Endoscopes / Borescopes and the Snap-On Verus

About six or seven years ago, Snap-On released the BK5500 video inspection scope:



which is basically a miniature video camera on a flexible shaft and a little LCD monitor as a battery-operated, handheld unit. It's a video endoscope.

Impressed, I bought one (I think I paid £300 or something like it).

It's saved my neck on a couple of occasions (metal things being dropped into places they shouldn't be inside engines) and I've been grateful for its existence. I forgave it for its poor (320x240) resolution, its voracious appetite for AA batteries (whether switched on, or just stored in its case) and slightly bulky camera-head.

Technology has moved on, prices have plummeted, resolutions have risen.

I bought a Verus off Ebay last week, and it struck me that as it's fundamentally a PC running Windows, perhaps it was worth trying out one of the cheap USB inspection cameras from Amazon / Ebay / AliExpress.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement.

£26 buys you a 5.5mm diameter camera on a four-foot flexible shaft, with much better close focus than my old Snap-On.

I can't get the Ebay link to work on this page, but it's a "6-LED-USB-Waterproof-Endoscope-Borescope-Inspection-Video-Tube-Camera-5-5mm" and it's item number 262456170944. Searching for the description or item number will get you to the page.

This is what you get with the camera plugged into my Verus:




I actually bought a couple of different models to try out, including a £12 8mm one. Not as good as the one above, but still better than my original Snap-On BK5500

I discovered that the highest resolution from a USB 2 port with a reasonable frame-rate and latency is 640x480 (at least with my Verus). There's nothing to gain by buying a higher resolution camera as a result, and the Verus has only got a 1024x768 screen anyway.

As the Verus runs XP (I'm not rich enough for a Verus Pro) you don't even need to install any software for any of the USB cameras - going into My Computer and selecting it (USB Video device) will bring up the image on the Verus's screen.

In the end, I decided I wanted full-screen video from the camera, and after a bit of trying it looks like Debut from NCH Software worked the best for me.

Unless I'm out in the rain, I can't see I'm likely to ever use my old BK5500 again now I've got this....

Props to you Paul. That's pretty cool.

Thats AWSOME! Those Snap-On boroscopes I think were overrated and over priced, that's a great find.

Nice find! I tried buying a cheap borescope at one point, NOT happy with it at all. The BK5500 was better than this thing, lol.

I've been playing with the idea of buying a good borescope for use with my phone, or with the Chromebooks at work. Gonna check this one out.

I've seen guys real happy the Harbor Freight unit...
I know, I know, "here he goes again with the Harbor Freight garbage"...
The MAC tools dealer hates when I bring the HF flier on the truck

No hate from me! I've been rocking HF impact sockets for, like, five years now.