Endoscope for cell phone?

[kshansen]

Just wondering if anyone has tried any of the endoscopes/borescopes that hook up to a cellphone.

Have seen some being advertised for less than $10.00 which sounds very cheep but I guess other than some cable all you are getting is a half dozen LEDs and the sensor/camera on a chip so not that surprising.

I have an old Samsung Galaxy that is just sitting in a drawer so I was thinking about one just to play around with, anyone use one? Comments on good or bad features?

One thing that almost sounds like a waste is how long a lead they all seem to have, 15 feet?? I guess if I was doing inspection on a sewer line that might be handy, but just for seeing down in a fuel tank or that dark place under the dash it seems excessive.

 

[Birken Vogt]

What I really want them for is looking inside a questionable engine cylinder and judging condition. But will they be of sufficient resolution to judge cylinder cross hatch/polish/ridge conditions?

 

[kshansen]

What I really want them for is looking inside a questionable engine cylinder and judging condition. But will they be of sufficient resolution to judge cylinder cross hatch/polish/ridge conditions?

I agree resolution could be a major factor in how useful a tool it would be along with ability to point the camera where you want to see.

 

[old-iron-habit]

Not sure how they compare in resolution to a $10 camera but they have reasonable priced pencil diameter sized cameras for looking under the ice when ice fishing. They turn 360 degrees around and can rotate up 45 degrees and rotate to look straight down without moving the cable. We could easily see individual sand pepples in 28 ft. of water looking from two ft. off the bottom with the one my friend picked up for a bit over $100. They even have lights in them. The small cameras have come a long way in the last few years. This one plugged into a lap top with software installed.

 

[td25c]

I'm doing good if I even get home with the cell phone ….

Moved equipment today , Phone fell out of my shirt pocket .

Had to ask the customer to call the number so we could locate the phone on the job site .

Shut every thing off & could hear it ringing under the tailboard of the lowboy . LOL !

No smartphone for td . I plant 2 or 3 flip phones each year .

Cost of doing business

 

[Ronsii]

I have some of those cheepy endocams, they do work and the resolution isn't too bad.... i actually used one of the 40$-60 stand alone ones I bought a year ago to look into the spark plug hole of a teryx side by side motor 750cc it was ok... i could see the piston come up and not move when I moved the drive pulley back n forth 3/4 inch... you couldalso see some wear marks from the rings... however you couldn't tell if the marks were deep scratches or not.

I also have a couple different versions of the 10$ usb ones, my phone should work with them because it has the powered(out) charging/comm port... it works with the seek thermal camera plugged into it but battery life on the phone is very short when used this way.


I will try to remember to try these out soon, I get these cool things then work gets really busy and they get forgotten.... I love cool gadgets almost as much as old iron

 

[Pixie]

I bought one to find out which way the valves were in an engine with a broken timing belt. The focus wasn't great when that close but the light was good enough to see what I needed to know.
The mirror that makes it see 45-90* is cheap.
Haven't found any other uses for it but every man I hand it to sticks it in his ear which used to surprise me.

 

[kshansen]

Haven't found any other uses for it but every man I hand it to sticks it in his ear which used to surprise me.

Guess that's better than some places they could be sticking it!

 

[John C.]

One gent I used to work with bought one of the units from Home Depot when they first came out. He used it for finding fluid leaks in tight engine compartments. His had a smart card you could pull out and stick in a computer to view the pictures better. I've looked now but can't seem to find one with the card anymore.

 

[John Washington]

Some are completely useless. I upgraded to one called a Depstech 1200P from Amazon that works a lot better than the last one. Lighting and resolution are the keys. Get one with a semi rigid chord that helps position it. The real problem is finding what you want to see and knowing what you are looking at. I was used it to find the first touch of the throw out bearing on the clutch fingers. It took a while to find it. It is very easy to get disoriented. Left, right, up, down and also the relative size of parts. In the end it worked perfectly.

 

[Pixie]

The one I got worked with PC so you could make a card.
Many older phones have cards.
I put thin strips of orange tape lengthwise and crosswise on the cable so I had a better idea which way was which.

 

[oceanobob]

Have the scope from Harbor Freight and an auto tech specialist for electrical repairs said it was pretty good for the price against his comparison to the snap on, he actually borrowed the HF model as he said it had a larger depth of field. He also mentioned these are invaluable for underneath dashboard repair work, tracing wires, heat/air damper controls, look for fasteners clips etc.