Mid price laser/imaging heat guns?

[griff59]

I want to buy a laser or imaging heat thermometer, they seem great for diagnosing various engine problems. There seem to be so many available, I don't want to spend a fortune, but it would be nice to have one that actually shows hotspots as an image, rather than just an LED temperature read out, any reccomendations appreciated.

[mcdjl]

Do you mean you want a thermal imager? eg. https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?id... (thats not a recommendation any thermal camera i've got is both a few years old and higher end than that)

Thats quite a different beast to a laser thermometer which will give you the temperature at a spot.

[No ideas for a name]

Fluke TiS20 but likely expensive.
FLIR One, which you can add-on to a phone.

[No ideas for a name]

Just one thing... you have to understand the resolution (number of pixels) of these devices.
The FLIR One for instance is 80 * 60 pixels in terms of thermal measurements.
It is then artificially enhanced by playing tricks with the visible light image.

[Top Banana]

I sell thermal imaging cameras, and unless you are spending £600-£1000 you are going to be disappointed with the images you get

the 3 key factors depending on your budget should be resolution (i.e. the number of pixels that the detector comprises of). As an example the units I sell have a minimum of 160x120 pixels, anything that is only 40x60 or 80x80 is basically going to give both a very pixelated image, but also any temperature information on the screen (spot marker, hot/cold spot, etc) will be unreliable regarding accuracy.

the 2nd factor is thermal sensitivity - this basically tells you what temperature difference across pixels the camera needs to start to resolve an image. Again our basic cameras are 100mk (millikelvin) which is basically 0.1 Deg.C - this level of thermal sensitivity allows the camera to really give a good spread of colours in the image to help the user determine what the image is showing.

The 3rd factor is to get a camera with a good wide angle lens, and also the ability to focus down to around 0.5m - this allows both wide angle shots to get the whole subject in, and also allows a certain amount of close-up work

if you want to know a bit more, have a look around our company website https://www.testo.com/en-UK/products/thermal-image...

[Jonny_]

I carry a Flir TG165 for day to day fault finding on electrical gubbins, diesel gensets, air compressor equipment etc etc. It's not a patch on the high resolution Flir T1020 camera that we use for finding poor connections on high voltage gear at several metres' range, but for close up work it's ideal. And it's £400, versus something like £20k for the T1020. We've also got a couple of Fluke Ti25 imagers, again far more capable than the little Flir but also a great deal more expensive, think we were paying circa £6k when we purchased them a few years ago.

For automotive work I'd say a basic model like the TG165 is more than adequate. I've tried the Flir One too but found the "plug into the bottom of the phone" form factor a bit clumsy. Resolution was better than the TG165 but it wasn't as good for use in confined spaces. Fluke also make a small handheld one but it didn't compare well with the Flir when we trialled it.

[griff59]

Thanks a lot folks, been busy so haven't had a chance to reply.
Jeeze! I didn't realise these things were so expensive, I'm not sure now if a temperature probe will be good enough, or if I need to go for an imager, it's just for occasional garage use.