Portable “snake” inspection camera with display $15 new no rebate! (Menards)

[tigers2007]

It’s $25 at Wally World and I just saw the Menards weekly flyer:

 

 

Lizard Cam Flexible Micro-Inspection Camera at Menards https://www.menards.com/main/p-1537252094851.htm

 

 

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[charlesual]

Think the mirror attachment would be able to see cylinder valves? If not does anyone have a recommendation for a 180 camera?


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[Rick Junkin]

This is an order of magnitude more in price, but works great with a laptop computer or Android device as your display:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GY7C9ZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheers,
Rick

[N201MKTurbo]

26 minutes ago, Junkman said:

This is an order of magnitude more in price, but works great with a laptop computer or Android device as your display:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GY7C9ZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheers,
Rick

That’s what I use. It works great!

[Oldguy]

11 hours ago, Junkman said:

This is an order of magnitude more in price, but works great with a laptop computer or Android device as your display:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GY7C9ZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheers,
Rick

Bought one of these for my mechanic a couple of years ago.Works very well and can attach to the Dell Win 10 tablet I have.

[Marauder]

Think the mirror attachment would be able to see cylinder valves? If not does anyone have a recommendation for a 180 camera?


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I have the one Junkman posted. Works great at looking at the valves. It’s pricey but works well.


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[tigers2007]

I have the wifi version of the Chinese camera. I like the one at Menards as it all-inclusive and doesn’t require me to install foreign authored spyware onto my laptop or cellphone.


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[Prior owner]

I have had zero success with any of the mirror attachments that came with my wifi camera....still looking for an inexpensive camera that can be controlled to turn back ast45 degrees....

[DXB]

On 12/16/2019 at 10:13 PM, Junkman said:

This is an order of magnitude more in price, but works great with a laptop computer or Android device as your display:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GY7C9ZW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Cheers,
Rick

I recommmend buying this scope. I played quite a bit with the super cheap cameras that need a mirror to see the valves - they are a pain to get a good reliable view.  

[charlesual]

I’m sure it would be lots of fun if the attached mirror fell into the cylinder too.


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[tigers2007]

I just picked it up. They have two versions. One is $25 and the other one is on sale for $15. I’ll do a mini review.


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[EricJ]

I have several examples of various flavors of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Seesi-Endoscope-Waterproof-Inspection-Semi-Rigid/dp/B07PBF6DX5/ref=pd_sbs_421_1/130-0448973-9759239

They run anywhere from $9 - $35, and historically you could get them with rigid or floppy cables, regular or macro lens, etc., etc.

When they work, they're awesome.  I've been able to get a lot done that I wouldn't have been able to do in various situations with them.   That said, I'd give them about a 50% hit rate of when they'll work reasonably well or just be a complete waste of time.   I haven't been able to predict which going into a new situation, but I can say that I've had zero success with them in cylinder bores.    They can be good for finding part numbers in hard-to-see places, and they're probably a lot easier to snake around things than a regular borescope like what was mentioned above.

In order to see the stuff I can't get to with these cheap things, I recently ordered the version of the ViVedia scope with the semi-rigid cable so that I can get a reliable view inside cylinders, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072DS7LQN/ref=sspa_dk_detail_2

As always, ymmv...

[tmo]

@EricJ - a pirep request for when you get to use the flexible vividia, please.  I have the fixed one and it works great once you figure out how to use it - if you can get it to what you want to look at.

[Marauder]

2 hours ago, tmo said:

@EricJ - a pirep request for when you get to use the flexible vividia, please.  I have the fixed one and it works great once you figure out how to use it - if you can get it to what you want to look at.

I ordered the Menard unit and will check it out on Monday. I have the rigid Vividia as well as the completely flexible one posted above. The completely flexible one is a pain. Too flexible and you really can't control where it goes. The issue I don't like about the rigid Vividia and the flexible one is having the display not integrated with the unit. Yeah, it is fine if you are looking at cylinder internals with the rigid Vividia because you can set the display unit on the engine. I am hoping the Menard unit with the integrated display will help when I go snaking around under the panel looking for stuff.

[N201MKTurbo]

22 hours ago, charlesual said:

I’m sure it would be lots of fun if the attached mirror fell into the cylinder too.


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Not a big deal. take out both spark plugs. Stick the bore scope through the top hole till you see the mirror. gently rotate the propeller until the piston pushes the mirror to the top of the cylinder. Use the borescope to push it out of the bottom hole.

[charlesual]

Clever


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[Guitarmaster]

I’m sure it would be lots of fun if the attached mirror fell into the cylinder too.


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Exactly what I was thinking

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[Marauder]

Exactly what I was thinking

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Then you get to try out the other gizmo you bought:


https://www.generaltools.com/hand-tools/inspection-retrieval-tools/pickups/24-in-lighted-magnetic-mechanical-pickup


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[EricJ]

On 12/19/2019 at 7:07 AM, tmo said:

@EricJ - a pirep request for when you get to use the flexible vividia, please.  I have the fixed one and it works great once you figure out how to use it - if you can get it to what you want to look at.

So I took my Vividia VA-980 (with the semi-rigid cable) out to the hangar, along with a few of my el-cheapo Chinese USB cameras.   They all connect to my phone, and use the CameraFi app (actually these days I use CameraFi2) to connect to all of them.   In other words, one app will run all of the different cameras.    I think they all use the same or compatible camera units, as they're all basically the same size and are all 640x480 color video cameras with adjustable output white LED lighting.    The only real difference is the packaging, whether it's a floppy or rigid or semi-rigid cable, and whether it has the articulating end on it or not (which is what the Vividia cams give you).   Several years ago you could get the cheapie USB cams with macro lenses (I have one, it's awesome for some stuff like that), but now nobody seems to make that distinction any more.

Basic pirep for the utility of the Vividia, especially with the semi-rigid cable:  you have a LOT more control over where it goes and what you can actually see.   The articulating end makes a huge difference in usefulness compared to one of the cheapie units with or without the side-view mirror, etc.   I've gotten a lot of utility out of the cheapie little units, especially for seeing part numbers or serial numbers in hard-to-reach places, but for actual borescope use I haven't been able to get much done with them.  e.g., when asked to determine whether the engine instruments in a particular C-340 are electric or direct-read, I stuck one of the cheapie cams I keep at school through a vent on the top of the glare shield behind the engine instruments and got this pic:

Yup, direct read.   A pressurized twin with lots of wet gauges.   Oh, well. 

As far as I can tell the cams on the Vividia units are the exact same cams as on the little Lizard Cam or the other cheapie $25 USB cams you can get on the internet.   I have yet to find one for less than an AMU that claims it has better than 640x480 resolution.   One nice thing about the CameraFi2 app is that it interpolates that up to 1280x720, which just makes it easier to display and a bit easier to look at.

Here are some pics I took with the Vividia, both of which are actual borescope jobs that I could not get accomplished with the cheaper units.  I *almost* got my cheapie unit with the semi-rigid cable to be useful in the exhaust, I even got it all the way into the muffler and up against the inlet, but I could control the aim well enough to know what I was looking at.   Once I got the Vividia in there, just being able to aim it provided the context to know where it was and what I was looking at.   First, the #2 cyl on my engine is a little lazy, with both CHT and EGT running about 30 degrees cooler than the other cyls.   Its compression is good, though, and things look okay in there:

The semi-rigid cable is nice for stuff like an airplane proctology exam, i.e., I sent the cam up the exhaust pipe, past the ball joint and into the muffler, without disassembling anything.   Couldn't do that with the rigid unit or with a floppy unit, so I think that sort of thing is the benefit of the semi-rigid cable.  The inside of my muffler (and yeah, I know):


 

 

[Vance Harral]

You don't need a high-end articulating arm or mirror attachment to get a good view of intake and exhaust valves.  Just buy one of the cheapie cameras, bend the end of the arm around 180 degrees so it's pointing backwards (actually, you want about 175 degrees, to get the best view), and insert the whole thing through the spark plug hole.  The hole is plenty large enough to allow this.  If you're paranoid you can safety wire the camera end against the cable, but I quit doing that a while back and haven't had any problems.  Images are great, see below.

There is a slight chance than bending the arm all the way around like this will damage the wiring inside the arm.  But that hasn't been the case for me, and even if it did, so what?  At $25 for the whole gizmo, it's a low risk.

 

 

[tigers2007]

I have yet to take the $15 all-in-one unit out of the box yet due to the holiday mayhem. What I wish I had was some of the fibre optic inspection equipment at my last job. It was the fancy stuff you see in the movies with multi-articulation. I wonder if it could find its way into an O-360 deep enough to inspect the cam? Is that actually feasible if one had a super snake camera?


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[Marauder]

1 hour ago, tigers2007 said:

I have yet to take the $15 all-in-one unit out of the box yet due to the holiday mayhem. What I wish I had was some of the fibre optic inspection equipment at my last job. It was the fancy stuff you see in the movies with multi-articulation. I wonder if it could find its way into an O-360 deep enough to inspect the cam? Is that actually feasible if one had a super snake camera?


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I've been playing with my $15 Menard Special. The cable is definitely more rigid that the $25 coiled version on Amazon that I bought. It is however too stiff to easily snake through an area without manipulating the cable. Screen resolution is okay for what we are trying to do. I will be trying it out on my panel in the next few days. Looking to see where my AV-17 wire bundle is.