Borescope Accessories Are Big Business
A borescope is a critically important remote visual inspection tool, used by many different industries to ensure the ongoing safety, efficiency and compliance of their plants and processes.
These are highly specialised tools for inspecting inaccessible areas without causing any damage and for foreign object removal – and which rely on advanced technology and digital communication to deliver images and video which have remarkable sharpness and clarity.
But despite being an absolute necessity in industrial plants, a borescope does represent a significant capital investment for any business and it’s not a financial decision which should be taken lightly.
One of the main things that you need to know if you’re buying a borescope is that the probe itself is the beginning.
The vast majority of borescopes on the market today require a variety of accessories to enable them to meet the requirements of the different applications, so whilst you may have invested in a handset and a probe (which generally only has a fixed focus lens), you will probably need to add several different probe tips, guide tubes, adapters and so on. Tip adaptors can be time-consuming to change, difficult to use and of course, costly.
To put the costs in perspective, a probe tip can cost between $2 500 and $5 500 per tip, and a complete set comprising nine tips and an additional four measurement tips can add up to over $42 000. And whilst that high-performance instrument will be able to focus on even the most out-of-the way areas deep inside a turbine, the cost of it will certainly focus your attention on your bottom-line.
That’s why the latest innovation from German borescope manufacturer, ViZaar, is a game-changer. The Vuman doesn’t need multiple tip adaptors, so all the issues traditionally associated with these accessories are eliminated, and the unit can be focused remotely. This means that the operator has total control over the optics during an inspection and simply remotely adjusts the focus when the probe moves from one area to another.
The result is crystal clear, high-resolution images over a variety of distances with the Vuman’s powerful HID light source providing perfect illumination in the dark recesses of boiler tubes, pressure vessels, pipes, gear boxes, heat exchangers, turbines and other hard-to-reach industrial applications.
This ability to focus remotely without the need for tip adaptors is a ground-breaking development in the world of remote video inspection. It saves the operators considerable amounts of time and it saves on costs associated with ongoing repairs caused by cross-threading of the tip adaptors, lost tips and the need to retrieve tips which fall off the probe. Most of all, it eliminates the need for companies to buy expensive accessories like tip adaptors which can add thousands of dollars onto the cost of the instrument.
But keeping the costs of your inspections down involves much more than reducing the capital cost of your equipment.
Expensive instruments shouldn’t sit idle. Needs fluctuate depending on the nature of the project. Timing is critical. All of these things should be taken into consideration when choosing your remote visual inspection equipment – with the most important factor being the choice of supplier of the equipment. If you choose a supplier who brings first-hand experience and knowledge of the industry to the table, who structures a technical equipment hire or purchase solution that’s flexible enough to meet your changing needs and who is always on the lookout for product innovations like the Vuman video borescope, you’ll be well on the way to optimising your capex and optimising your inspection results too.
For more information on flexible solutions for technical equipment hire in Perth or to find out about how you can save costs on the world’s most advanced video borescope, have a chat to the experts at Nexxis by calling 08 9418 4952 or get in touch via their website, nexxis.com.