Infrared Thermometer

Video Transcript for An In-Depth Look at the Infrared Thermometer

Hi guys today, we're going to be taking a look at performance tools, laser thermometer. This laser thermometer is going to be great when you need to check the temperature of things, but you don't want to touch them. This is particularly nice if you're working with something that's hard to reach, getting down in there, trying to measure something. You can easily get your laser down there and take your reading, without worrying about burning your arm when you're trying to get down in there. And while it's never recommended to work on a hot engine, if you don't have the time and you just can't wait and you want to make sure that you're not going to burn yourself, you can check all the components on the area where you're going to be working, to ensure that they're cool enough for you to be working there.You can see here, the intake is about 94 degrees. And for you Canadians, it's got Celsius.

You can also use this to verify temperature. So one of the things we do here at each trailer is often we install transmission coolers. So you could hook up your load, take it for a ride and measure your coolest temperature. So with your new cooler installed, you can then recheck and verify the temperature, showing that it is now less than what it was before. You can use this to check the HVAC systems output on your RV or in your vehicle.

You can use this to help determine if you need to perform any maintenance. So on your RVs AC and heating systems, they often have filters. And if your output is just a little bit lower than what it wasn't, you previously checked it, because it's a good idea to keep monitoring it over and over so you can check the life of the system and how it's working.Small degradation in performance could just be a filter that you might need to replace. Once you've replaced it, you can then go back and check it again to verify the repair. If you're doing any larger repairs, this can also be great to help you determine where there might be a fault, especially in AC systems.

If you're suspecting maybe you have a restriction in your line, that can cause the system to change temperature on those lines. So you could run down the line and look for temperature changes on your AC line. And if you see that there is a drastic change from one spot to the other, you've probably got a restriction at that location. Now we've covered some uses for your automotive purposes, whether you're doing repairs or maintenance on your motor home or your vehicle, but you can get a little more out of the box.It's got a lot of other uses. If you're checking the heat of any liquids, you don't want to contaminate it by putting anything in it.

You can measure the heat of the liquids. If you have a convection type stove top, you can check the output of your burners and verify those. Especially if you got, the one you're suspecting, maybe isn't quite working, right And there's a lot of other things which you can use it for. At home, I use mine on my 3D printer to check the surface of the hot plate. So really anything you need to check temperature of, that you don't want to touch because you don't want to contaminate it, or you don't want to potentially burn yourself. This is a great option to be able to do so. It does have some limitations. You see it has a laser output and you can see here, it's kind of a circle shape.The further away you get, the larger the circle is going to get, and the closer you get the smaller it's going to get, and it's measuring the temperature inside that circle. So if you're trying to measure something very small, like for example, I want to measure just this one beam right here. You want to make sure you've got it close enough to have the entire spot on that component to get an accurate reading. If the spot is too large, you could be reading that plus the surface around it, which could be inaccurate. To help you get an idea of how the distance to spot size changes. It is a 12 to one ratio. It has a response time of 500 milliseconds. And that's how often it'll update its temperature output there. You have three buttons on the front of it.You have your backlighting, your icon change between units from Celsius to Fahrenheit and you have your laser on and off. So with the training alarm, we have a laser. You can see that they're on the wall. And then if I turn off the triangle, we're still taking temperature readings, but we have no laser. This can help save battery life. And also if you're pointing it at something that you don't want to shine it at, that you're maybe afraid you might hit somebody in the eye, you can turn that laser off and then take that measurement. It's powered using two AAA batteries, which come included. And that completes our look at performance tools, laser thermometer.