Does anyone know a source for these kinds of optical filters in Germany? I’m looking for some kind of Hot Mirror/Glass for the Beamer (Panasonic PT-AX200E) with a 3” thread in front of the lens. Additionally I’m looking for a IR bandpass filter for my Unibrain cam. It’s the same setup like Roger’s with the Osram SFH485 LEDs with 880nm wvelength.

In terms of a Hot Mirror/Glass I found a webshop from a German guy, who is heavily involved in a DIY beamer building community. He sells glasses, which reflect UV/IR light in different sizes: http://62.75.219.232/beamershopmueller-s2h1-Borofloat-Weissglas.html

In terms of a IR bandpass filter I emailed Thorlabs for their shipping costs to Germany. Weirdly enough they’ve got a German terms and conditions PDF.

Does anyone know other sources around Europe (or with cheap shipping costs to Germany)?

Cheers
johannes

I finally received my Thorlabs bandpass filter from the German branch office of Thorlabs. Postal service did cost 4.85€. I bought the 880nm bandpass with 10nm FWHM what should mean that 90% of the light between 870 and 890 nm should be visible. Additionally I bought a so called lens tube, which is used to “screw” in the bandpass and a C mount adapter ring to screw in from one side onto my C mount lens and on the other side to screw in the lens tube. (Summed up to 130€.)

Links:
Bandpass: http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct.cfm?partNumber=FB880-10
Lens tube: http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct.cfm?partNumber=SM1L03
C mount adapter ring: http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct.cfm?partNumber=SM1A9

Anyway, the results are counterproductive: I do not see my fingerprints anymore (I use Osram SFH 485s with 880 nm wavelength) but I do see lots of ambient light. The filter does not fit into the lens tube (to be precise: it fits inside but you can’t use the screw ring to fix the bandpass because the bandpass is a tiny bit too high). The C mount adapter ring does fit into the thread of the C mount adapter of my fire i cam but not onto my c mount lens what I supposed the ring to do (onto the C mount adapter directly it is useless because then I do not have a lens anymore ). I sent the whole thing back and asked them instead for this product: http://www.thorlabs.com/thorProduct.cfm?partNumber=FB880-40 maybe this bandpass does show my fingerprints. The Thorlabs staff is very co-operative: they are providing the new bandpass for me on a lending basis. I can test for two weeks if that bandpass is what I’ve been looking for.

I’ll keep you updated if this bandpass will work for me, anyway, do not order the lens tube or the adapter ring if you’re ordering a bandpass from Thorlabs.

Check out this test I did a few days ago: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/1684/

I hope your new filter works out alright.

read your post, sounds great! how have you attached the bandpass to your lens? adhesive tape? or have you got a professional mount for the bandpass? do you use those thorlabs filters also?

i’m really looking forward now to the new +-40nm bandpass, thanks! on the other hand i’m wondering why i had seen exactly nothing of my fingerprints with the +-10nm bandpass. i hope it’s not because of the camera, which is a fire i and not a firefly mv…

Wow, that was fast!

Yup, just used adhesive tape. And yes, my filters are the exact same as yours.

I think the cameras could really be the reason for your bad results with the +-10nm. The FireflyMV seems to be very sensitive to IR, but that comes at a price, right? I wonder how the Point Grey cameras with CCD sensors would perform. But they are so damn expensive!

Hi,
as I wrote in this post we took part in an exhibition with our FTIR MT table.

We were really struggling with the lights in that gallery. At first we were in a room with very bright light and the whole system didn’t work at all. Then we moved to the multi-media part of the exhibition with strongly dimmed light in our room and at least it worked a bit (there was still some daylight and one weak halogen spot light pointing in the opposite direction). We carried out some maintenance work after a few days in another room with strong neon lights pointing directly on the table from above. We tested the table in that room and it worked perfectly fine and sensitive. We could manage to switch of the last remaining spot in that multi-media room and the table worked perfectly. It was really one very weak spot.

I don’t use a bandpass filter (I’ve got the correct one from Thorlabs) because combined with my iFire the contrast between blobs and surrounding light gets so weak that it makes things even worse. I’ve ordered a Firefly MV on Friday and hope that this will improve things. Anyway, I’ll give an update here if the problem was caused by the iFire.