NDT Blog Official Blog of Borescope IT Inc.

What Kind of Borescope Equipment is Right For My Application?

Before you buy any borescope, you have to consider a few factors that will directly influence your selection of Remote Visual Inspection (RVI) Equipment. The following guidelines will help you choose right product for your particular application or the industry you are in.

• Think about the perfect diameter of the scope you will use in your inspections. It should not be to small, but big enough to give you good visual feedback of inspected area.
• Determine a perfect length of the bore scope's insertion probe. This is the distance between the hole entrance and the farthest point of your reachable inspected area. Longer the scope is better, but it also means more money. So, in order to minimize your expense think about the access to your inspection area from different spots. If you have access from a few spots, then choose 1/2 of the scope's length. If you have access only from one spot, then you need a scope that will go though the whole distance till it reaches your inspection object.
• If the travel path to inspection area is straight (without any curves and bends), then your best bet is the rigid borescopes that have superior image and are the cheapest solution amongst a big selection of Non-Destructive Tools (NDT). If the travel path isn't straight, has small curves and bends, then your good choice falls either on flexible fiberscopes or portable videoscopes without articlulated insertion tip. This is the second cheapest solution. If your situation does not fit into the ones described above, then you have to consider more expensive solution - flexible fiberscope or videoscope with articulated insetion tip.
• If the cavity is not rough, you can easily choose any standard rigid borescope, fiberscope or videoscope with vinyl coated insertion tube (this will give you additional flexibility, bend-ability). If it is the opposite situation, then you need additional protection for your rigid borescope (include protective stainless steel tube), fiberscope or videoscope (choose a unit with stainless steel or tungsten braided insertion probe).
• If you need articulation of the tip, then you are definitely looking at flexible fiberscope or a video scope with articulated tip. Our fiberscopes and videoscopes have an option with 2 or 4 ways of articulation with average articulation angle of 90° - 120°.  Articulated tip can be articulated during performed inspection, if you need to pass complicated corners or parts.
• If you just need a fixed angle of side view, then you might get lucky with a set of a few rigid borescopes. Most of our rigid borescopes have the following fixed Directions of View (DOV) - 0°, 30°, 70°, 90° and 110°. If you want more expensive rigid borescope solution, then you might consider universal rigid borescopes that have interchangeable 360° rotatable tubes with fixed side angle views - 30°, 70°, 90° and 110°.

Going through the above steps you should be able to decide what you want. Now you have to thing about the lighting source for your scope. You need it in order to illuminate the inspected area, or otherwise in most cases you will see complete darkness!

• Define the area being inspected and unknown conditions. Will you have enough light at a given distance? Will the light reflect internally (polished surface) or will it be absorbed (black mate surface or carbonization)? Will you be close enough for proper magnification or enough far away for overall view of the object?
• Define how close to the object will be your borescope's tip. Closer you are, better image magnification you achieve and less light you need (Remember: common working range is within 3 mm from the scope's tip to the virtual maximum of 150 cm away).
• Farther your scope's tip is from your object, more powerful light source you need. You can choose between Portable LED Light Sources, Halogen or Xenon Light Sources, or most efficient Metal Halide Light Sources.
• Will the test results need permanent documentation based on still photos or video of performed inspection? If so, you will need to buy a scope with such capabilities (any videoscope system), or a rigid borescope or flexible borescope (fiberscope) with a video kit (USB or Analog C-Mound Video Camera + C-Mount Video Coupler + USB Capture Box with an appropriate software).
• After all, if you are very concerned about image quality of logged images and videos of your inspection, then your ultimate choice should fall on high end videoscope system!

Definition of Terms:

Borescope

Borescope is not flexible, generally inexpensive unit and it provides a superior image, compared to fiberscopes and videoscopes. A rigid borescope, boroscope or bore scope is an industrial tool best suited to inspection of automotive cylinders, aircraft turbine engine or a rifle bore. Any borescope may be used with a video camera to record digital images and video.

Micro Borescope

Micro borescope is typically flexible or semi-rigid unit. Such boroscope instruments are super thin and designed for absolutely impossible inspection access areas. Most micro borescopes or mini boroscopes are best suited for inspection of small manufactured components such as castings, turbine cooling holes and other Parts with very limited access.

Fiberscope

Fiberscope is a flexible fiber optic image bundle with an eyepiece and a lens. A flexible fiberscope, flexible borescope, fiber scope or fiber optic scope easily flexes around tight corners and articulates (not all models) it's tip for better guidance. High fiber optic content in a flexible fiber scope is critical to provide the highest possible resolution to the viewer. Amount of individual fibers in a fiber optic video bundle of a fiberscope ranges from 3,000 to 30,000 elemennts and is termed as "amount of Pixels". Fiber optic bundle is a very fragile element of a fiber scope and thus the whole unit should be treated as carefully as possible. If small gray or black dots are observed in an image when looking through fiberscope's eye piece, it it is direct evidence of poor handling of the unit, or low quality of the image bundle used in it.

Videoscope

A Videoscope or Video Borescope is an advanced type of flexible borescope that houses a very small CCD video chip in the tip of the video scope's insertion probe. Image quality of most videoscopes is good enough for most applications. More expensive videoscopes offer excellent image quality. Videoscope's probe is normally 4-8 mm in diameter and comes in lengths up to 15 m (50'). A videoscope (video borescope, videoprobe, video scope, video probe) offers digital image capture or video recording capabilities that are usually built into the unit.