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Question about that $400 borescope I bought for engine inspections
Bought a cheaper USB borescope off Amazon about 5 months back for $180 to check cylinder walls on a Lycoming O-360, and it worked great until the flex cable snapped inside the spark plug hole on a Cherokee. Spent two hours fishing the camera head out with a magnet while the customer waited in the lobby at our shop in Wichita. Ended up buying a rigid shaft scope for $400 after that, and honestly it has paid for itself just on the time I save not fighting with a floppy cable. Anyone else had a cheap scope break on them mid-inspection, or am I the only one who learned that lesson the hard way?
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kim.hannah9h ago
Did your customer ever find out the camera was stuck in there? My buddy runs a small shop over in Tulsa and had almost the same thing happen last year. He was doing a prebuy on a 172 and the cable on his cheap scope kinked right at the base of the head, camera head came off and dropped down into the cylinder. He ended up pulling the plug and going in with one of those flexible grab tools, took him close to three hours and he was sweating the whole time that it would fall down past the valves. The guy selling the plane was standing right there watching too, which made it way worse. He bought a rigid one the next week and says the same thing you do, it paid for itself just in saved time.
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