Slag at 1,250–1,550 °C
The risk of injuring people or destroying equipment is present at every single lift — not once in a while.
Thermal Eye Technologies
The pot is lifted
only when the measurement allows it.
Thermal monitoring for slag pots. The camera measures the entire surface before the lift, the driver receives one unambiguous instruction, and every measurement leaves an auditable record.
- Measured area
- the entire pot surface
- Output
- 4 safety states
- Record
- 6 artefacts per measurement
- Module operating range
- −40 °C … +80 °C
Starting point
Handling hot slag is the most dangerous operation in the plant.
A wall that keeps thinning
Pouring against the side wall carves out cavities. In the worst case a burn-through — and then it is not only slag leaving the pot, but molten steel.
A decision made on paper
A handheld pyrometer covers a few points. The result ends up on paper, and after an incident there is nothing left to show what was actually measured.
The change
Guesswork becomes measurement.
Today’s practice
- Visual check before the lift
- Handheld pyrometer, a handful of points
- The driver’s experience decides
- Records kept on paper
- No evidence after an incident
Thermal Eye
- Thermal measurement of the entire surface
- Hot spots located and logged
- One unambiguous instruction for the driver
- Live server data instead of paper
- Six artefacts for every measurement
How it works
Camera on the vehicle, evaluation in the module, record on the server.
- 01
Thermal camera
Measures the entire pot surface before the lift.
- 02
TE Core Module
Evaluates the measurement right there in the vehicle.
- 03
Instruction to the driver
One of four states on the in-cab display.
- 04
Central platform
Record, media and the pot’s history.
The operator workflow has five steps, and at each one the only choices offered are the ones that make sense.
- Start
- Measure
- Pickup
- Dump
- Upload
- Pot, site, driver, vehicle and pit are picked from live server data — not from paper
- Recall loads the last measurement of the selected pot
- Use last setup restores the last confirmed configuration
- Continuous visual control makes it possible to establish the correct value afterwards, even when the driver made a mistake
The upcoming AI module will perform this independent parallel audit automatically.
Measurement result
Four states. No room for interpretation.
Temperature is OK
the pot may be lifted
Too hot — use it once
one more use, then inspection
Too hot — wait for cooling
do not lift, repeat the measurement
Danger — keep away
do not lift, call the supervisor
Safety is decided by the unfiltered radiometric maximum recorded across the whole cycle — not by the smoothed value on the display.
- Thresholds, cycle length and sampling interval are set directly at the plant
- A change takes effect from the next measurement — no restart, no vendor involvement
- Further pot states: inspection, scheduled check, repair, out of service
Auditable record
Every measurement produces six artefacts.
rendered
raw radiometric
frame at the start
✓
✓
frame at the end
✓
✓
video of the whole process
✓
✓
The raw record holds one temperature per pixel — not a picture. A measurement can still be recomputed a year later from the original data, with different thresholds than the ones running that day.
Fleet overview
Every pot on a single screen.
Thermal image and peak temperature in the monitored area, the number of measurements and the latest result.
Site and status — ready, in production, under repair, stand by, out of service.
Straight to the record — every card links through to the measurement, video included.
Platform
One installation, several plants, one auditable record.
- Structured as company → plant → data; a device can be authorised for several plants
- The device talks only through the platform API, never straight to the database
- Connection over an encrypted tunnel; credentials live neither in the configuration nor in the code
- Daily, weekly and monthly reports for every pot
- Pot history as the basis for service life and maintenance planning
- The device also reports its own state — power on, power off, batteries, button presses
“Stored” means the server has read the record back and confirmed it.
Hardware
TE Core Module v1.0
The tablet was replaced by a unit designed for this environment: no moving parts, no ventilation openings, connectors built for dust and vibration.
- Enclosure
- monolithic aluminium, fanless, passive cooling
- Ruggedness
- dust-tight, watertight, vibration-resistant; IP65+ connectors
- Temperature
- −40 °C to +80 °C
- Power
- 12/24 VDC ±20 %, protection against overvoltage, overcurrent and reverse polarity
- Outputs
- switchable 3.3 / 5 / 12 / 24 V for the camera and peripherals
- Interfaces
- 4× relay 250 V/10 A · RS-485 · RS-232 · USB OTG · Ethernet · SSD
- Connectivity
- 4G/LTE and GPS built into the module
Operational resilience
Ignition off does not mean the measurement is lost.
UPS and two batteries
the main battery keeps the system alive ~10 min after a power loss, the backup up to a year in deep sleep (by design)
Controlled shutdown
the system first verifies the data is stored, then powers down camera, display and CPU in order
Automatic start
powers up as soon as supply returns, fixed peripheral sequence, log sent to the server
Alarm to the server
raised when the main battery drops below the configured threshold
BMS diagnostics
voltage, current, temperature, protection against overload, overheating and deep discharge
GPS and theft protection
location of the device and the vehicle
Service mode over USB
firmware and logs even with flat batteries
Service controls
START / STOP / RESET plus two programmable; every press is recorded
Replaceable batteries
connectorised, industrial — servicing without a soldering iron
Openness
The camera is a replaceable part of the system, not its foundation.
Hikvision
ISAPI / RTSP
main industrial line
AT Sensors IRSX
GigE Vision, 640 × 512
radiometric channel
Demo mode
no hardware
training and demonstrations
No vendor lock-in. The camera is chosen to suit the plant and the budget, not the software.
Roadmap
Core Module v2.0
Designed in, shipping with version 2.0. Everything else on this page is version 1.0 and ships today.
v2.0
Black-box mode
independent backup unit and backup communication
v2.0
AI compute unit
evaluation and parallel audit directly in the vehicle
v2.0
Measurement circuits
shock, tilt, acceleration, noise, motion wake-up
Next step
A pilot installation on one vehicle.
The pilot reveals the real temperature profiles of your pots. The thresholds are set from those — and only then does the fleet decision follow.
Contact e-mail and phone — to be added.