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Vent: My shop's new $8k thermal camera found a bad connector my old multimeter missed for a month.
After chasing intermittent faults on a G1000 install with just voltage checks, the thermal imaging clearly showed the overheating pin during a full system load test, so is visual heat mapping becoming essential or are we over-relying on fancy gear?
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hollym822mo ago
Over-relying on fancy gear" hits home, my multimeter and I have a pretty co-dependent relationship. But honestly, seeing the actual heat problem changes the game compared to just guessing from voltage. I guess my wallet's about to get a lot lighter.
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the_sandra1mo ago
Wait, you were just guessing from voltage before? That's wild. I mean, @hollym82, I get the multimeter love, but voltage only tells you so much. You could have a bad connection getting hot or a part starting to fail that still shows the right number. Actually seeing the hot spot is like the difference between hearing a noise in your car and popping the hood to see smoke pouring out. One makes you go "huh," the other makes you jump into action.
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ryan_taylor242mo ago
Man, that's a huge find. I totally get what @hollym82 means about the wallet getting lighter, but seeing the heat spot is proof you just can't argue with. A multimeter tells you part of the story, but that thermal image shows you the exact problem in a way numbers on a screen never could. It stops being a guessing game and becomes a sure thing. For tricky faults like that, it seems like the visual proof is worth the cost just to save the headache.
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