General Maintenance

Imagers used for General Maintenance often demand a wider temperature operating range. Imagers under this classification are often used for everything from electrical inspection to inspection of roofing materials or even tracking water leaks from plumbing between floors.

Factors to consider when selecting an imager are:

Work environment
Durability
Ease of operation (is PPE required)
Temperature range
Detector size
Lens angle
Sensitivity
Reporting capabilities
Ease of use

Work environment is often over looked when selecting an imager while it really should be at the top of the list. Demanding applications will benefit from a rugged rubber over molded housing or an imager that is drop rated to withstand typical hazards of an industrial environment. While these features may come at a premium, damage to the imager and or the IR sensor can be avoided. For applications where PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is a requirement as with electrical inspection, a thermal imager with a hand strap and controls engineered for use with gloves will also be beneficial. Because most thermal imagers are manual focus, imagers designed for single hand operation with voice annotation can provide significant benefits in regard to workflow and safety.

Sensitivity, detector size and lens angle also play an important role in the quality of the final images. High sensitivity allow the user to see the smallest temperature differences and also provides the best image quality. A larger detector (more pixels) provides more information at the same focal distance and or allow the user to retain the same amount of information while working at a further distance. I wider lens angle can allow the user to work closer to the subject while still capturing a large amount of temperature data. Wide angle lenses are well suited for scanning large areas like walls, roofs or other large assemblies.