Shoutout to the cheap thermal camera I got for $200

I always thought those cheap thermal cameras were junk, just a toy. But last week, a customer brought in a laptop that kept shutting down. The usual checks showed nothing. I pulled out the little Seek Thermal unit I bought on a whim, and in under a minute, I spotted a tiny capacitor on the board that was way hotter than anything else. It was a short I would have spent hours tracing. Replaced it, and the laptop runs cool now. That one job paid for the camera. I used to rely only on my multimeter and eyes, but seeing the heat made it so clear. Has anyone else found a specific tool that changed their diagnostic process like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

betty_palmer23d ago

Hold on, that heat might actually be from the short itself, not always the bad part.

loganl221mo ago

Yeah, got one of those cheap USB ones. Found a bad voltage regulator on a TV board in seconds. Total game changer for power issues.

henry_martinez1mo ago

Those cheap thermal cameras are shockingly good for the price. Loganl22 is right, they turn a guessing game into a quick visual check. I've used mine to spot overheating caps and even a bad memory chip that was getting hot before a full crash. It saves so much time tracing down shorts.