BEST TEMP GUN FOR CHECKING MOTOR TEMPS
 

Hi,

I just wanted to know what everybody out there is using for a good quality Temp gun to check motor and speedo temps.

Thanks in advance, Mike

I have a 250$ fluke and a 20$ harbor freight Sentech both give me same temps away.. centec will give me temps at 3'+ fuke nope.

An inexpensive IR (infrared) thermometer may have problems taking accurate temperatures of shiny or reflective objects. A good IR thermometer will have the ability to make adjustments for the type of surface that is being measured. One simple solution to more accurately take the temp of a shiny metal object is to apply a small piece of black tape to the object and take the temperature at that location. Obviously you would need to apply the tape before the object is heated. Here a link on Fluke's website that discusses using infrared thremometers...
https://www.fluke.com/en-us/learn/bl...ed-thermometer

Personally I use a cheap Duratrax thermometer for racing. However I'm running slower motors with conservative gearing so I don't really need to run fans on my speed controls or motors. Here is a link...
https://www.duratrax.com/accessories.../dtxp3100.html

look up the temperature scale of a 10k (NTC) thermistor. its a resistor that changes resistance to ground as temperature rises. Its also inside the motor. you dont have the problems that ir sensors have (emmisivity). measure the resistance between the ground pin and the thermistor pin on the efra connector on the motor. its typically 10-15 degrees hotter than temperature on the outside of the can. Different colors will change the accuracy of IR temp. the distance from the measurement also needs a compensation factor.

not every motor mfg puts the thermistor in but all the motors I buy do.

if you just really want a good temp gun then you can do 1 of two things. measure something the color of the can at a known temperature and move the gun to the distance that gets the right temperature and write down the amount its off. then always use that error amount and distance. they are usually repeatable just not accurate.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...0f4e7cfbc8.png

i simply use the data logger on my hobbywing wifi module,:)

Nice discussion guys. So, which one??? LOL

Thanks, Mike

best as in opinion or best as in repeatable or vest as in accurate?

opinion-use the motor thermistor and get better results without spending money
repeatable-I explained how to neutralize the error of each gun by using neutralizing the effects of color.
accurate-I explained how to use distance to find the focal length.

Its not all the opinion or facts but you quoted me and I didnt name a gun but i did name methods to make guns equal.
Personally I use the motor thermistor or a flir ax8. if I need a quick and dirty measurement I us the HBRFRT centron but I use all of them for something different and none of them are perfect.

Flir and Fluke make most of the best handheld instruments but I wouldnt spend the money because of the ROI. Im not avoiding your question or anyone else’s opinion or even facts,to me a tool is a tool and for what we are doing most of the time a cheap gun is fine. You can make a cheap gun better or you can use something very cheap that is better. its not easy to answer what is the best unless you define what you are doing. That’s ok, allot of people havent considered what kind of problem they need to solve and how to work around them so I elaborated. all guns will be effected to a greater or lesser degree to what I mentioned.

If you are looking for experiences then im sure more people can share with you. Im not the guy to poopoo someone’s experience or claim temp gun master status.

This past weekend after a race a buddy and I measured the motor temp on my touring car. He with a cheap gun, while I had a little nicer one made by Dewalt. We were 1 degree apart.

Interesting thought about calibrating for distance. I’m actually a trained Flir user (15 years ago) but we used the technology for simply finding heat sources in the dark. Distance never effected our readings, but we weren’t concerned about specific temps either. We just fought about whether white or black should be “hot” on the monitor ;). Anyways I just bought a new stove and picked up a calibrated gauge to confirm the oven calibration. Once I’ve done that I’ll toss in one of my Icon motors, bring it to a calibrated temp and measure with my gun to find the distance. Just one more reason for the wife to think I’m nuts.

LOl, I think there are still picture on facebook of me washing an intake manifold in the dishwasher. it did pretty good. to be fair I had ordered a new machine and wanted to test the old one out before retiring it.

honestly a couple of degrees of error is no big deal in my book. And a good relative temperature is all you need for measureing temp across the width of a tire.

I rely on the datalogger on the tekin esc' the hobby wing only gives you a max number. Nothing in between.

With tekin, you can view the entire story of your run. And then you can export the recorded data log to csv to find rpm averages, and create charts and graphs where it looks like dyno data. There is no esc currently that matches tekin and the features..

Clearly https://www.skyrc.com/Infrared_Thermometer
Because "The infrared emissivity coefficient can be adjusted"

well there you go. no workaround necessary. I love it when RC does something that is right. that would be my choice if its less than the high end instruments that cost an arm and a leg.

but it begs the question of how many people would use it. I would.

Curious how the Maclan data logging Android app compares to Tekin. It records battery voltage, motor RPM, ESC temp and motor temp in one second increments if I'm remembering correctly. All high and low extremes show in red and all the rest of the text is black. Not sure about exporting the data because I've never tried it. My big concern is temperatures and making sure the LVC for the battery is functioning correctly. What I have found out by trial and error is that motor temperature reading doesn't work with all brands. Of course it does with Maclan motors. And also works with a Surpass rocket motor that I have. For me at least it doesn't work with Reedy or Schuur Speed. With those motors all I get is ambient temperature. The first time I tried it with the Reedy I was running indoor on a clay track in the winter. I thought to myself this motor is unbelievable. It never goes over 70 degrees. Looked at it a little more and realized it never went under 70 degrees either. Then it hit me, hello, the temperature in the building is about 70

I think you have the same problem I had. only come motor manufacturers include a thermistor in the motor. without it you dont get motor temperature. you can add one and a 10k ntc themistor is very cheap (less than a buck I believe). the monster and xfactor has the thermistors. the reedy s plus does not.