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$50 borescope

erich weaver

Well Known Member
I already have the vividia 400 borescope but decided to try the Nidage wireless endoscope available on Amazon for $50. Bottom line: great value.
The unit has a super small diameter so perfect for checking those horizontal stabilizer bracket rivets. Two cameras, one on the end of the semi-flexible line and a second side camera. Adjustable LED lighting, zoom in and out. Photo quality is better than what I get with the Vividia and it seems to focus over a greater range. You can’t bend the end camera back in a sharp 180 so it’s difficult to get a straight on view of valves, but with a bit of tweaking you can see everything you need. Best of all, it readily connects wirelessly by Wi-Fi with my iPhone and iPad. Great for the budget conscious builder/mechanic.
 

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I have had issues with those type of, what I would call non-ridged, cables. They claim semi-ridge but the couple I have tried in the past were very floppy and not able to hold shape when extending more than a few inches inside something. Makes it very difficult to position as the cable sags. Also no good way to know up and down since it twists. Never knew why they sold them with 3-6 foot cables as you never knew where they were going.

Maybe they are now making them more ridged and it looks like they have also gotten the focal length down to get good images to things close to camera. Happy that it has worked out for you.
 
I think semi-rigid is a fair description for this unit. Requires a bit of manipulation but had no problem extending it well into my horizontal stabilizer. Yes, easy to get confused about left/right/up/down but I seem to have that problem with the rigid Vividia scope as well, and don’t know that it matters all that much. If one direction doesn’t work, move it the other way😏. The Nidage certainly isn’t a precision surgical instrument, but it gets the job done at a very reasonable cost with clear photos and a few nice features not available on the Vividia.
 
The Nidage looks like a great value, especially with the zooming feature.

Keeping track of up/down/right/left orientation is a real issue for many borescopes. If you get frustrated enough, you won't take same orientation pictures that you can easily compare over time. I have used both rigid (non-electronic, optical) and semi-rigid (VA-450) borescopes. While I have an easier time keeping track with the rigid scope, rigidity is not so much the issue. The issue is that the part of the unit that is outside the cylinder needs to be anchored (i.e., marked somehow) to the "north" orientation of the camera.

The VA-450, has a tip that can bend in two directions which can be up/down/left/right beyond how the semi-rigid wand itself is flexed. Because of this, it is awkward to keep track of the tip relative to the large-ish hand held display, even though the wand is fixed to the display. In comparison, the VA-400 rigid does a better job at this because you can relate the (single) bending direction of the camera tip with the cable coming out of the handheld body.

At any rate, this is a long winded way of wondering if it may be possible to improve the orientation-keeping property of the $50, Nidage dual lens borescope. Perhaps a white line can be drawn on the flexible wand indicating camera "north". If the wand length could be shortened, that also would help.
 
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