I'm looking for one of those endoscopes with its own monitor for hunting around inside car bodywork, etc. (I already have a basic USB one but I want to avoid having to mess around with a laptop as well).
Any experience / recommendations? Some of the chinese ones on ebay at ~ £100 look quite good.
Depends on whether you'd be happy with the small screen and relatively low resolution. The all in one units tend to be SD. The ones without screen can be HD.
I'm basically after convenience, looking for obstacles or gaps, so lower resolution should be OK; but useful to have one with memory or a memory card as these seem to save at VGA (640 instead of 320). I know that doesn't sound much but I have had a few cases during plant investigations where a VGA image from a basic usb microscope in an otherwise inaccessible location has been incredibly useful.
Indeed. I've got a Maplin all-in-one jobbie, and am not all that impressed. The picture isn't all that good, and the screen bit inevitably moves when you manipulate the camera end, so it's difficult the work out the orientation of what you're looking at. Typical intended use was things like trying to see where waste pipes went, behind a kitchen cabinet - but I ended up totally confused!
With hindsight, would I have bought it? No.
Thanks, that's a very useful viewpoint. I've used industrial optical ones (both flexible and rigid) so I know exactly what you mean about orientation confusion.
The fancier chinese ones have removable monitors, so you can in principle reorientate the display, which might make things a bit easier.
I should perhaps have added that it does also have video and USB outputs, so that you can connect it to an external monitor or (say) laptop - and ignore[1] its own display. But that means carrying additional lumbar round with you.
Now, if I could connect it to the USB input of my Android tablet, that would make it almost acceptable - but I can't find any suitable apps/software to support that.
[1] With USB, you don't have any option but to ignore its own display because it is automatically blanked as soon as you connect itOn 11 Apr 2014, Roger Mills grunted:
That experience sounds identical to mine, using a laptop/USB type. Honestly, I think every time I've tried to use it for something useful (ie similar use to yours) rather than examining body orifices, I've given up!
I'm getting pissed off with Maplin lately. Terrible delivery times and pretty crap quality goods. It's about time Conrad opened up over here; show those Essex tossers how it's done.
Hell yeah,
I discovered Conrad Electronics during a trip to Germany in 2004, i started in the general electrics bit which alone was about the size of an average maplin superstore, then there were some steps down to the electronics area, and i thought 'this is what maplins used to be like before they drifted away from electronics into selling kids toys'
The cable machine alone was amazing (all computerised, bloke selected the cable you wanted on a touch screen, machine rotated and brought out the roll with the cable on, about 30 or so reels to a roll, and it lit up a led under the cable reel he wanted, then he slid the measuring and winding machine to the reel, inserted the end of the cable and pressed start, Cable was drawn off the reel, counter counted up in millimeters and was wound onto a spider type thing, At the exact length, it added 20mm then cut the cable and shot a couple of bits of tape around the loops of cable on the spider, one of them being a bar-coded label, then relaxed the spiders arms for the bloke to pull the wound cable off, and whilst he was handing it over to me the machine put it's self away again.
And as for the selection of cables on offer, i got some UV safe thick insulated solar panel link up cable to connect the 2 more panels i had bought over there on my motorhomes roof, only saw that stuff in specialist shops before online.
Then there was a lift to the upstairs part which housed the modeling section which was out of this world, radio controlled everything from 20 euro mini helecopters to thousand euro trucks with gears, lights, sounds that you could feel, planes.. electric and glow engined, gliders, air ships, hover crafts, boats, subs, all kinds of cars road and off road, tanks, motorbikes and so on (i succumbed to a 1:5 scale petrol engined RC buggy in a sale for half the price available in england online)
Then the model train section, everything from G gauge garden railways stuff down to the Z gauge, big HO layout suspended from the ceiling that went around the modeling section,
There was a section for car audio stuff, and more sections i can't recall, i was impressed at being able to buy UK 13 amp plugs and sockets there.
If maplins don't watch it, they will go the way tandy went, sell more and more shit and toys, ditch the electronics side apart from a few led's and resistors, then wonder why no one bothers shopping with them.
I recall back at the turn of the century going into nottingham maplins after a transistor equivalent, bloke didnt even need to look it up in the book and got me a few that worked, Don't think they have had the books for years, and most of the bods working there nowadays don't know what a transistor is.
FWIW I had a memory of seeing a UK Conrad advert recently; dunno if there has been a recent development or anything but they do seem to have a UK (mail order only?) presence...
Conrad also have a superb range of discrete electonic components of all sorts for people who like to build their own circuits; very impressive how they can afford to hold all that stock. Puts Maplin to shame.
yeah, they have had the mail order side available to the uk for a while,
but we want the bricks and mortar stores over here too, it's all right looking through a catalogue or web site, but seeing the actual items in real life is very handy, i notice much more than flicking through a catalogue,
maybe in a few years when maplins has gone bust they can take over their premises.... tho most maplins units would be far too small for a full size conrads.
like Saturn in Germany, the berlin one is about 6 floors, each floor the size of the largest curry's/pissy world,
i just don't know why we get such small shops with a limited range here, i love the DIY sheds in Germany and France,
Some of my friends in Germany are building simulators using that speed frame alli extrusion stuff, they can go down to their local OBI, Praktiker, Bau Haus, Mr. Bricolage, Leyroy Merlin or what ever and buy the stuff and al fixings off the shelf.
the best we can do over here is buy a bit of angle iron and a pack of nuts and bolts... at prices to make your eyes water.
Have you tried? If it'll work on a PC without software it might just show up as a 'webcam'. In which case, some webcam software on Android might do it - as long as your tablet supports USB OTG (which it probably does in hardware, but may need a rooted OS if the tablet manufacturer couldn't be bothered).
Theo
You'll be lucky with Maplin these days. For components. Mostly just mail order.
Sadly, it won't work on a PC without software. It comes with a CD containing Windows drivers - but no support for anything else.
I have a USB OTG cable for my tablet [Google Nexus 10] and that works ok with USB memory sticks, but I've not had any success with anything else
- such as USB 3G dongles.
You're probably right I haven't tried to buy any components in-store recently. They certainly do them on mail order - useful if you need something for a few pence to bring the spend up just enough to be able to use a discount voucher!
I suspect they don't stock half the things in the catalogue even in the warehouse. I've gone in, found just the thing albeit overpriced, and then they tell me they can get one in six weeks.
Time to browse over to Farnell or CPC and it'll arrive next day. Sure, some lines are out of stock but they have 17 varieties of everything. And after years of being unusable their websites are actually passable these days.
Theo
They seem to be selling on Ebay these days. At not very competitive BIN.
CPC seem to be going for the old Maplin components market with no minimum order charge and free delivery. Maplin used to be next day delivery and free (above a certain value) - last time I used them they charged for delivery which was also slow. Being slow to despatch things means to me a lack of staff or organization. In these Ebay days one expects fast dispatch - Maplin seem to have gone in reverse.
Plenty of electronic "components" on eBay these days, that's usually my first port of call now. Similarly for "nuts and bolts".
I'd heard (from a rep) that they'd brought rapid electronics to get in to the UK martket as it was cheaper option.
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