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Engine valve video made using cheap dental cam

tc1234c

Well Known Member
After reading Erich Weaver's report on cheap Chinese made dental cam I brought one and modified it. This morning after oil change I inserted the camera through lower spark plug holes and recorded video of valves. Since I held the camera in one hand and turned propeller using the other at times images were shaking. I don't have experience on engine thus can not tell if my valves are fine. If you see any problem please let me know.

Erich's report:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=83011

My video:

http://youtu.be/Dq0H_yqSuGw
 
Way to go Ted!
The color pattern on your exhaust valves looks nice and symmetrical, which is what you want.
Which camera did you go with? I'm guessing you cut the camera case at the neck to make it smaller and used some heat shrink tubing to hold it together?

Erich
 
Way to go Ted!
Which camera did you go with? I'm guessing you cut the camera case at the neck to make it smaller and used some heat shrink tubing to hold it together?

Erich

Erich,

I got ORC-03B that is the same as yours, I belive. Yes, I cut the case using a hand saw. It quite easy to do. I don't have big heat shrink so I just used tape. It works well. Thanks for sharing the information.

Ted
 
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Hey! How did you get that little tiny man into that little tiny hole? He sure is looking down his nose at the camera. Or maybe he is just "thumbing his nose" at the camera. :p

I have auto plugs on top. If not, the tiny man would be able to get through the hole:D.
 
Read some of Mike Busch's columns. He's a regular contributor to Sport Aviation. Also has a web site, SavvyAviator or something like that. I once read that if you have symmetry, which your valves look like, then you'll typically go another 100 hours without valve failure.

The video from this camera looks pretty good. Maybe we could get a group buy on the cams.
 
Erich,

I got OC-03B that is the same as yours, I believe. Yes, I cut the case using a hand saw. It quite easy to do. I don't have big heat shrink so I just used tape. It works well. Thanks for sharing the information.

Ted

Ted,
I just did a Google search on OC-03B dental camera and came up with nothing. I did find a listing for a ZD-03 [linked below].

http://factory.dhgate.com/dental-equipments/wireless-dental-camera-zd-03-p36909791.html

Could you please supply who manufactures this thing and perhaps a photo or link of it?
Charlie
 
I followed Erich Weaver's link and ordered from a Chinese website. It was free shipping. Let me see if I can find the website again. Here is the product shown on Chinese search engine Alibaba:

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/432316041/High_quality_Dental_Oral_Endoscope_Camera.html


Bob, The mod is to cut off the front half of the plastic housing. It is a little to wide to fit into the spark plug hole. It will not go through auto plug hole regardless the mod.

Compare the photo below with the one linked above.

IMG_8364.JPG
 
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I noticed that I have made a typo (corrected) on the product model. It should be ORC-03B. I checked my record and found that I purchased it from DHgate.com for $87.32. It took at least two weeks for it to arrive from China. Following is the website. Unfortunately I can not find the model on the website. What I have is a 2012 model. I also can not find the pictures (I thought it was Eric's, it might not be) showing how to cut the plastic housing (with the beer sitting beside:D).


http://www.dhgate.com/
 
Who was that Little Man in the Spark Plug Hole?

I did a quick search and missed Scott's thread. I actually got the link from Scott's thread and not Erick's. Sorry Scott! Here is the link:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=87505

No worries Ted! When I saw your post this morning with the link to Erichs thread, I realized that he had already done this back in February. I never saw that thread until today. Here I thought I had discovered something great. :eek:

Your valves look to be in good shape from what I know. (which isn't much) I really like the small dental camera for its low cost and resolution. While it won't do everything, it sure makes looking at the valves real easy.

It would be nice to have a purpose built camera just for inspecting our engines. Given how cheap the dental ones are it seems like it wouldn't take much work to build one to a useable spec for our purposes. I'm not sure how one goes about something like that though. :confused: It would be nice to have a slightly smaller head, a flexible mid-section, and a forward facing camera as well....

I plan to do my condition inspection after OSH and will get a good look inside at all valves then. I'll post some pics when I'm done.

BTW - plan to have a case of "Pre-Prohibition Batch 19" with me at OSH. :D

Regards,
 
It would be nice to have a purpose built camera just for inspecting our engines. Given how cheap the dental ones are it seems like it wouldn't take much work to build one to a useable spec for our purposes. I'm not sure how one goes about something like that though. :confused: It would be nice to have a slightly smaller head, a flexible mid-section, and a forward facing camera as well....

Agreed. All we need is a way to hook the dental camera to the ipad and an associated app. While we wait for that to happen, there is an ipad compatible device like you describe although a little more $ than the dental camera:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/topages/iborescope.php

regards
erich
 
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