Five Reasons Everyone Needs an Inspection Camera

Many people don’t think about purchasing an inspection camera, many of us may think we don’t really need one. For years these tools were priced quite high and not to mention were very large. Over the years the size and price inspection cameras reduced significantly. Now you can purchase a good quality inspection camera for $100-150. At these prices this is a tool every home should have. Here are a few reasons why you should get yourself one,

1) Checking the walls - Looking inside your walls makes buying a inspection camera completely worthwhile. Often people need to cut into walls or guide cable through and you may not know what is on the other side. One false cut can cause incredible damage to anything that can be within the wall. With an inspection camera the user will be able to check behind the wall to see where to make proper cuts.

2) Seeing under the car - Have something leaking under the car? Hearing a rubbing noise? Grab your inspection camera, and investigate. No more rolling around the ground trying to get an uncomfortable look under the car.

3) What’s in the drain? - Do you have kids around the house and constantly experiencing drains clogging? Before you take that pipe apart or call in a professional to begin snaking the drain grab your inspection camera and give it a look.

4) See into vents - The vents in our houses are something that go unnoticed for years. Not until there is an issue to we really put much thought into them. With an inspection camera you can quickly give you a clear display of what is going on throughout your home.

5) They’re handy - An inspection camera can make everyday task much easier. For instance, where did the dog toy go? Grab the camera and check under furniture. Did I drop a sock behind the washer machine? There’s an easy way to check, use your inspection camera.

The uses for inspection cameras are endless and priced under $200 it is an excellent investment. The are small and lightweight which makes transporting them easy. Their size makes them great for storing in the garage, and don’t take up much room if left in the car. With so many uses, every home should have one.

Conductive Pen for Electronic Fun

Conductive pens are very popular among hobbyists and electronic repair experts. Most commonly these pens are used for printed circuit board repair, however they have many more uses. Often hobbyists will use the conductive pen for in home projects that require linking electric currents. As the video below shows, there are many interesting projects any beginner can do with a conductive pen and some creativity.

What Good is a Breadboard?

Breadboards are reusable solderless circuit boards (PCBs) with electrical contacts arranged in a number of rows and columns. Because breadboards have built-in electrical contacts, you don’t need nearly as many wires as you would have had to use without the circuit board, which consolidates what could’ve been a rat’s nest of electronic components and wires into a neatly arranged circuit. Your components are inserted across tracks and, if required, tracks can be joined with wires. The most common breadboard used today, with its white plastic and pluggable (solderless) contacts, was designed in 1971 by Ronald J. Portugal.

Most often breadboards (also known as plugboards) are used to construct a temporary circuit for prototyping or general experimentation; since breadboards don’t require solder, you can quickly and easily assemble and disassemble a circuit design . . . and you can use the same breadboard later for another design. These features make breadboards especially appropriate as school laboratory equipment, allowing students to expand their knowledge of electronics by building circuits from schematics — a type of procedural knowledge — and this sort of hands-on project will help students retain what they’ve learned.

Breadboards are also commonly used by hobbyists and professionals looking to test components or when designing/building complex circuits, because these solderless boards are “lower stakes” than stripboards (veroboards), which are used to build permanent soldered prototypes or one-offs and which can’t be reused without going to a whole lot of trouble. Since these breadboards are reusable, they are an economical choice for those who frequently build prototypes or experiment with circuitry.

So, as you can see, breadboards do a whole lot of good in the classroom and in the hands of hobbyists and professionals who need an easy, economical way of experimenting and designing complicated circuit boards.

Full Value from a Fluke Tool

No matter what type of tool you are using it is important to get the full use out of the unit. With Fluke items users will rest assure their instruments are working at the optimum performance, however, not all users know how to check this.

To assist in consumers operating their tools, such as digital multimeters, Fluke has begun putting together free webinars. These are designed to help users better understand the Fluke products they have purchased. The webinars are under an hour long and give useful insight into how the tools operate.

An example of a recent webinar would be on Electrical Energy Efficiency Measurement Principles, where a Fluke specialists describes features of the Fluke digital multimeters. The webinar also mentions the energy waste that is associated with poor power quality which can be caused by an unbalance and harmonic issues.

Webinars are scheduled often so it is important to check back with Fluke often for dates and times. The webinars are recommended for all users, regardless of your level of expertise. Check the site to find out more about the free webinars.

Types of Oscilloscope Waveforms

Most waveforms on digital storage oscilloscopes are easy to identify: there are sine, square, rectangular, triangle, sawtooth, step-, and pulse-shaped waves.

Good Ol’ Sine Waves

Sine waves are the fundamental waveform because of their prevalence and their harmonious mathematical properties. (It’s the same sine wave you had to learn in high school math class.) The voltage from your wall’s outlet makes a sine wave. Test signals from a signal generator’s oscillator circuit make sine waves. AC power sources make sine waves. You get the picture.

Then there’s the damped sine wave. You’re likely to see this in a circuit that oscillates while winding down over time. Whereas an ordinary sine wave rolls up and down with regularity, a damped sine wave rolls up and down while getting decreasing in amplitude — the wave gets closer to zero the longer it goes on.

Square and Rectangular Waves

Square waves are almost as common as sine waves. A square wave is, in essence, a voltage that turns on and off — or abruptly alternates between high and low — at recurring intervals. Television, radio, and computer circuitry frequently uses square waves for timing signals.

Rectangular waves are similar to square waves, save for the fact that the high and low intervals aren’t equal lengths.

Sawtooth and Triangle Waves

Linearly controlled voltages result in sawtooth and triangle waves on the digital storage oscilloscope. The voltage levels of these types of waves transition at a constant rate, and these transitions are called “ramps”.

Step- and Pulse-Shaped Waves

Signals like steps or pulses that occur just once are called single-shot or transient signals. A step represents a sudden change in voltage — it’s what you’d see if you flipped a power switch. If you flipped that power switch on and then off, then you’d get a pulse.

Computer components communicate with one another using pulses. Pulses are common in x-ray and communications equipment as well.