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Rental bore scope that looks sideways?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by pasadena_commut, Jul 3, 2024 at 2:25 PM.

  1. pasadena_commut

    pasadena_commut Senior Member

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    Do any of you know of an auto parts store which rents/loans the kind of bore scope that looks sideways instead of or in addition to just along the axis of the cable? The one at Autozone supposedly has the little mirror that can be clipped to the cable, but I tried one of those once and it was tough to make out anything. Horrible optics.

    This isn't for the Prius luckily. The wife's 98 Accord has "mystery coolant loss" which might be a slightly leaking head gasket. (How mysterious? Coolant disappears, no white smoke, no smell, no visible leaks, cooling system held pressure for 20 minutes with at most 0.1 PSI loss, not a drop under the car, no leak in the cabin, no oil in coolant, no coolant in oil, no overheating, no bubbles in coolant while running, otherwise car runs fine. Have not yet done compression tests, but doubt it will show anything.) We looked in the cylinders with the bore scope I already own, which just shows a cone parallel to the cable axis, so we couldn't get a good look at the cylinder walls, only the top of the piston. The plugs and cylinder tops all looked pretty similar, none had that "steam cleaned" look
     
    #1 pasadena_commut, Jul 3, 2024 at 2:25 PM
  2. mr_guy_mann

    mr_guy_mann Senior Member

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    Search amazon for "dual lens endoscope". There's usb C plugins (for certain smartphones) under $35, a few decent units (1.0 MP camera with lcd) around $100, up to "pro level" (high resolution) units for $250-400.

    Usually, the first sign of a seeping Head Gasket is a brief misfire when starting the car in the morning. It takes awhile before coolant "steam cleans" the combustion chamber.

    I put the pressure tester on the radiator and pump it up to cap opening pressure. Then leave it overnight. The next day pull the plugs and look inside with the videoscope for coolant.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
    #2 mr_guy_mann, Jul 4, 2024 at 8:02 PM
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2024 at 8:08 PM
  3. pasadena_commut

    pasadena_commut Senior Member

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    Thanks. I was trying to avoid buying one since looking into engine cylinders isn't something I do very often.

    Does fluid really accumulate in the cylinder if it is kept pressurized that long? I watched a bunch of videos by people who had the right cameras and the drops always just ran down the cylinder wall and then disappeared between the cylinder and piston.

    In the meantime I put some UV dye into the coolant and drove it around for 20 minutes, turning the heater on and off. Which was brutal considering how hot it was today. I'm going to jack up the car later and look around with a UV flashlight, especially behind the motor. It didn't leak anywhere forward of the motor. Hopefully find some sign of a leak outside the motor. If not, the plugs come out and we look again. The bright green of the dye may be more visible than the blue of the usual coolant would have been. I checked the oil right after the drive and it didn't have any dye in it. Apparently Accords can leak coolant into the intake manifold, wouldn't that be fun.
     
    #3 pasadena_commut, Jul 4, 2024 at 8:44 PM
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    That might be hard to pass up ... (1) how much less would a rental be (especially after the hassle of finding who rents one, and renting it, and returning it), and (2) if you buy one you have one. Car cylinder bore inspection might be the only use for one you can think of at the moment, but that all changes when you own a skinny camera.

    I have a single-lens one that cost me about $20 and have never regretted it.

    One thing that bothered me about it, though, was that a smartphone (at least Android, which I have) would not automatically recognize it as a choice in the camera app. I verified before buying that the USB borescope I bought presents itself to the host system as a UVC (USB Video Class) standard device. If I plug it into a Linux desktop, the existing v4l driver will see it and it's an available choice for capturing video. But plug it into an Android phone and it isn't.

    Of course, you're supposed to get around that by downloading a special app for the device that you bought, and installing that. But I'm more willing to plug a piece of standard hardware into my phone than I am to install some closed app with mystery origins, and it bugs me to have to do that when the borescope is supposedly standard UVC.

    Recently I discovered there's an open-source generic UVC camera app for Android (called UVC Camera), and I installed that and it does work with the borescope I have. To me, that makes me happier than having to download some bespoke closed app to do it.

    The UVC Camera app isn't quite plug-n-play yet: it has a screen where it shows you possible settings available for whatever UVC device you have plugged in, and you have to experiment with those for a bit until pictures happen, and then you can save those settings so it just works later.

    I assume in some later version that will be more automated; after all, you don't have to go through that with the v4l driver in desktop Linux, so there must be ways for the app to discover the right settings more automatically. But at least the app exists now, and can be made to work with a bit of patience.
     
    #4 ChapmanF, Jul 5, 2024 at 6:06 PM
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