[Techtoolslist] Using Flir android thermal camera to track down short

[Kurt Mahan]

Had a couple of nice Flukes at my last job.  Made quick work of a lot of 
troubleshooting - both for work and also to borrow to use on game 
boards.  They were also popular as it started getting cold outside for 
people to borrow over the weekend to see where they needed to insulate 
:)  When our site was closing those were among the things from the lab 
that other sites were fighting over.

For those of us without a big lab budget anymore (and even on ebay used 
Fluke imagers cost a fortune) what are people using that they like?  And 
also any "stay away from" units?

There are a few Android imagers out there (DavidS mentioned the FLIR One 
Pro)..


On 9/10/19 8:58 AM, John Robertson wrote:
> On 2019/09/10 2:59 a.m., Dave Riddle (Technical Dept.) wrote:
>> Standard procedure since the '80's except the camera. Used an AgA 
>> Thermovision 750 with it's inconvenient loose liquid nitrogen.
>>
>> On 9/9/2019 7:02 PM, davids at oz.net wrote:
>>> So I have an MCR board set which roasted the inductor on the +12v rail.
>>>
>>>   - - snip - -
>>>
> A friend has lent me a dedicated Flir camera and I thought it would be 
> great for doing exactly the above. The problem is it is an older one 
> that takes up to five minutes to stabilize and by then I've usually 
> found the problem...
>
> It was nice trying it on an Atari pinball MPU that some idiot had 
> plugged in the solenoid connector to the switch jack. The fifteen or 
> so blown ICs stood out easily against the background!
>
> What is interesting is that a number of digital cameras will work in 
> the IR range, so I've thought of getting a visible light filter 
> whenever I again order some lens from Edmonds to play with some of my 
> cameras to see how far they actually see. I have used camera phones 
> for checking IR diodes (including laser diodes on CD players) and the 
> older iPhones worked for that - which was handy for troubleshooting 
> trough optos.
>
> John ;-#)#
>