Shoutout to the guy in my shop who insisted on using a $30 thermal camera for board diagnosis

I thought it was a gimmick until I found a shorted capacitor on a laptop motherboard in under 2 minutes that my multimeter and eyes missed for an hour, so has anyone else had a cheap tool completely change their workflow?

4 comments

4 Comments

andrewwebb1mo ago

Wait, you can actually find a shorted cap with a $30 thermal camera? That's insane, I always figured those cheap ones were just for finding drafts in your house. What brand did you get?

michaeltorres1mo ago

Nah, I gotta push back on that. Those cheap thermal cams have terrible resolution and can't spot a tiny hot component on a crowded board. You'd need something way more sensitive to actually find a shorted cap before it just blows up. It's a cool idea, but in practice you're just seeing a blurry mess of warm colors.

the_jana1mo ago

Honestly, my cheap one worked fine for a swollen battery in a laptop. It showed a clear hot spot right where the problem was, no blurry mess. Maybe I just got lucky with the failure type.

paul_taylor2128d ago

Know exactly how you feel. I was just as skeptical until my own cheap unit spotted a failing voltage regulator on a router board. It wasn't a perfect picture, but that one bright spot told me exactly where to poke with the meter. Sometimes you just need that little hint to point you in the right direction. It's a surprisingly useful tool for the price.