Borescope Inspection Camera

Overview

A video borescope lets an inspector see inside places the eye cannot reach, the cylinders of an engine, the inside of a pipe, the cavity behind a wall, without taking anything apart. A long flexible tube carries a tiny camera and a light to the trouble spot, and live video comes back to a handheld screen.

The working end is the Flexible Insertion Probe, a slim tube whose tip houses an CMOS Image Sensor behind a small lens, ringed by LEDs so the dark cavity is lit from the same point it is viewed. The operator holds the Handset & Display, whose color touchscreen shows the feed and the menus. Inside, the Control & Image Board turns the raw sensor data into a clean picture, records it, and manages the interface, all powered by the Battery Pack. Because the camera is on a long arm, a Articulation Control on the grip lets the inspector steer the tip around bends and corners to aim it where they need.

How it works

The camera tip is the heart of it. Light from the LED Illumination Ring floods the surface; the lens focuses the scene onto the CMOS Image Sensor, which reads out a continuous video stream. That stream travels back up a fine microcable woven into the Flexible Insertion Probe to the Control & Image Board, where the processor de-bayers, color-corrects, and scales the image, then drives the LCD Panel and overlays the touchscreen controls read from the Touch Digitizer.

Steering is mechanical. The Articulation Control tensions thin pull wires that run the length of the probe to the articulating Articulating Bend Neck; pulling one side bends the tip that way, letting the operator scan around a casting or follow a duct. The whole probe is sealed and braid-reinforced so it survives oil, coolant, and the crush of being fed through tight passages, with a sapphire window protecting the optics at the very end. Captured stills and clips are written to onboard flash and removable media for later reporting.