I received a flyer from Harbor Freight yesterday, and one of the items
 in it was a new "borescope" that was priced down from $139 (on their
 website) to $99.99 in the local stores.

 So, knowing that I would need one soon to exam the inside of my fuel
 tanks when I get the holes for the fuel filler assembly cut (and who
 knows what other little holes I'd have to inspect), I went down and
 bought it.

 I bought it...it was much better than I expected, and a lot more solid
 than other Harbor Freight items I bought in the past. The first thing I
 noticed was that it was very well packaged in a semi-rigid plastic
 container. I'll use that to store it in.

 I think it has a lot of neat features (in addition to the price), so I
 thought I'd pass it on to you people in case you are looking for a tool
 to examine those hard to view places as well.

 The camera/light source head is 5/8 inch in diameter...the flexible
 shaft is 3 feet long.  The camera, flex shaft and mounting head on the
 handle are attached with o-rings and are claimed to be water proof. The
 whole thing (including the monitor) has a nice solid feel to it and
 appears to be pretty rugged. Not the usual thin plastic like the Chinese
 stuff often is.

 The length of the camera head before it starts to be bendable may be a
 problem for some applications though, as  even though the camera and
 it's fitting itself is only a little less than 3 inches in length, it
 needs 4-1/2 inches of clearance straight in to get a full bend in the
 flexible shaft.  An application like this would be a good place to use
 the 45 degree mirror attachment that comes with it that I mention below.

 The monitor/display is in color, has adjustable brightness (in addition
 to the LED light source brightness adjustments), contrast and
 orientation (rotates the image in four steps) and can be removed easily
 from the handle and remoted as it uses a wireless connection to the
 camera.  It also has a video output.  It's cable has a standard RCA
 connector on the end so you can input it to any device that will accept
 a composite video input for recording or viewing on a larger screen.

 The camera and LEDs runs on 4 AA batteries in the handle, and the
 monitor has a rechargeable lithium ion battery.  It comes with the
 charger as well.  It has three attachments that fit over the camera head
 ...a mirror, a magnet and a pick.  So you can hunt down and move or pick
 up things you find in those deep dark holes.

 It uses super bright LEDs for the camera's light source, and the light
 level is adjustable through a trigger on the handle.  The camera does
 pretty good in low light as well...I was viewing items in my house this
 morning without using the LEDs.

 You can see it online here:
 www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?function=Search

 And the manual is here:
 www.harborfreight.com/manuals/66000-66999/66550.pdf

 Harley Dixon
 Long EZ N28EZ
 Canandaigua, NY

 I'll have to pop over to harbor freight and take a look.
 I have a couple of engines that I would like to inspect.
 5/8th won't fit through a spark plug hole I don't think.
 Or would it?

 Paul Lamar

Probably wouldn't, but the bigger problem may be that it would have to
go straight in...probably wouldn't be able to see anything but the
cylinder wall opposite the spark plug hole (or the face of the rotor in
a rotary).

I was just examining all the holes I could find in the 13B in my garage,
and noticed that one of it's problems is it has a limited focus. It
looks down inside the intake holes nicely, but anything closer to the
end of the camera than about 3-4 inches began to blur. The small print
on the manual became unreadable about three inches from the end of the
camera.

However, I believe it will be great for inspecting things like the hell
hole in Long EZs, the fuel tanks, the wing/strake mounting points, under
seats, etc.

Harley


Not nearly as sophisticated, but maybe adequate for engine internals:

http://www.tooloutfitters.net/pro-vision-100-standard-diameter-18-fiberoptic-borescope.html

Has anyone tried one?


Matt-