Seeing around corners

The title is not entirely descriptive. I need to be able to see into some places where I cannot get my head. Back in the "good old days," I would have used mirrors, but with all this new technology perhaps there is a much better way to do it now?

Borescopes are becoming quite reasonable in pricing. The attached video gives an idea of how they work; no recommendation of the brand intended. (I don't know enough to recommend any brand.)

Yup!

CEN-TECH Inspection Camera 2.4 LCD.

Snakes just about anywhere and provides its own light at snake end. Screen in hand is clear and will focus as well as enlarge image. There are many similar devices, makes, models. This one was pretty inexpensive... $70 +/-. Got it at Harbor Freight Store - works well!

Sometimes just sticking your hand in with camera works for what needs done.

Lots of good information there in those responses, and I appreciate it. Had no idea the technology was so advanced! I need to see it in real time, so sticking my hand in with a camera would not do it. I have ordered a 16-ft USB waterproof endoscope Borescope inspection camera from Amazon, after checking different prices, and I think that will probably do it when I hook it up to my laptop. And the price was right -- only about $26 with free shipping (amazon prime).

Thanks guys!!!

You could set up a clinic and do colonoscopies... No, never mind.

Xsbank said:

You could set up a clinic and do colonoscopies... No, never mind.

Click to expand...

Hilarious! And better than sticking your hand in with a camera...

Just a follow-up report on the Borescope inspection camera, which I ordered from amazon ($26) and got in yesterday. It works perfectly. Comes with a mini-cd containing the software for the camera, which loaded onto my Windows 7 PC with no problem. The 16' flexible cable gives plenty of room to maneuver the camera after the USB plug goes into the laptop, and the software will capture video if you wish, or capture still photos if you wish. Or just look at things. The camera itself has 4 bright white LED's built into the end of the cable, and the intensity of these can be adjusted with a knob. All in all, it will do just exactly what I want. Focuses very well, by the way.

Nice find John! Santa will be delivering one to me soon. The price is ridiculously cheaper than my $90 See Snake micro by Rigid and infinitely more useful.

Just bought a scope yesterday at Costco, 150 bucks. Great unit for the price. I used it to look up a sewer line, plugged with roots.
A review...
Whistler Inspection Camera (borescope) - Costco $150 - Slickdeals.net

The link roguewave provided is to a 2011 thread and the Costco item number listed in the thread is no longer valid.

I just ordered one on Amazon tonight.

I could use it to see what's hanging on my prop now!

Wxx3 said:

I just ordered one on Amazon tonight.

I could use it to see what's hanging on my prop now!

Click to expand...

The specs say that it is "waterproof," but I'm not sure just how far I would trust that. I thought about using it for checking to see if the props have barnacles on them, but think that I would probably put the camera itself in a clear plastic bag with a really tight rubber band snugging the bag up to the cable.

That Borescope might make a great APP for cell phones or Pad

Al said:

Wow! You techie guys are fun to read!!

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Techie, huh? OK, for the real techies, here is stuff from the spec sheet so that you might want to see:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Camera..............................1/6" VGA
Pixel................................... VGA 300K
Capture Resolution........... Up to 640 X 480
View angle......................... 62 degrees
LED knob ..........................Adjustable brightness
Focal Distance.................. 2 inches to infinite
I/O Interface........................ USB 2.0 / 1.1
Color ..................................24 bits color[/FONT]

And a little more techie stuff. If you buy this, it comes with a couple of drivers. However, one of them (videocap.exe) seems to have some problems, and gets an error when loading at times. I went to Downloads - Oasis Scientific Inc and downloaded another driver (ehe_v2.exe) which seems to work OK.

Not to beat a dead horse, since this is after all a trawler forum, but the problem with the included version of videocap.exe is that it needs to run under Windows XP. So if you run it under a different version of Windows (such as Windows 7) you need to run it in XP compatibility mode. Then it seems to work OK.