Bought a $50 borescope on Amazon and it already paid for itself twice over

Last month I picked up a cheap borescope after finding a weird vibration in a Cessna 172 engine. I used it to peek inside the cylinder walls without pulling the head, and spotted a scored cylinder that would have cost me hours of disassembly to find otherwise. The second time it saved me was tracing a wiring chafe behind the firewall on a Piper that I couldn't reach with my fingers. For fifty bucks, it's honestly one of the best tool purchases I've made. Anyone else have a cheap tool that ended up being a lifesaver on a job?

2 comments

2 Comments

shane_perry2917d agoProlific Poster

Borescope paid for itself twice, that's a solid ROI but I bet you've already spent the savings on fixing that scored cylinder. Fifty bucks to avoid pulling a head though, that is a steal in aviation world where a sandwich costs twenty dollars. What did you get for your money, some Chinese brand with a weird name?

holly6317d ago

Oh for sure. But nobody's talking about the real hidden value of a cheap borescope. It's not just about finding problems, it's about not having to guess. I used mine to check if a mouse nest was actually gone from a duct without taking the whole system apart. Saved me a Saturday and a lot of cuss words. Plus, you can use it to look at stuff around the house like behind the dryer vent or inside a wall cavity. It's a stupidly useful thing for fifty bucks, long as you don't expect it to last longer than a year or two. The picture quality is trash but it's better than tearing something apart blind.