Thinking about going into Thermography?

[Huntxtrm]

I am thinking about getting into thermal imaging/thermography. Well, I am getting into thermal imaging/thermography. I already bought the equipment to do a [COLOR=blue !important][COLOR=blue !important]job[/COLOR][/COLOR] for a long time client. Since I already have the equipment, next step is heading off to get level 1. 1895.00 in Austin for the class. My question is? Do any of you guys do this? I really don't even know the appropriate per hour? It seems to be profitable, if I can drum up some business. I don't think there are a lot of companies that do this? I'm trying to diversify a little in this economy. Most of my business was in Gas/Oil. It has went down, so I'm falling back on my Industrial commercial.. I have allways kept a little of it going, for safety net. So, know I want to expand on it. Give me all the advice you can spare. thanks in advance.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Brian John does this for a living maybe he will chime in although I haven't seen him here lately

 

[JRW 70]

Part of what I do is thermography.
The class may be a good thing to look
into if they cover emissivity. Sometimes
what you see in the image is not the
true reading. Different materials will
emit heat radiation depending on their
surface finish. ( as they emit differently )
If these tests are for trending, it doesn't
matter if the actual temp. is rendered.
In trending you look for differences in the
temperature. If the real temperature is needed
( like for connections ) then the principles of
heat transfer need to be taken into account with
the equipment. I would recommend finding
someone who can show how to take the
variables into account or go with the class.
Sometimes metal is hard to get a reading
on, and light colored surfaces.

If this is going to be a substantial part
of the buisness, does the imager have a
way to save the results of the scanning?
If so then trending is the way to go.
Even if the results are not perfect, the
change in temp. is a valuable method to
find things that are in need of attention or
replacement.

I'm sorry not to give details because
there are several valid methods for
doing this, and I don't know how you
want to run the testing.

JR

 

[Huntxtrm]

Part of what I do is thermography.
The class may be a good thing to look
into if they cover emissivity. Sometimes
what you see in the image is not the
true reading. Different materials will
emit heat radiation depending on their
surface finish. ( as they emit differently )
If these tests are for trending, it doesn't
matter if the actual temp. is rendered.
In trending you look for differences in the
temperature. If the real temperature is needed
( like for connections ) then the principles of
heat transfer need to be taken into account with
the equipment. I would recommend finding
someone who can show how to take the
variables into account or go with the class.
Sometimes metal is hard to get a reading
on, and light colored surfaces.

If this is going to be a substantial part
of the buisness, does the imager have a
way to save the results of the scanning?
If so then trending is the way to go.
Even if the results are not perfect, the
change in temp. is a valuable method to
find things that are in need of attention or
replacement.

I'm sorry not to give details because
there are several valid methods for
doing this, and I don't know how you
want to run the testing.

JR

I am starting with a Fluke Ti9. More of an entry level camera to get my feet wet. Over 2G's for entry level? lol. It does save images, and comes with software to make professional reports. I am figuring on getting my feet wet with this one, and testing the waters. The class that I am most likely going to take is a Level 1 Thermographer class. It covers emissivity, and lots of other stuff. Should be a good starting point, I hope.

 

[Barbqranch]

To give you an idea of emissivity, when I was teaching physics, we had a series of soda cans that had the paint buffed off so they were just shiny aluminum. Then 1/3 were painted black, one third white, and one third natural shiny aluminum. Filled w/ very hot water and measured temperature over time. Black and white both cooled at pretty much the same rate, shiny aluminum much slower (even though it didn't have a coat of paint, which probably slows the heat transfer somewhat).

 

[GoldDigger]

To give you an idea of emissivity, when I was teaching physics, we had a series of soda cans that had the paint buffed off so they were just shiny aluminum. Then 1/3 were painted black, one third white, and one third natural shiny aluminum. Filled w/ very hot water and measured temperature over time. Black and white both cooled at pretty much the same rate, shiny aluminum much slower (even though it didn't have a coat of paint, which probably slows the heat transfer somewhat).

Both black and white paints tend to have similar emissivity in the far infrared area where most of the radiative heat transfer happens at those temperatures.
If you want low emissivity in infrared, you do want to go with bare metal. (Polished or not does not make a big difference either.)

 

[Fulthrotl]

I am starting with a Fluke Ti9. More of an entry level camera to get my feet wet. Over 2G's for entry level? lol. It does save images, and comes with software to make professional reports. I am figuring on getting my feet wet with this one, and testing the waters. The class that I am most likely going to take is a Level 1 Thermographer class. It covers emissivity, and lots of other stuff. Should be a good starting point, I hope.

if i was looking to make a living at this, i'd be looking at composite cameras,
that make a hybrid image.

http://www.flir.com/instruments/sim...gm40vufAVfYh5Ql1sit4A0YdJsmml0fgUjxoC3C_w_wcB

and resolution is a steep price slope. i'm sure you've looked a bit.
the problem is that thing has to be kept working to pay for it....
so the question is, can you keep it busy?

 

[brantmacga]

as far as pricing goes, i'll tell you what i'm having to pay on a job right now. .

its an 600A 480v service w/ 4x 42 space panelboards for them to check.

$3200 for the "thermographic acceptance" testing, and you have to schedule 30 days in advance and pay 100% up front. If you schedule 29 days out or less, its an extra $1k. If you reschedule within 15 days, you forfeit your $3200 or $4200, reschedule and pay them the same thing again.

This is for a national retail store we're building right now, and the testing company has the exclusive contract, and one heeeellllll of a salesman.

 

[Huntxtrm]

as far as pricing goes, i'll tell you what i'm having to pay on a job right now. .

its an 600A 480v service w/ 4x 42 space panelboards for them to check.

$3200 for the "thermographic acceptance" testing, and you have to schedule 30 days in advance and pay 100% up front. If you schedule 29 days out or less, its an extra $1k. If you reschedule within 15 days, you forfeit your $3200 or $4200, reschedule and pay them the same thing again.

This is for a national retail store we're building right now, and the testing company has the exclusive contract, and one heeeellllll of a salesman.

That's good info, right there!

 

[Huntxtrm]

if i was looking to make a living at this, i'd be looking at composite cameras,
that make a hybrid image.

http://www.flir.com/instruments/sim...gm40vufAVfYh5Ql1sit4A0YdJsmml0fgUjxoC3C_w_wcB

and resolution is a steep price slope. i'm sure you've looked a bit.
the problem is that thing has to be kept working to pay for it....
so the question is, can you keep it busy?

Not really making a living at just thermography. I just want to incorporate it into my company profile. I do want it to make money. I have had some acceptance to it so far.

 

[brantmacga]

Not really making a living at just thermography. I just want to incorporate it into my company profile. I do want it to make money. I have had some acceptance to it so far.

I'm not very familiar with what levels of equipment you need, but the engineer that showed up to do our thermographic acceptance test had a camera that cost $30k according to him, so I would think you need to do quite a lot to make it profitable with that level of investment.

He was on site for 90 minutes; scanned all the panels with his camera (which took just a minute on each of the 8 panelboards), recorded all the voltages, panel feeder and transformer loads, and was headed back to the airport. Seems simple enough.


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[zog]

He was on site for 90 minutes; scanned all the panels with his camera (which took just a minute on each of the 8 panelboards), recorded all the voltages, panel feeder and transformer loads, and was headed back to the airport. Seems simple enough.

It takes longer than a minute to remove and install covers?

 

[big john]

...Seems simple enough....

Agreed, basic diagnostic thermography isn't super complicated: You're not worried about getting results accurate to the decimal-place.

But the certficiation is important, not just for liability purposes, because it goes a long way towards training you what to look for. It's really common for customers to follow me around and look at the camera and either freak out because they thing something is catastrophically overheating or otherwise miss the presence of a serious thermal gradient, or just simply not understand what it's possible to see and what it isn't.

It's definitely not always as simple as looking at a screen for what spots are brighter than the others.

 

[Sharpie]

I have been doing this for a while, and have my Level 3 Cert. To break it down, here are what the Levels of training are for:

Level 1. Understand the basics of thermography, basics of thermal dynamics, and how to get a good radiometric image.

Level 2. A little more understanding of thermal dynamics, how to interpret what you are seeing, building good reports.

Level 3. Even more understanding of thermal dynamics, setting up and overseeing a company-wide thermography program, overseeing the route-of-inspection planning, advanced image analysis.

I do this for a larger company that has multiple level 1 thermographers. If I were to hire a small business to do my inspections, I would want to see that they were at least Level 2, with a couple years experience. I think that the Ti9 will be a good start, but as you grow you will quickly wish you had a more versatile camera (unfortunately, in the $7000-9000 range).

When you get into the training, you will realize quickly that you are just scratching the surface. My thoughts, after a couple day into my level 1 training, were "I don't even know what I don't know". It was really eye opening.

Go for it, totally worth it!