Looking for possible choices for automotive use. Used is ok and preferably under $500. And probably not the type that plugs into a phone. Been chasing a random battery drain, so a thermal view of the fuse boxes and modules might be helpful.
Anybody using a thermal imaging camera?
- Thread starter atikovi
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I dont think
usually they are more pixelated than our avatars by a factor of 10 cheap ones are only about 5000 pixel resolution sounds like a big number until you realize a 1080p computer screen has around 2 million pixels Many phones even more.
usually they are more pixelated than our avatars by a factor of 10 cheap ones are only about 5000 pixel resolution sounds like a big number until you realize a 1080p computer screen has around 2 million pixels Many phones even more.
Look at Flir.com for ideas on what is available. You can do something close w/ infra red thermometer by measuring temps at various times.
The infra red camera might be a better choice.
The infra red camera might be a better choice.
Not much luck doing that as pulling one fuse may wake up a module and you see 300ma.
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Look at You Tube video for doing a voltage drop test on fuses. No need to pull the fuses out!
Except with multiple CAN networks that send signals all over, that can be just as bad as pulling fuses. Already tried that and gave up after checking the first 10 fuses and finding 8 of them flowing current.
Really sensitive IR cameras are Really Expensive. Like $10,000 and up in price. For a one time use either find out who in your area owns one, or rent one.
Is that showing a hot pipe?
Ask NASA to redirect James Webb at your driveway. Now that is a Really Expensive IR camera.
Yes, it shows the pipes getting hot when running the hot water. If you have a boiler system, you can find all kinds of problems!
If the car has these many Can networks you going to need a good wiring diagram and a scope to find the culprit. Check this video!
We had one at work 15 years ago, a FLIR bare-bones, $25k bought for a project. It could readily see heat footprints on linoleum after someone walked by.
I saw that video when it came out. If he had scanned the interior with a thermal camera, he may have found the bad module on the roof pretty quickly.
JHZR2
Staff member
I have a little Milwaukee unit, works well enough for my needs… like when I cooked my wheels due to dragging calipers…
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Check your local library. Ours here have "homeowner kits" or something similar for a name. But they include a lot of how-to videos and a thermal camera to find drafty spots in your home.
I watched this one the other day. I don't know if I would have had the patience to figure this one out.
The milliwatts of heat might register on a good IR camera, but if that heat source is not direcyly visible to the camera, but instead hidden behind stuff, that will make it a much harder heat source to detect, because much less IR will be radiating past what it is hidden by.
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