Camera head length, and the corner a long head cannot take
The rigid camera head at the tip of a probe cannot bend, so its length sets the sharpest junction the instrument can be worked around.
Read Article→Learning Center
Plain-language explanations of the measurements, sensors and numbers behind environmental monitoring.
How bending section length decides whether a probe turns a corner
An articulating tip bends over a finite length of tube, and that length sets the radius of the curve and therefore the clear space a turn demands.
Read Article→Why a listing without a probe diameter cannot be assessed at all
A borescope listing that omits the probe diameter withholds the only specification that decides access, and no other published figure substitutes for it.
Read Article→What diameter passes a spark plug port, and how to work it out
A spark plug thread designation gives you the minor diameter of the port by arithmetic, and that minor diameter, not the thread size, is what a probe has to clear.
Read Article→Probe diameter is the gate that decides whether a borescope fits
Probe diameter is the one borescope specification that is pass or fail, because an instrument that will not enter the opening cannot be rescued by any other feature.
Read Article→Sensor warm up time, and the leak a cold instrument can hide
A gas sensor only reads honestly after its stabilisation period, and a semiconductor head that wakes up inside a leak can take that leak as its zero.
Read Article→Why a probe moved faster than one inch per second walks past leaks
A leak plume is only a few millimetres across in still air, so a probe moving faster than about one inch per second spends less time inside it than the sensor needs to respond, and the reading never develops before the probe has gone.
Read Article→How infrared, heated diode and metal oxide leak sensors differ
Infrared sensing counts photons absorbed by the gas molecule, a heated diode counts halogen ions released at a hot element, and a metal oxide film reports a resistance change caused by almost any reducing gas, which is why the three differ in selectivity, drift and service life rather than only in price.
Read Article→A sensitivity figure means nothing until the gas is named
Every gas sensing element responds by a different amount to a different molecule, so a sensitivity figure without a named target gas describes an instrument in one unspecified situation and cannot be compared with any other figure.
Read Article→Grams per year, and how to compare leak detector sensitivity honestly
Grams per year is a mass flow out of a leak rather than a concentration in the air, and a sensitivity figure in those units is only comparable between two instruments when the gas, the air movement and the probe handling behind the figure are the same.
Read Article→What IEC 62446-1 Category 1 and Category 2 testing actually covers
Category 1 is the baseline set of inspection and electrical tests every grid connected photovoltaic system receives at handover, and Category 2 is the additional set, led by curve tracing and thermography, applied when Category 1 leaves a doubt or a contract demands more.
Read Article→What a curve tracer finds that an end point tester cannot
An end point tester samples two or three operating states and can prove a string is wired and intact, while a curve tracer samples the whole sweep and is the only instrument that sees fill factor loss, a conducting bypass diode or a shunt path.
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