is using thermal camera for repair cheating ?

[Haenk]

Not sure I agree with that. Somebody has to pay for the thermal camera. If all it does is reduce your chargeable time, how does that help ?

I'd say it's a sign of being a Pro. And it does raise the success rate of a repair. Using 3 hours of time to pointlessly replace components and not fix it versus 30 minutes of time, replace what is broken and fix the item - I wonder which of the two repair shops the customer will use in the future, which means future business...
And I'd just say: Don't save on your tools, that's (besides parts) the worst area to save money.

[Kjelt]

I remember in the 80s tv repairshop they use cold spray or freeze spray on the components that were generating intermittent faults.
The fun part was that freezing it sometimes made it work again so you knew what the cause was.
With "dead" power components the spray would not evaporate so you knew that was the issue.
So a thermal cam is just another tool on your belt but I don't think it is the holy grail.

What stands out for me is that seeing all those computer laptop repair videos the powermosfets are 80% of the cause. And many are not even two years old. Is that bad thermal design, bad pcb design, underrated fets? It really look symptomatic for todays products.

[Martin72]

So a thermal cam is just another tool on your belt but I don't think it is the holy grail.

But it´s very close...

[Simon]

>If you use your thermal camera, find the problem in 4 minutes but charge your customer 4 hours for trouble shooting, that's cheating... 

The way repairers usually work is a pretty fixed fee, be it a 4 minute repair or a 4 hour repair. If they charged the actual time some would be very expensive repairs and others not worth the payment fees.