HF new Wireless Inspection Camera

Unfortunately nowhere in the ad or in the manual from hf's website do they tell you the diameter of the probe! I found a lookalike in an Exatech catalog, more $$ but with a bigger lcd screen, and that one says the camera diameter is 18 mm. Guess that's why they aren't calling a borescope, where

10 mm is getting on the hefty side :-). If you see the hf one in person I'd love to verify the diameter.

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

I noticed that fact missing too. I would suspect it is similar to Milwaukee and Ridgid's offerings. Milwaukee says that theirs will fit through a 3/4 inch hole. See:

or this model:

Ridgid claims the camera as 17mm, which would go into a 3/4 inch hole about right :) See:

What I liked about the HF version was the price. I see that Ridgid and Milwaukee have dropped their prices some too. When the Rigid Snake Handheld first appeared a couple years ago it was going for around $300.

These things aren't reall intended as borescopes. They're more for looking inside walls. I may well buy one. I used a buddy's Ridgid version on a jobsite where there was a maze of crap behind the sheetrock, and it definitely saved me a hundred dollars worth of time pulling a few difficult cables.

And with the 20% coupon... I'll probably pick one up tomorrow.

Thanks, Leon, for separating me from a few more bucks.

Sorry about that money separation thingy ;-)

Boring a hole in the wall to fish some wires through was always a dicey thing. No matter how much checking, detective work you did beforehand, it might not work out. Then you had a hole in the wall to fix and still needed to run your wires somehow. Even more maddening was when you knew that your pull wire was oh-so-close, but you just couldn't hook it to pull through the hole, ARG!

If you do indeed bite on one, let us know just how chintzy it is/isn't.

You could easily bill five times that for just one medical procedure!

Well, as is the story of my life, a day late and a dollar short. The sale is over, and it's back up to $139.99, so it will have to wait for another day.

If you ask the store manager nicely, he might extend the sale price another day for you (it helps if you have interacted with him/her before).

Jon

Hmm... that's interesting. The flyer I got the info from just came in the mail this past Wednesday and prices are suppose to be good till July 6. Must send out different flyers depending on what area of the country your in?

My luck is that the item I want they don't have in stock. It is a special run into town for me, ~45 mile round trip. I just gave up making those trips. Felt like Charlie Brown and Lucy pulling the football away once too often...

Can you tell me the item number in your catalog? Sometimes the numbers and letters after the dash can change the price. I've seen different prices for the same item (with different suffix) at the same time on the web site.

Thanks

Retail Store flyer, if that matter any.

Lot number 66550, Cen-Tech Wireless Inspection Camera with

2.4" Color LCD Monitor. $99.99 - Regular price $139.99.

Hurry! Sale ends July 6, 2009

At the bottom of page 4 in the "Why Pay More Ad" here:

My local store is telling me that they are still available at the sale price.

Jon

Just in case you haven't come across this yet - if you're buying online and the usual HF system is listing a higher price than the flyer, try the "order from printed catalog" link on the left side of the main page.

Wayne

OK, so I needed some other stuff, and my brother also needed a few things, so we went to HF store this afternoon. I showed the girl the web page and said that it should be $99.99. She said that the web and store prices often disagree, and it was in fact $99.99, and yes they were in stock. With the 20% off, it was $80.

So, I haven't played with it much (looked under the couch, inside my shoe, stuff like that. My initial impression is that it will work fine for what I need, but I'd be pretty careful about dropping it off a ladder. On the other hand, I recall being pretty careful with the Rigid unit as well, because A) it wasn't mine, and B) it just seemed kind of breakable. Not exactly a quality you look for in jobsite equipment, but with reasonable care, it should do fine.

The first time it finds me a better way (or even a possible way) to get a wire from A to B, it will have paid for itself.

$.02

That kinda confirms my suspicions. Figured it would get the job done, maybe not as many bell and whistles though as the name brands.

I've got this one filed away in the brain somewhere for when I the job justifies getting one.

If you get the chance take a diameter measurement of the camera end. Carl wanted to know how big around the head was. I suspect it is pretty close to 17mm like the other offerings.