For those hard to see places...

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
I got my own personal Endoscope....

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I know what you're thinking...and no....I plan to use it for looking inside of the ceilings and walls, maybe an engine block and such too. It doesn't have a real great resolution, but as good as the ones that you get from HF with the screen on them. The focal point seems to be about 3" in front of the camera, about 12" away you can fit in an object about 4" tall with acceptable detail, and 2' - 2.5' is about the distance you really start to lose rough details.

This was my finger about 3" from the front of camera. It has 4 LED lights that can be dimmed if needed.
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The cord is 5 meters (about 16') and the camera end is only about 7/16" in diameter 3" long. Just plugs into the usb of my laptop and can use the webcam software to view it on the 15" display. Will probably have to tape it to the wire fish tape/rods to be able to control it much though. Was only about $21, so if it helps me even once it's worth that price.
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Got it from amazon... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZWFOEQ/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
yeah, it's not too bad for close inspection. Looking at the box it says it's 24 bit color, 640x480/352x288/320x240 resolution, and a 62* viewing angle, which seems to be accurate...oh and it's water proof.
 
Cool, for the price its excellent. Could have used one of those several times, especially working on the car. I have looked at those hand held units more than once but the problem is the small screen and the short length of semi rigid tubing to guide them. I wish the housing was shorter than 3inches that could be tricky to turn in some awkward spots considering depth of a 2x4 wall. Still I think its a great buy especially when ones age dictates reading glasses. Any idea what the operating temp is, I am thinking with winter coming and ice fishing, hey could be good to shove down the hole and see if there is anything around before one settles down to wait for fish that aint coming around. :) Would be nice to get a long piece of say 3/8 flex conduit to have a say 6 ft rigid guide for the front part. Now you opened the door I am wondering what a bump in price to say $50 would buy. Will have to look it up. Thanks for sharing that Darren, could make ceiling and crawl space inspections pretty useful if one is looking for a critters entrance or evidence of where they coming in. Can even be left in stealth mode and monitored at night. :)
 
Yup Larry, it's intended use was for inspection of drain pipes. They sell longer ones, those come with two usb plugs on them to draw enough power for the longer distance. I'm thinking about running this through a powered usb hub to make sure my laptop would be somewhat protected from any excessive power draws on it.

Rob, would depend on the depth, I think it's only good for a depth of 2 meters or so (I think I read that somewhere).

Also I checked through the reviews and several folks said the clear cap either came off when unpackaging or the unit wasn't water tight when trying them on drains. I wasn't planning to use it initially on drains, so wasn't too worried about that. May be worth adding a little clear silicon around the edges/seams of the camera end and letting it dry prior to using in water.
 
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