Piccolo Thermal Images In "real life" I used to be a rep for a manufacturer of infrared thermometers and thermal imaging cameras. So why not use our demo unit to take a series of thermal images of the "business end" of my Piccolo? Why not indeed!

The following is a series of thermal images of the Piccolo, at 8-14 microns wavelength (far infrared). The view is from the left side of the heli, canopy removed. The main motor is in the center, over the battery. The Piccoboard is to the left. The tail boom (barely visible) extends to the right out of the frame. The tail rotor and motor are out of the frame to the right. Note that the frame, boom and skids, while in the image frame, are barely visible since they are at the same temperature as the background. The first image was taken at "zero minutes" with a freshly charged battery.

I shot an image every 60 seconds for five minutes, at slightly below hover power. The heli was fastened to a table, and there was a bit of vibration which is responsible for the "wigglies" in a couple frames.

Zero minutes. The battery had been connected for several minutes prior to starting the motor and the Piccoboard has risen about five degrees above ambient at this point and is somewhat visible. The freshly charged (and warm) battery is plainly visible, and the hottest area is about 102 degrees F.	One minute. Now the motor is visible as it heats up. There are two tiny hot spots at about 94 degrees that appear to be the motor leads as they attach to the RFI suppression devices. Notice the several hot spots on the Piccoboard. The hottest is 103 degrees F.
Two minutes.	Three minutes. Notice that the hot spots on the Piccoboard are cooling... due to rotor wash?
Four minutes	Five minutes. At this point, the small hot spots at the top of the motor are at 125 degrees. The battery looks like it has cooled, but due to the autoscaling of the image palette, it is actually at 109 degrees F.
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