Dropped $400 on a thermal camera for fault finding and it already paid off

I was on the fence about getting a Flir thermal camera for a while. Finally pulled the trigger on a basic model for around $400. My first week I used it to find a hot resistor in a power supply that was causing intermittent GPS dropouts on a King Air. That one find saved me probably 10 hours of chasing wires with a multimeter. The old method would have taken forever swapping boxes. Has anyone else had good luck with thermal imaging on bizjet avionics?

2 comments

2 Comments

susan_wells8h ago

Used to think thermal cameras were overkill for the money, but seeing that resistor light up instantly really sold me on it. Did you find any other hidden issues with it since then?

west.alice7h ago

Still waiting for the day my $400 camera finds something besides a half-eaten sandwich stuck behind a bulkhead. Maybe I need to point it at my bank account after buying it.