Infrared & Thermal Imaging

[ChristianTaylor]

IMPORTANT: Please do not discuss anything in this thread that is unrelated to the effectiveness of these products, similar products, or how to combat IR/TI. If you contribute something please MAKE SURE your right, or state that you are not positive (DON'T be a know it all unless you know it all, otherwise your not helping anyone). Also, check your philosophical comments at the door, I don't know about anyone else but I don't give a shit, I wouldn't be posting in growroom designs if I did. Please don't Waste My time, Your time, or Anyone else's time.

I have recently been looking into products that will help protect Me, my privacy, and my Aero Setup. I am aware that many people think the products I am about to list are unnecessary. You can call me overcautious or paranoid but please keep the discussion in this thread about how these products work and/or don't work.
Block IR
C3 Anti Detection Mylar Foil
Mylar Lightite ADF Reflective Sheeting
Poly Shield

The C3 Anti Detection Mylar Foil is no longer sold in the US. I believe it was also originally developed by our government.

-CT

 

[ChristianTaylor]

Thought I should add this:

I have heard that IR/TI becomes useless if you use water cooled lights. Here is a company that seems to make a pretty advanced product:
Liquid Lumen's
The product basically puts a wall of glass between the light and the grow room that becomes flooded with cooled water, effectively keeping the area surrounding the light and your grow room cool. I should mention that there issues concerning this product that are not heat, IR/TI related. The main one being loss of lumen's from the light having to travel through water. But that is NOT what the discussion is about.

Remember, keep this conversation strictly about IR/TI and products that might help, solve, or fail at achieving the desired outcome. Which is of course to effectively mask ourselves from these devices. This thread is NOT about the unrelated drawbacks of such products.

Sorry I need to stress that so often. A previous thread of mine on the same topic became a source of political, theoretical, and philosophical debate and the information presented mostly sounded like lies. What type of person lies for the purpose of lying?

Thank you,

-CT

 

[ChristianTaylor]

I'm glad that people are following the age old saying of "if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all" but it would be really nice to find someone who really knows their facts when it comes to this subject.

-CT

 

[In Vino Veritas]

You need to stfu and get off your high horse. Who gives a shit about your thread? I don't.

that's what people who aren't wasting their time typing to you are thinking..how about that age old proverb - Jesus Loves You, everyone else thinks you're an asshole.

 

[ChristianTaylor]

Didn't mean to come off like I'm on a high horse or anything. My other thread just got all messed up with people talking about their philosophies and other people telling tall tales about their experiences. One guy told me that because I was even considering products that claim to protect you from IR/TI I was helping the government walk all over everyones rights. So I decided to post it in growroom designs and stress the importance of staying on topic. Here's a link to my previous thread:
My Other Post

I was just getting a little frustrated because I searched for this subject on IC, google, and a few other grow sites and couldn't really find anything that seemed concrete or useful. I want to get a focused discussion going where anyone interested could find some good information without being mislead or distracted.

I don't know why you felt necessary to be so aggressive in your comments. Whatever, its a free country. All I'm saying is I'm sure lots of people are interested in this subject, I mean, you clicked on it.

Perhaps you thought you were going to learn something by clicking on the thread link only to find a discussion I was having with myself where I seemed to be nitpicking irrelevent guidlines that I created for no paticular purpose other than me being a tightass. Perhaps this frustrated you the same way the responses to my previous thread frustrated me. Like you not caring about the guidelines I would like respected in this thread, I don't care about peoples philosophies, and tall tales when it comes to discussing this subject. I'm only interested in concrete knowledge when it comes to this subject.

I still believe this topic has potential for some good discussion and good information if some knowledgeable, focused, contributers happen upon this thread and decide to chime in. So I'm crossing my fingers.

Anyway man, not trying to go off on a tangent as I would just like to leave it at that so any potential discussion about the topic at hand can take place with no distractions.

Later,

-CT

 

[Depths Of OG]

I've found a simple tin-foil hat and dried pasta go a long way in blocking the IR laser beams that will undboutably penetrate your grow room.

 

[shatterbabylon]

dont know much about ir but, if your worried that much about security you probably shouldnt be googling ir blocking with major search engines like that. they are monitored. try scroogle scraper if you dont want some govt geek sifting through all your searches.
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Christian you have not really explained how big of a grow you are trying to cover up. If it is one or two lights no biggie. If it is in a warehouse, then you have some options.

What if you created a barrier between the heat and outside? Lets say you had a 40x40 warehouse and you built a room that was 20x20. That should leave you a 10 foot cushion. How many layers of thermal can one of these cameras see through?

I wonder if anyone rents these? I looked online and they are pretty expensive5-20k!!! However if your grow was huge, one of these may not be a bad idea to see how you show up. I also checked ebay, theres a few.

Heres some rentals. Google is the bomb. And I use a proxy server so the man can track what he wants.

http://www.inspectortools.com/flukerental.html?gclid=CO28pcDN_44CFSUjgQod-Rkoxw

Come Christian its a hot subjetc for you, rent one and post the results.

 

[Harry Gypsna]

correct insulation is cheaper and more effective than these fancy foils..... local growshod stopped selling c3 and now recommends and selles reflectix(double sided aluminium bubble insulation a bit like radiator reflector foil) evn though he ,makes less money on it...that should tell you someting

 

[JJScorpio]

What you need to worry about is the venting going out of your home, or if one of your upstairs rooms is considerably hotter than the others. I have my room venting out the chimney so nothing looks out of place. What you don't want to do is vent out of the side of the house where no heat source should be. Unless something has put you on Leos radar there shouldn't be much to worry about anyways.

 

[anonymiss12345]

There's nothing wrong with your other thread CT. ...and has been mentioned....this threads vibe is way in the gutter. Totally wrong.

 

[ChristianTaylor]

Thats some quality input guys. I just checked this thread for the first time since I made the last post. I got a little worried after reading Depths of OG post that the entire thread was going to be people acting foolish and wasting time. Fortunately for everyone interested in this it looks like the kids got bored or confused by all the big words & more serious discussion.

Shatterbabylon- Thanks for the safe alternative to Google

yamaha 1fan- This is not actually for my grow, at least not right now :wink:. My search for information on this topic yielded little, resulting in me becoming very interested.

Did you come up with that room in room idea just now? Thats sweet if you did because according to one site that I happened upon while looking for information, thats one of the better solutions. This link also has some good info about IR/TI as it relates to grow security in general.
IR/TI as it Relates to Grow Security

Apparently you do it just like you were saying. You make a room that is slightly smaller than the room you are building it in. Then you cool the air in the space between the two rooms. I guess this makes it so the IR/TE only picks up the cold air shell.

Harry Gypsna- Well I heard C3 is no longer sold in the US because the government stepped in, you think that might be bull? It might hold water because the only sites I have seen it available are UK based. I have also heard C3 was developed by the US government.

I have heard people mention Reflectix before, is it for masking IR/TI heat signatures?

JJScorpio- Yes, masking the IR/TI heat signature of your entire grow isn't going to help much if your just pumping all that hot air into your back yard. From what I have read your also correct about one room being hotter than the other, they look for inconsistencies. Unfortunately they don't just look for inconsistencies from room to room but also house to house.


All in all IR/TI is not something to get paranoid about. It happens, but more often as grow room confirmation when they have already obtained much more evidence. Like many people have said this isn't really something to worry about unless your running a seriously large scale grow. It is however a very interesting topic, especially for a security buff like myself.

I'm still very interested in these water cooled lights as a potential solution... I know, I know, they cut down on lumen's. I emailed the guys at LiquidLumens and have not received a response yet (3 Days). Anyone know anyone else who offers water cooled HID, did a quick search and didn't come up with much.

Later guys,

-CT

 

[Mr Celsius]

Reflex at home depot/grow shops and the products listed will all work. As JJ mentioned, where you vent your hot air is key; I have a room in my garage, so the whole garage stabilizes at the temps that I'm venting into it, so the whole garage (if seen by FLIR) looks the same temp... probably around 75-80 degrees F.

Don't worry dude, there's haters, but your goals will be accomplished if you persist.

 

[anonymiss12345]

You're don't seem to be getting the point. Cool the bulb all you want...but the grow environment still needs to be higher than a 'normal' household living environment....during the winter anyways.
And that is AIR temp...not just reflective temps from the bulb.

Room within a room...I can't take credit for the concept and I doubt yamaha1 will either...but I certainly mentioned it in your other thread. An air space gives, yes, exactly that...a 'cold shell' for Infrared to NOT see.

 

[NiteTiger]

The key to blocking FLIR/Thermal is to keep the heat from reaching an outside wall in a concentrated area.

FLIR works by reading differences in heat. The item being searched for must have a heat differential to be spotted. When searching for a hidden suspect/missing person, FLIR is invaluable, as you can now visualize the difference of the suspect's body heat from the heat of the surrounding vegetation/ground.

--Not necessarily pertinent to this particular thread, but valuable to growers seeking a more total knowledge of FLIR. Skip down to pick up at indoor gardening--


In detecting outdoor grows, FLIR works by seeing the pattern of heat variegation created by the tending/preparation of plots for cultivation. Prepared or treated soil absorbs heat differently than the surrounding natural vegetation. When seen from above, the pattern emerges that indicates specific cultivation. Once again, it's the differences in heat that the FLIR sees.

See a pattern?

The same carries through to indoor growing. Our hobby generates heat. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Even the plants give off heat. The key to FLIR security is to disperse this heat evenly, to avoid the heat variances that FLIR relies on to do its job.

You can shield the specific heat signature given from your light using the products you've mentioned. However, the heat itself still exists, and it has to go somewhere. So how do you deal with the heat? The key is that you don't have to eliminate the heat, just spread it out enough that it blends in, disperse it. You can mask the pinpoint heat signature of your light, but half of your attic is hotter than the rest of your house.

The attic is a good place to look for the solution. In your attic, what's the primary thing you have? Space. The best insulators are air, and earth. Why? Because they disperse heat quickly. In the attic, you have a lot of air. In the summer, this contained air distributes the heat from the roof evenly, providing a barrier. In the winter, it contains the heat inside. To prevent buildup of heat, most attics vent to the outside, either through forced or convection methods.

Man made insulators try to trap this resource in as little space as possible. Fiber glass fibers trap billions of pockets of air, resulting in fiber glass insulation. Cellulose is another common insulator, trapping air in weaves of cellulose - normally seen as 'blown' insulation in attics.

So, to mask our heat signature, let's apply these principles. I'll use my grow as an example. In my grow, I have built separate pods inside of a larger space. This larger space is semi-subterranean garage, connected to a fully subterranean area. The pods themselves have a layer of standard household fiberglass roll insulation on the outside. If I wanted even more protection, I'd use the mylar coated styrofoam panels on the inside as well.

But the reason I don't is fans. My lights (a 1kw and 400w) are air cooled, dumping the air through a carbon filter into the larger garage. There it mixes with my air conditioning exhaust. This air is pushed into the subterranean area by a series of box fans. Yep, simple box fans.

What's the net effect? My heat is dispersed by nature and design. Between the actual light and an exterior scan point is a piece of plywood (an insulator), R40 fiberglass insulation (an insulator, duh), at least 8000 cubic feet of air (an insulator), and untold cubic feet of earth (an insulator). To augment this awesome amount of insulation, I spread the heat over even more insulation using the box fans to move the warm air underground.

Do I worry about a heat signature? I live across the street from a cop, two blocks from a police station, on an approach route to the airport the local PDs helicopters use.

And I'd run another 4000kw without thinking twice about my heat.

To summarize, heat security should be part of your deciding factor in selecting a grow area. In my case, as I was able to select an entire house that works for me ideally. The main thing to remember is to DISPERSE the heat, make sure no room is severely different in temperature from another in the house.

Were I to have a house specifically for cultivation, I'd vent my heat into the other living quarters of the home - unused rooms - before venting it evenly to the outside.

--------------------

Does that meet your standards?

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/productDetail.cfm?ProductID=3277

i buy this stuff at home de pot by the sheet and cover it with panda-poly ontop of my roof (on my plastic shed)...although i knew it was pure paranoia, now this guy fell over the side of the boat in the paranoia sea....

someone said something about concintrations of hot air...
no ones ever put there hand near a dryer duct??
my parents house had an electric dryer....i didnt think of it as a kid (besides seeing it run all day) that it used over5K watts and put out a pipe of hot air out the side of the house.... of wait the builders got us confused with the drug-growers house....HAHAHA
no duct of hot air ever got anyone in trouble.. now a duct of hot marijuana smelling air will...

 

[NiteTiger]

Very true DH, a dryer duct is a great way to vent hot air, and odor control is always tops.

Just make sure the front you've got supports the use of a very hot drier 24/7 if you want to avoid all suspicion.

 

[ChristianTaylor]

Great info, thanks.

So those products only work by insulating? Kind of sounds similar to hanging up a thick plastic liner in a doorway to separate two rooms, one which is air conditioned and one thats not. Some things are just better at insulating.

Minimize Heat Signiture

I have heard of people exhausting heat into their plumbing. Is that a safe method?

Tanks guys,

-CT

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Yes Christian, I mentioned it another thread of yours, some people vent into the sewer. It used to be a big topic on OG.

I got the room in a room idea from a grow I did previously inside a warehouse. We basically built 2 rooms inside of the warehouse. The primary reason was for odor control. I did not want the room touching a wall we were sharing with neighbors. We also needed a way to exhaust the wall unit A/C's and tht was into the rest of the warehouse.

That spot was plagued with problems as I was unaware of just how much heat the lights could put out and I did not have proper fans on my air cooled hoods.

After I run a few grows and I have some money to play with, I am going to rent one of those and see what I come up with.

Another variable is what is the difference between cameras? Some are 5k and some are 20k. What does the 20k camera do that the the 5k doesnt?

 

[ChristianTaylor]

I assume the difference is sensitivity, just a guess though. Maybe more detailed images as well.

-CT