MLX90640 isn't out until September unfortunately.
NB: Actually Farnell have the Grid-EYE for only £16, but the full range ( -20 to 100) model is backordered. You can still get the 0 to 80 version easily.
I used the Melexis MLX90260/MLX90261 back in December 2014 for some sensors research at work, and they were not very helpful and the documentation was appallingly ambiguous for important parts of the programming; plus, it offloads all the mathematics (not insignificant amounts of floating point and statistics) to your processor (not a good deal for embedded work). The output, once processed, though, was very accurate and provided for additional processing to make more use of the information than similar offerings.
The Panasonic Grid-Eye offering was much easier to use, and did not require additional processing power just to make use of the information.
I've used their single point IR sensor before, just had a look at the documentation for the 16x4 - holy hell that's a lot of steps just to get a calibrated sensor reading! Do they provide a C library for it, or are you expected to write and test your own?
When I read IR in the post, I thought, "well that's not thermal, is it?" and the thought was incorrect. FLIR's page [1] has a more understandable to me summary than StackExchange [2]. Also interesting is how lensing works with radiation in the IR spectrum [3].
Thermal cameras cannot use regular glass lenses, as glass will reflect thermal radiation rather than allowing the radiation to pass through the lenses. Commonly used materials for thermal lenses are Germanium (Ge), Chalcogenide glass, Zinc Selenide (ZnSe) and Zinc Sulfide (ZnS).
This is really cool, given how expensive thermal cams can be. The main sensor used by the author (Melexis MLX90614) costs only ~14$ at my local retailer, you can probably get it a bit cheaper if you order online.
Holy moly! Two axis stepper motor controller for $67?! (You should check out the store connected with that site.) This reminds me I really need to finish my single-scanline CdS cell camera project...
Yeah it's a puny Arduino based one though. Look at the heat sinks. Don't waste your money - unless you really need the space the best ones are the ones that look like this:
Well, Leadshine is mostly acceptable (but not Chinese fake!).
Please sum all components (custom PCB, Trinamic controllers, arduino, connectors, enclosure, shipping components, assembling,...) add some taxes and you will get almost the same price.
It would depend on the amperage of the steppers involved, but sure - though I'm partial to the DRV8825 - it's considered a better driver in the 3d printer realm.
I always wonder: how do you find the parts you need to build such things, and how do you make sure they fit together without spending enormous amounts of time in various online parts shops?
Both are fairly easy to talk to over I2C. You can make a passable wireless (low-res) thermal camera using something like a Particle Photon.
The MLX90640 isn't out until September unfortunately.
NB: Actually Farnell have the Grid-EYE for only £16, but the full range ( -20 to 100) model is backordered. You can still get the 0 to 80 version easily.