Good long-range Thermal Imaging/FLIR system?

[M6D]

I'm toying with the idea of adding a thermal imaging system to help me detect LEOs at long range on open straightaways when they might hide behind bridge abutments - I think the longest effective range of radar is around 1600 meters, does that sound right? (I'm hoping my LI will handle LIDAR duties)

FLIR makes a PathfindIR that is useful for spotting deer, but I'm not sure the range is long enough.

I've found several manufacturers of other thermal imaging devices, but thought I'd ask here if anyone has a good/bad/indifferent experience to share.

Thanks!

[Motor On]

I toyed with it, thinking I could snag some of the components from the BMW 7 series, but it became too cost prohibitive for me to keep pursing. I've just got giant lights that send reflections back to me for in excess of 2.3miles for now. But I'll be watching this one to see how well you can integrate it (that was part of my problem, wanting function with a truly factory look)

[M6D]

I had considered the FLIR interface with BMWs iDrive, but I'm almost positive it doesn't have the effective range I'd need.

There are only a few instances where I'd need this system - primarily on long straights with little to no traffic. I'm not much of a top speed guy; almost never get over 100 anymore. This would be more of a "fun" project to pull off. Getting a factory look wouldn't be as important to me - as long as I could temporarily mount the system on the dash, I'd be fine. One issue is thermal through glass (inside the cab) is like doing jammers through glass - degrades performance.

If I find anything promising, I'll post it here, but it's looking like an externally mounted scope (temporarily on a window or something) and an internal display. With a little help from an image processing routine, I might be able to just sound the alert if enough warm pixels show up... Fun to think about. Might come in handy in one day.

[YTCD]

See I would want a night vision and thermal imaging device that could see very far.

Night vision would come in very useful but for actual police saves thermal imaging would be much better suited as you could see the heat from the engine if their sitting on the side road or w/e.

If I were to get one I would have thermal imaging like mentioned above but also a seperate screen running night vision that is zoomed in quite a bit. Reason for that is I would like to be able to see a crown vic from farther than I can depict/see and more accurate than I can depict, like if Im driving and their is a state trooper coming in the opposite direction using moving I/O it would be nice to have night vision zoomed in beyond the realm of possibility of him getting a reading but able to *clearly* depict a crown vic or state trooper from quite far away. I think this could be very helpful.

And the reason thermal over night vision for spotting cops sitting on the side is its much much easier to depict a car sitting on the side of the road with thermal as it really sticks out on the screen and it doensn't take *any* thought or depicting of looking at the screen to tell if its a car on the side of the road/cop. As thermal really will show more than night vision can much faster and clearier.

[9500ier]

This is what Alex Roy yanked from a hummer for his M5:

NIGHTDRIVER - Making Driving Safer At Night.

[M6D]

I have a pretty decent night vision/low light system, and it's ineffective for this purpose. Those systems gather available ambient light and magnify it, so sources of light at distances great than a mile (like Crown Vic headlights) are indistinguishable from other lights.

It was very useful for detecting movement (wildlife, other vehicles), however.

[lugnuts]

from my research the longest rang I have seen is ~2000ft.

Roy didn't use the system above necessarily to spot LEO's but more to be able to run with the lights off.


it would be nice to use one of these to spot LEO's but at high speeds the chance of one saving you from a ticket is slim.

plus the cost of the system ~4k (although I have seen the pathfinder for ~3k) is not worth it for the limited use and lack of use for the purpose of spotting. by the time you spot the LEO and react you are already well within his range and he has already seen you coming for a while and is ready to blast you with IO Ka or laser. the only way to benefit from a system like this is to run lights off to reduce the LEO's ability of spotting you. I'm not willing to do that and don't feel the high cost is worth it right now.

if they can bring the price down to under 1k than I would be interested in buying a system for night driving use but more for better visibility on long trips (I drive at night on long trips) then for spotting LEO's as again I don't feel these systems work well for that.

if you do find a system that has longer range please let us know. if there is a system out there that does have longer rang I would bet the price is much much more.

[9500ier]

from my research the longest rang I have seen is ~2000ft.

Roy didn't use the system above necessarily to spot LEO's but more to be able to run with the lights off.

Did you read his book? I am not saying you didn't. I just thought I remembered reading that the whole reason behind it was to see cops sitting on the side of the road with the lights off but the engine running.

[lugnuts]

Did you read his book? I am not saying you didn't. I just thought I remembered reading that the whole reason behind it was to see cops sitting on the side of the road with the lights off but the engine running.

yes I read his book, watched all his videos/interviews, read all of his blog and anything I have seen written by him.

he says on several occasions/places the reason for the thermal camera was for driving at night with the lights off. he even mentions on one of his trial runs being called in. he talks about a scanner report of a car running at high speed with no lights on in PA.

with him running with the lights off he could definitely use the thermal camera to spot LEO's before they spot him but again your lights need to be off. and with the lights off the main use of the thermal camera is for driving. he also said it was a bad/dump idea to do this as it was very dangerous driving with the lights off even with the thermal cam.

[Zapple]

The reason they got that system was to be able to drive with their lights off but once they did that they figured it was too dangerous and said is was good to spot cops though.