Dropped $780 on a fancy borescope kit before I learned the $60 one did the same job
I've been turning wrenches on planes for 15 years now, and I still feel dumb about this one. About 8 months back, I bought one of those digital borescope kits with the big screen and video recording, thinking it would make my inspections way faster. Spent $780 on it. Then my old mentor swung by the hangar, pulled out a $60 USB scope he got online, plugged it into his phone, and got the same view of the combustion chamber. Same resolution, honestly. I used mine twice before the screen cracked, and the cheap one has been kicking around in my box ever since. If you're just doing routine checks, save your money and get the basic one. Any of you still using the old rigid borescopes, or did everyone switch to these phone ones?
Keeping the old rigid one around still makes sense for tight spots where a phone scope gets awkward, since you can feel your way through the path by hand instead of staring at a screen. At the same time, the phone ones have gotten so cheap and clear that the fancy kit setup feels like paying extra just for a cracked screen waiting to happen. Maybe the move is running both, rigid for the blind angles and the phone scope for everything else.