Author Topic: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?  (Read 2281 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline capriderTopic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 12
  • Country: ro
Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« on: January 27, 2022, 01:49:39 pm »
Hello,

Do you think this thermal camera is any good to detect hot components during electronics repairs:

Guide MobIR Air Android thermal camera 120x90 USB-C

- resolution of 120x90 pixels
- range of -20 to 120 degrees C
- viewing angle of 50 degrees
- refresh rate of 25 Hz

https://eleshop.eu/mobir-air-android-thermal-camera-120x90.html

I’m especially concerned about only showing up to 120 Celsius.

Is anyone using Guide MobIR Air?

Is Flir One Pro a better options? Or some other suggestions?

Thanks
 

Offline Bill W

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1102
  • Country: gb
    • Fire TICS
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2022, 03:54:48 pm »
Not noticed it being mentioned.

From the spec though:

Plus points
No battery
No visual overlay to mess things up
Temperature measuring
Cheap for new
Vastly better than nothing

Minus points
Fixed focus *
Low pixel count
Is 'available in several colours' a red flag on allegedly 'professional' kit?
As for temperature, not as much of a concern as you'd think.  In fault finding you would not let the faulty part get to 120°C.  A quick blip of power is often enough to see overheating parts 'light up', before magic smoke time.
For hotter things it may be more of a problem, much depends on what happens to the picture over 120°C, even if the readout caps.

* You would need a secondary lens, or you'd be dealing with 'spot the hot fuzzy blob'.  Plenty on those here, mainly to fit on handheld cameras though.
Might be able to take it apart and refocus it to suit 'PCB only'

To note
50° field is pretty wide - that is fire camera spec.  OK for PCB but not ideal for the other uses they suggest.  Consider how big each pixel becomes at a given distance.
You of course need the phone attached.  Remoteing the head is not always easy - several threads on that here.



What other options depends on whether you want a 'phone attach', whether you want 'normal' as well as PCB use, is EUR140 the budget, do you want a project or 'open box & go'.

Bill
 
The following users thanked this post: caprider

Offline Fraser

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13148
  • Country: gb
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2022, 04:39:42 pm »
The Uni-T UTi690A / UTi120S use the same resolution, and very likely the same ‘TIMO’ imaging core from Guide Sensmart.

It would be worth looking at the UTi690A/UTi120S review on this forum as that provides images from the camera that give you a feel for it’s PCB imaging capabilities.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/uni-t-uti690a-(120x90-entrybudget)/

I agree that a 120C maximum temperature capability is not a show stopper in most PCB analysis situations. High temperature measurement becomes more of a requirement when monitoring reflow soldering if PCB and similar scenarios.

It is worth noting that the UTi690A/UTi120S is very competitively priced from China at the moment and you get a complete camera system that is not dependant upon a phone as a host.

Fraser
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 04:46:12 pm by Fraser »
If I have helped you please consider a donation : https://gofund.me/c86b0a2c
 
The following users thanked this post: caprider


Offline capriderTopic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 12
  • Country: ro
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2022, 07:01:52 am »

What other options depends on whether you want a 'phone attach', whether you want 'normal' as well as PCB use, is EUR140 the budget, do you want a project or 'open box & go'.

Bill

I thought it would be easier to be phone-attached, but I guess it is also inconvenient and hard to hold the phone with camera attached. So, I’m open to stand-alone cameras as well.

The main use would be PCB repair, but since I have it, it will be useful for other things.

Price for MobIR on that site is actually 190€ + VAT. I can extend the budget a bit for the right camera.

Thanks.
 

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 6796
  • Country: va
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #5 on: January 28, 2022, 11:33:56 pm »
Quote
also inconvenient and hard to hold the phone with camera attached

Should be possible to fix the dongle in a clamp (or otherwise fixed in space) and have a USB cable to the phone which you place where you want to see it. Then it is either completely hands-free, or one hand to control where the dongle is pointing.

One big issue I have with the all-in-one approach is that a good viewing angle and distance rarely coincides with the best positioning of the business end.
 

Offline Fraser

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 13148
  • Country: gb
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2022, 04:15:29 pm »
Dunkemhigh,

As you say, an ‘all in one’ format of camera often does not lend itself well to PCB inspection on a bench stand. This is why DYT designed their CA10 PCB analysis camera to be a camera head that connects to the host computer via USB cable. Such a design provides great versatility  :-+ Dongle type thermal cameras are relatively simple to adapt to a bench stand of some sort. People often create 3D printed camera holders with integrated tripod mount thread. The host software quality is an important element of the system though and buyers need to make sure that the software does what they need of it. Worthy of note is that a USB dongle camera can often be connected to a tablet computer so a large viewing screen is available.

Fraser
If I have helped you please consider a donation : https://gofund.me/c86b0a2c
 

Offline capriderTopic starter

  • Contributor
  • Posts: 12
  • Country: ro
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2022, 10:52:44 pm »
How about Guide IR PC210?

Compared to UNI-T UTi260B:

- quicker boot time: 1s vs 30s
- lighter: 365g vs 910g
- quicker charge time: 2.5h vs 5h
- longer battery time: 6h vs 16h
- screen is slightly smaller: 2.4 vs 2.8 inch
- about the same temperature range: -20 to 550 C
- same resolution: 256 x 192

And the price is just 10% higher: https://eleshop.eu/guide-ir-pc210-thermal-imaging-camera.html

Anyone using PC210?
 

Offline Bill W

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 1102
  • Country: gb
    • Fire TICS
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2022, 11:32:47 pm »
From 210 spec...
"combined with the information obtained from its visible light camera, "

Not helpful when using on a PCB, looks like you can choose 'unoptimised' mode though to get rid of it


Suspect the weights are not like for like (365g = camera no battery, 910g = boxed shipping weight) , a fair chance it is the same basic product.

Offline PlainName

  • Super Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 6796
  • Country: va
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2022, 12:19:35 am »
Quote
"combined with the information obtained from its visible light camera, "

Not helpful when using on a PCB

I think I quite like that aspect (but only if it works properly). Sometimes one is reduced to using a hot pointer (perhaps a finger) to position over the object of interest - IR signature isn't necessarily the same or even similar to the visible view. So long as you can turn it off, I think this is a plus.

What is a minus, in my book, is the trend for auto-ranging which you can't turn off, and that product appears to follow the herd on that.
 

Offline thermalengineer

  • Contributor
  • !
  • Posts: 46
  • Country: us
Re: Guide MobIR Air Android - is it good for electronics repair?
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2022, 01:39:29 am »
Definitely yes!
 


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf