Bought a $400 thermal imaging camera for wire checks, total waste

I picked up a FLIR unit last spring thinking it would speed up finding hot spots in the harnesses. Turns out on an older King Air, the panel heat from the sun gives you false readings every time. I burned a whole Saturday chasing a phantom short that ended up being a chafed wire I could have felt by hand. The camera is sitting in my toolbox now, used it maybe 3 times total. If you are on the fence about buying one for fault isolation, save your cash and get a decent multimeter with a temp probe instead. Anyone else regret a fancy tool that sounded great on paper?

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ray_miller4112d ago

78 degrees is where the trouble started for me, on a Cessna 210 last fall. I had one of those smaller phone-attached thermal units, not a full FLIR, and the exhaust manifold heat made every wire within six inches light up like a Christmas tree. I chased a bad ground for two days before I gave up and just ran my hand along the harness, found the burnt insulation in about ten minutes. I used to think thermal was the future of troubleshooting, but now I figure it's only good for finding a breaker that's already tripped, not for hunting shorts in a hot engine bay.