Jim Devine

I would like to take a look thru the spark plug holes before starting the car that has been sitting. I want to have a good look at the pistons/ cyls.
Any suggestions for a reasonable cost inspection camera set up? Are the EBAY endoscopes with a laptop any good or? If not which one seems to be the best at a reasonable price?
Thanks for the help!

Mongo

I bought an inspection camera from Harbor Freight for $59.99 during Black Friday. Works great and is small enough to fit down the spark plug holes too.

jorj7

I bought on one of these for $20, plus an OTG adapter cable and CameraFi (free Andriod app) lets me use my phone as a monitor:


It's cheap, portable, and works reasonably well.

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VegasGnome

I've bought several endoscopes for working on my cars and around the house. I have a $100 Habor Freight scope that the camera head is too large for some applications. I bought a cheap chinese made one that has a USB cable for using with a laptop running windows. But I got tired of lugging my laptop into the garage everytime I wanted to use the scope so I purchased an Android endoscope that has a mico USB cable so I can use it with a tablet or phone. The camera head is 7mm--plenty small to go almost anywhere. It has a 5 meter cable so I can set it up to observe the engine while I am in the cockpit. It comes with a hook, mirror, and magnet attachment. And what really floors me, it's less than $10 on Ali Express (Chinese Amazon). You can probably find the same thing on E-bay for about the same price. Here is a link for one: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Newes...491994555.html. That is not who I bought mine from, but is representative. I purchased a cheap extendable inspection mirror from Harbor Freight, took the mirror off and attached the endoscope. I hate trying to push a rope uphill so the extendable handle works great.


If you do end up buying one from the Far East, don't bother trying to download or use their software. Go to the Android play store and download an app from there.
Hope this helps.

M. Requin

I paid $12 for my eBay endoscope (and I spec'ed a long cable) which I use with my laptop (it's shop-dedicated). It's a little clumsy but has been great to use. When it dies I'll get the Android version, though.

And here is a real life anecdote about using this piece of gear in the shop. I was replacing the plug wires recently, when one of the screws holding the plastic plug wire bracket broke in half while I was trying to remove it. The phillips head and about two threads went flying off - somewhere... A couple of weeks later I went to change plugs and found I could not get a plug socket on #8. The endoscope revealed the peccant part lodge between one of the plug flats and the bore of the plug port. I made a retrieving tool out of some .035 music wire (that stuff can be really handy, btw) and used the endoscope to guide it to free the piece of screw so a magnet could lift it out. One, I am happy I had that tool, and two, I'm really really happy the broken piece kept my plug socket from going on the plug, otherwise when I removed the plug it would have gone right into the cylinder, according to Murphy. And yes, I did use a flashlight and inspection mirror to try to find the lost crew head, but it was lodged between the top flat and port wall, and I missed it. No excuse, my bad. The endoscope really saved the day - $12 well spent IMHO.

One note- if you use Win 10 you will likely have to download a new driver (at least as of this week, the makers will probably catch up soon), and Oasis Scientific has a generic driver that works well.

Adk46

I just searched on Amazon, and found this:
The second video in the reviews shows someone looking at a valve through a spark plug hole, using an included mirror attachment, which seems necessary for this sort of thing.

An included monitor must make life easier. It seems to have genuine HD resolution - not always the case. I wish I needed one!

Jim Devine

Thanks for finding the one on Amazon, I'm going to try it. Might be good- 28 positive reviews and no negatives. Pretty rare for a product!

Captain_Slow

I have this...
1240 reviews. 4.5 stars. It has been very useful for working on the car, or inspecting ductwork in the house, etc.

Bigfoot928

I purchased one of these recently and it is awesome~!

jcorenman

Ditto, works great.

I also have one of these, perfect for peeking through the spark-plug holes to inspect bores and looking back at the valves:
(Caveat: I think the coolant reservoir blocks access to #4)

Randy V

I got a $8 on that gadget site , plugs into my phone with a cable with an LED lite on the end. Works excellent. Used it to inspect my piston tops and valves through the hole. Takes pictures on the phone too. It has like a ton of 5 stars reviewers.

SeanR

Same here. Works much better than the one I spent 5x as much on.