Cheap Chinese Dental Cams as Borescopes

Silvaire

Silvaire

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Silvaire
I'm not changing my position in regards to borescope inspections of cylinders as opposed to compression tests but based on what I have seen on the internet I placed an order for a very cheap 4 megapixel Chinese dental camera. If you are willing to wait a few weeks delivery time you can get one for thirty bucks straight from the mainland itself.

What I received was standard hardware-wise but the software was un-usable. Despite my tech savviness I ultimately ended up with an error dialog filled with Chinese characters. I resorted to the available freeware, shareware and commercial software that exists for your standard USB webcam which includes a bevy of features such as motion detection, FTP and HTTP video streaming which I have absolutely zero use for.

So pardon the nag banner on my video. I'm not willing to, after purchasing a thirty dollar Chinese dental camera, pay fifty bucks to get rid of a few characters on the screen. What I'm interested in is the valve.

This is obviously a newly overhauled engine but the video demonstrates the ability to view the valves. The angle of the dental cam, the LED illumination and the focal range are just about ideal for this purpose. I have one of the far more expensive video inspection cameras (DeWalt) and it is not nearly as good at doing this sort of inspection, in fact it's pretty awkward. As others have reported however the camera will not fit into the spark plug hole as it is and requires a bit of hacking. Basically all I had to do was unscrew the back and saw off the end of the housing. With two of the screws you can easily put the cut off section back on after you're finished sticking it into cylinders.

Anyway, here's a link to a short video I recorded for testing purposes

A peek inside a C-85
 
Tried that one but my laptop doesn't seem to like it. Another free one is Yawcam It works well but doesn't have a very smooth user interface. I'm thinking my best bet might just be to find somebody that speaks Chinese because without the proprietary software I can't use the capture button on the camera itself, I need to do it from the keyboard which is kind of awkward.
 
That video looks like your $30 was well spent.

Ideally you would like to be able to see a frontal view of the exhaust valve so that you can see the coloration all the way around its perimeter. But even if you can't see that much, for $30, it's much much better than no images at all.

It was interesting to see what a brand new valve looks like. I've seen so many photos of well-used valves that I had no idea how a new one looks in a borescope image.
 
Silvaire said:
Tried that one but my laptop doesn't seem to like it. Another free one is Yawcam It works well but doesn't have a very smooth user interface. I'm thinking my best bet might just be to find somebody that speaks Chinese because without the proprietary software I can't use the capture button on the camera itself, I need to do it from the keyboard which is kind of awkward.
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I haven't been able to get that feature to work either and one of these days I may write my own capture program just to make the button on the camera functional.
 
NoHeat said:
...Ideally you would like to be able to see a frontal view of the exhaust valve so that you can see the coloration all the way around its perimeter...
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I was going to do further hacking because you could conceivably put the camera head and LED array on the end of some sort of articulate-able stalk but the LED is glued in the end of the housing and ain't coming out easy and the camera is also glued on the end of the circuit board so, since this is the only one I have I'm not ready to do such potentially destructive surgery - at least not before I've had time to play with it a bit.
 
Silvaire said:
I'm not changing my position in regards to borescope inspections of cylinders as opposed to compression tests but based on what I have seen on the internet I placed an order for a very cheap 4 megapixel Chinese dental camera. If you are willing to wait a few weeks delivery time you can get one for thirty bucks straight from the mainland itself.
Click to expand...

So what is the model number and supplier?
 
rmlewisjr said:
So what is the model number and supplier?
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DHGate I'll be darned if I can find any sort of model or manufacturer's number anywhere on the thing. It is completely, utterly brandless. Free shipping (18-22 day delivery time)
 
UPDATE: Fiddled around some more and got the software working. Turns out the setup installed everything as read only so it wouldn't open the datafile. After I adjusted the file attributes I discovered through trial and error that you basically ignore everything printed on the instruction sheet and login as admin with no password.

The program is not that great, It's for a dentist. The help file is completely in Chinese but the capture button on the camera does work, at least for stills. I guess I still need to use the keyboard to start and stop video recording unless there's some other little trick I'm missing.

Also found a bit of info in the paperwork. Look up Solarcam Intraoral Camera, they have them even cheaper on eBay, saw one for twenty eight bucks.
 
Tom-D said:
A good borescope has a variable focal length, multi directional head, the cheap ones usually don't.

http://borescopesrus.com/products/video-scope-kits/
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Let's set the record straight: I am NOT claiming in any way, shape or form that this thing serves as a borescope. Just pointing out that given the angle of view, focal length, illumination and cost it does a pretty decent job of letting you see at least some of your valve surfaces.

I still maintain however that any cylinder with visible discoloration or other anomalies on the valve face will not pass a compression test and that you can have a leaking or otherwise defective valve and not be able to see anything visible with this device (or a real borescope)

But for thirty bucks I think this thing has some uses
 
I'm thinking borescope for firearms ... but with the note that some hacking required to get it thru the spark plug hole, I wonder how useful it would be for .30 cal and .50 cal barrels?
 
gkainz said:
I'm thinking borescope for firearms ... but with the note that some hacking required to get it thru the spark plug hole, I wonder how useful it would be for .30 cal and .50 cal barrels?
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That depends on the size of the actual video head. If it's, say, 5mm in diameter, it could be mounted on a cleaning rod with a small 45 degree angle mirror in front of it and fit into a .30 bore with no problem.

I'll know in a few days, when the one I just bought arrives and I get a chance to tear it apart.
 
gkainz said:
I'm thinking borescope for firearms ... but with the note that some hacking required to get it thru the spark plug hole, I wonder how useful it would be for .30 cal and .50 cal barrels?
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No, definitely wouldn't work. I've also got a Dewalt DCT411 but even that is a 9mm head so it wouldn't fit down the barrel of a .30 cal

Works on my 45 though
 
You're looking at the entire head, as it comes from the factory.

However, most of that is the housing. The actual video pickup is much smaller. The thing is cheap enough that you could do surgery and get a tiny video head on a stick or tube, possibly small enough to feed through a .30 caliber bore.
 
That was my original plan and it might be possible but the stuff is fragile and glued in there with some hard epoxy so getting it separated without busting it up would be a challenge. I decided not to try any further because, even at $30 I don't really want to buy another one.
 
Silvaire said:
UPDATE: Fiddled around some more and got the software working. Turns out the setup installed everything as read only so it wouldn't open the datafile. After I adjusted the file attributes I discovered through trial and error that you basically ignore everything printed on the instruction sheet and login as admin with no password.
Click to expand...

Mine arrived yesterday, it was sent from Rosemead (near Los Angeles) and cost me about $29.

Can you tell me what you did to make this work? I don't read Chinese either . . .
 
Do you have an instruction sheet that says "AJDental Software Operation Guide"? If you do and you have a couple of Parakeets you can line the bottom of their cage with it because it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the hardware or software I got.

The CD that came with it had two directories, one English and the other Chinese so run the setup program in the English directory to install the Dental Assistant software. It still won't run though because some of the files were installed as "read only" so you have to go in and unset the read only attribute box on them. Depending on your computer settings you might have to run as administrator to do that.

Once that is done open the program. The top box will show admin once you click the drop down, leave the password blank and it should open. You need to then connect with the camera, it shows as CYS PC, should be the only one there unless you have another camera hooked up. The program ain't all that great, it's got numbered charts that I finally figured out correspond to the numbers dentists use to identify your teeth so I guess when you capture an image you can associate it with one of those boxes.

The capture button on the camera works but I wasn't able to get any video in that program. You're better option is to download some freeware, shareware of commercial webcam program. It will have all sorts of functions you're not interested in and the button on the camera won't work but it will be more functional than the Dental Assistant software.

All of the programs I've messed with have the function to connect to the camera to set brightness, contrast, saturation, gamma and image size so that's kind of neat.

Good luck :rolleyes:
 
SoloEqs said:
Mine arrived yesterday, it was sent from Rosemead (near Los Angeles) and cost me about $29.

Can you tell me what you did to make this work? I don't read Chinese either . . .
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Where did you buy it from?
 
Silvaire said:
Do you have an instruction sheet that says "AJDental Software Operation Guide"? If you do and you have a couple of Parakeets you can line the bottom of their cage with it because it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the hardware or software I got.
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Yes, I got that sheet. I figure it's just more packing material. ;)

I'll play with it and see what I can get.
 
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