Thermal Night Imaging Mod
 

Back in the early 2000s, Cadillac offered Thermal IR based Nightvision on their Devilles. These particular units, made by FLIR, happen to be easily hackable, assuming you can find one that hasn't had the front lens cracked by road debris. I finally came across one and decided it was time to Mod the Runner.

What I like about this is that on a completely unlit road any person will come up as a bright white image, catching my attention from the periphery. If I'm driving slow enough, then I can look at my screen and see pedestrians crossing or just walking on the side the road, before even my headlights do. I did upgrade my headlights to LEDs and that helped for me to see farther, but this mod allows me to see past where the headlights don't reach.

I modified the back of the grill to fit the unit and then drilled a hole into the the front of the grill. Then mounted the whole assembly back onto the car. Basically, the pressure of the grill (with new clips) is holding the IR Cam in place.

Then wired everything up and took a drive. The first thing I noticed is how it sees cars and other warm objects from really far away, showing what might be ahead of me, before even my headlights see it.

Here's a pic of a couple walking towards me... the first one taken from the windshield and you can't even tell they are there. But on the Thermal Cam, they came off as moving white objects and immediately caught my attention.

Also a pic, in pitch black, of someone taking a scooter towards me... I saw him on the screen before he even saw my truck parked. However, with my lights off, you couldn't even see a silhouette of him, it was so dark.

And finally how it looks mounted, behind the grill. I've still got to clean up a few things to finalize the mod (like alignment, contrast/brightness adjustments, but glad I managed to get the "proof of concept" going!

Here's a commercial for the system from the 2000s: YouTube

CONS:
-It doesn't have a wide field of view, but after driving around it a while, it actually makes sense that way. My headlights take care of all the objects near my car, this is really meant to see past, way past, what the headlight can't reach.
-Finding a mint camera isn't that cheap, but avoiding pedestrians or deer, might pay for itself down the road?

PROS:
-Not that difficult to install and fully reversible.
-Had to drill into the Grill, but with my LED Toyota Light Mod, it sort of replaces the Toyota Emblem anyway. However, if I wanted to reverse the mod, the emblem would screw back on easily.
-"Coolness factor" and really truly great if you're in a rural area or maybe even off-roading at night, etc.

Cool

Would be cool if you could make the heads up display screen work aswell. I'm on the look out for one of these units now lol

Can make your own
Getting started with the RaspberryPi and Breakout Board V2.0 – Lepton Maker Community

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HPWR_mpzY9I/maxresdefault.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uoD2yhA_56o/maxresdefault.jpg

...keep your eyes on the road and your hands up on the wheel....


YouTube

This is a pretty cool mod. What did you have to do to hack the camera? What display is that?

I've thought about going this route, but wanted something more "automotive" grade. So I wouldn't have to worry about the impact of weather (snow, extreme temps, water ingress, vibrations, reliability) and since these units are still working well 20 years later, I think they stood the test of time.

Also, got this going in 2 hours and for less than what a Lepton project would have cost. I think the cost of something like this is indeed the housing... protecting it from the elements. Even the Germanium lens used on the Cadillac unit alone is worth a few hundred intact. I'm just not sure how I'd be able to effectively weatherproof a Lepton solution (easily--time and moneywise).

That display is just my Kenwood Navigation/Sat Radio system. I hooked up a bypass switch so that I have my rear view camera (which is also a birds eye view cam) or can select the forward FLIR cam.

As far as hacking it was pretty minimal, which is why I liked this. I did have to buy a cable separately since these don't seem to come with them. Then figured out the pinouts for 12v, ground and the video signals and wired it up to the RCA video input on that Radio.

Overall about a 2 hour project, now I could probably do it in <1hr since I know what to cut up.

I agree! But the Caddy unit won't fit on the 4runner dash (and doesn't have the right type of windshield).

I've started to look at aftermarket HUD units that have their own "pop up" plastic screen that can also display RCA input... but so far no luck.

I've thought about mounting a flip up LCD display top of the steering column as well and might consider something like that as a solution. However, what's interesting is at night, esp. when its rural dark outside, the screen on my radio will show bright movements that just stand out to me, so I can just look down.

Also, the display is in real-time... the Caddy FLIR unit does no postprocessing of the image, so you can easily drive while looking at that screen.

I can't wait to try it in fog, rain, etc, LOL.

This is amazing! I have no use for it since I drive lit city roads but this is fantastic for anyone living in rural places. Deer strikes are very common and imagine if you can see the deer on the side of the road ready to jump before it even sees you?

^ Thanks! The more I'm driving around with it, the more I'm seeing it's value. Even in the city, I'm noticing I'm seeing a lot more things "down the road" than my headlights would normally show. Like cars pulling out of driveways (one car pulled out of a shopping center and cut across 3 lanes to make a left turn, but with the nightvision, I saw him and he DIDN'T have his headlights on!).

It's just really impressive to be able to see cars pulled over the side of the road or even just driving in front of you, when you can't even see their tail lights, but they come off as these bright dots on the screen.

I did just order a pop up LCD screen that I'm thinking of mounting on the steering column or dashboard, just so that I can use the Nav/Radio again and so it's a bit closer to eye level. So I'll see how that turns out when I get it. I also added a 3D printed rock protector to minimize that possibility.

Another update... Moved it to a Flip up/folding LCD screen which sits right on top of my steering column. It's very incognito, but when I want to use it, I press the button and the screen pops up. It almost looks like one of those new integrated LCD Instrument Panels you see on new Audis, etc.

Took it for a nice long drive and I just can't get enough of this thing! I'm seeing objects 2-4 miles down the road at night that I can't see otherwise. Also, bridges and overpasses and cars parked on the side of the road (you can figure why THAT'S handy, LOL).

The last thing is to paint the housing the same Oak as the interior and I'll be done with this.

This is sweet. Can you post a link to that screen you purchased?

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