IRview

Created by [ShyMike] • Started on July 24, 2025

A tiny IR camera with a screen

Total time: 21 hours


July 24th: Started researching

Started looking for thermal cameras that fit in the budget and an MCU that could do some simple overlay GUI on the display

Datasheets and stuff:

Total time spent: 4h


July 24th pt2: Kicad go brrrr

Copious amounts of rewiring and having to remake the PCB twice because it looked horrible later...

It looks... well... decent :sob:

3d Render

PCB rev2

The vision is there just not sure if it will turn out looking like a melted box :pf:

Total time spent: 5h


July 24th pt3: Schematic looks less bad now

Cleaned up the schematic and made it look less like a horrible mess and more like an actual schematic :D

Better schematic

i don't even know what rev this is :sob:

Total time spent: 1h


July 25th: CADDDDDD (i suck at 3D modeling)

Yes, thats Commic Sans

Made the case and it's now looking less bad :sob:

Has some pins to align the PCB and fix it in place and supports that should make it sturdier

The headers have holes so i can tap into them while the case is assembled, it doesn't look the best but should help with debugging/making the software

Case CAD with PCB

Bottom of the case

Sadly the only model that existed was for the screen so i made the tolerances for the charger and camera less tight so the yactually fit

Total time spent: 3h


July 25th p2: My brain isn't working

Remembered that parts don't stick together with magic so i made some adjustments for parts to snap to the correct place

Case slice

Also adjusted some tolerances to avoid having to sand stuff down

Total time spent: 2h


July 25th p3: BOM stuff

Some more BOM calculations:

Total time spent: 1h


July 25th p4: BOM stuff

Swapped out the resistors and capacitors for THT variants to save on cost and changed some routing

Changed PCB

Total time spent: 1h


July 25th p5: Sad times

I was using the wrong ESP32 and the version with PSRAM (what i need) is out of stock everywhere so ill have to swap it out to the S3 which has a completely different footprint AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Had to do a full rewire D:

Rewired PCB

Kept everything in the same spot to avoid having to redo the CAD :sob:

Total time spent: 3h


July 25th p6: Checking prices

Calculated the prices at checkout and arrived at this:

  • $6.16 - PCB
  • $17.19 - Components

Total time spent: 1h


July 26th: AliExpress maxxing

Changing stuff to AliExpress to save on cost

Total time spent: 1h


July 26th pt2: Cheaper display

Had to use a display from AliExpress that has a very different pinout so it required some rewiring

Changed schematic

Changed PCB

Total time spent: 1h