Non-contact infrared thermometer for electrical inspection
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Date
2019-06
Authors
Ng, Min Qi
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Abstract
Electrical fault is an abnormal condition which is caused by the electrical equipment failures such as transformers and rotating machines, environmental conditions and human errors. Abnormal temperature could be an early sign of electric fault to occur. Hence, the electrical fault can be identified by measuring the temperature of the equipment. Electrical inspection is essential to ensure the safety operation of electrical components or home appliances. There are different ways to measure equipment temperature by using the contact or non-contact infrared thermometer. In this project, a non-contact infrared thermometer with low cost is developed for measuring the equipment temperature. The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (RPi 3 B+) will interface with the thermal sensor MLX90640 by using programming C language to measure the object temperature (To). It will transmit the thermal value through I 2C communication method. OpenCV is imported by C language for image processing. The object temperature will be converted to heat map and displayed in the LCD screen with the preview image captured by the No Infrared (NoIR) camera module. The colormap “jet” is used to represent the temperature values. Some experiments are carried out to test the functionality of this system. An experiment is carried out to determine the limited distance for this system to detect the infrared heat radiated from the heat sources and its accuracy by compared the temperature values obtained with the handheld thermal camera. This system able to monitor the temperature of equipment from -40 oC until 300 oC and the distance up to 0.75m without any physical contact with the equipment.