Topdon TC004 Lite Thermal Imaging Camera (Review)

Thermal imaging cameras are hugely popular, and even more so now that they have become affordable. The Topdon TC004 Lite is such a camera. We had a play with it.

What’s in the Box?

The black cardboard box contains, well protected in foam, the thermal imaging camera, a black pouch with carrying strap, a 5 V, 10 W USB charger with prong adapters for probably every country on the world, a USB-A-to-USB-C cable, a product certificate, a calibration certificate, and a succinct user manual in eight languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and Japanese.
 

The Topdon TC004 Lite is IP54

The Topdon TC004 Lite feels quite heavy, 450 gr, and solid. With its rubbery keypad and thick silicon lid on the top protecting the USB-C port, it looks as if the camera is waterproof or at least suitable for operation in humid situations, like outside in the rain. However, the manual doesn’t say anything about this. The website mentions an IP54 rating.

The thermal camera is easy enough to use. After a rather long press on the On/Off button, it switches on. It then boots quickly, and you can immediately start taking thermal pictures if you like. Thanks to its pistol-like shape, it is a real point-and-shoot device. Point the camera to the object of interest and pull the trigger. It then asks you if you want to save the picture.

The Topdon TC004 Lite has a Crisp Display

The 2.8″ color display has 120 by 160 thermal pixels and shows the temperature at the center of the screen. On the right is a color scale from the lowest to the highest temperature on the screen. It also shows the measurement distance it is set to, 1 m by default, and the battery level. The display updates smoothly, and readjustments are pretty fast, especially compared to other thermal cameras I have had in my hands. According to the website, the frame rate is 25 fps.
 

Don’t Press This Button

The keypad has a special ‘Shutter’ button that, when pressed, refreshes the temperature data. If you press it again, it tells you not to use it too frequently. How often frequently is, is not mentioned anywhere, however.

Besides having the traditional menu navigation buttons, there is also a shortcut button to access recorded thermal pictures. Pictures are stored in folders labeled by year and month, so it is useful to set the camera’s internal clock before taking pictures. Doing this is a bit unusual. To increment the month, or the hour or some other value, you must select the arrow above the value and then press the Enter key to increment it. To decrease a value, you must select the downwards-pointing arrow below the value and then press the Enter key.

Digital Zoom

The Topdon TC004 Lite features digital zoom. You activate it by pressing either the Left or Right key. Similarly, the Up and Down keys let you cycle through the different color scales.

Topdon TC004 Lite Extended Settings

When in normal camera mode, pressing the Enter key opens the ‘Settings’ menu. Here you can choose the temperature color palette, select the values that you want to see in camera mode (‘OSD’, On-Screen Data) and enable or disable ‘TISR’. What that means is unclear and isn’t explained anywhere. It appears to be a kind of sharpening noise filter.

 

Then there is a measurement parameters submenu where you select surface emissivity, the default environment temperature (strange how a thermal camera cannot measure the ambient temperature itself) and the default measurement distance.

The temperature range is either −20 °C to 150 °C or 100 °C to 550 °C. Temperature units can be Celsius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin.

Tripod Compatible

The Topdon TC004 Lite can be used as a temperature surveillance device. For this it provides high and low alarms and a programmable image capture rate and count. A suitable screw hole in the bottom of the grip let’s you mount it on a tripod.

There is also a whole bunch of system parameters you can play with. Worth to mention is that the camera has language support for fourteen languages including ‘BrPt’ (Brazilian/Portuguese).

What About the Topdon TC004 Lite’s Big Brother?

Compared to the Topdon TC004, the Lite version has less on several fronts. The display has fewer thermal pixels, the device has less memory, and the battery is half the size. Also, it can’t record video and doesn’t have an SD card slot. But, it weighs less too, and it costs less money. However, it is not all less. The Lite version has a wide temperature range of −20 °C up to 550 °C (the TC004 maxes out at 350 °C), and, in spite of its smaller battery, 15 hours of battery life instead of 12 h for the TC004. Also, it features a digital zoom.

 

Conclusion

The Topdon TC004 Lite is a comfortable thermal imaging camera perfect for finding hot and cold spots on switch – and circuit boards, leaks in heating systems and isolation, and much more. It is fast and has a crisp, clear display. It is not the cheapest thermal imaging camera on the market, but it’s worth its money, especially if you are looking for a thermal surveillance system.