# Infra red temp gun source?



## hornet (Feb 5, 2011)

I think i need to get myself an infra red temp gun, any good places to get them? Now i found this 1 on ebay, only like $40 but would it be worth it? I know you only get what you pay for but for an in-between temp gun till i can afford a more expensive model would it be fine?


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## Blackstik (Feb 5, 2011)

I got the $40 one off eBay, it's not all that accurate. Used it on my mums forehead and said she was only 34 degrees. As a stop gap until you get a decent one I'm sure it would be reasonably ok. I intended to use it full time but I think I will invest in a dual probe thermometer from the herp shop instead.


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## Grunter023 (Feb 5, 2011)

I got mine from Snake Ranch at an expo. They are compact and only $40 and work great.


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## hornet (Feb 5, 2011)

only a few degrees out aint too bad. I have a few of those dual probe thermo's but i dont trust them 100% which is why i want a temp gun. If y


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## Banjo (Feb 5, 2011)

If you want a good quality one, I could get one from work for around $2000.00, takes infrared pictures as well. But the on for $40.00 sounds alright it should be within a 1 degree for accuracy.


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## hornet (Feb 5, 2011)

$2k lol i was looking at the $100-$300 ones but mayb the cheapies will be good enough in the long term after all


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## remington (Feb 5, 2011)

Hey mate I got the *DIGITECH Non-contact Digital Thermometer *from herp shop it works great and its ive had the mini ones before there no where near as good as this thing its $120


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## abnrmal91 (Feb 5, 2011)

the cheap ones are accurate enough for reptiles, you don't need to know down to 31.015C I got one of ebay and it works fine for me


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## spotlight (Mar 7, 2011)

mate contact your local mechanic and as him where he gets his from,much cheaper that way as reptile shops boost the price, i got mine from snap-on tools but it is the top of the range and you can find cheaper out there.


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## dee4 (Mar 7, 2011)

Dick Smiths.


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## jack (Mar 7, 2011)

Blackstik said:


> I got the $40 one off eBay, it's not all that accurate. Used it on my mums forehead and said she was only 34 degrees. As a stop gap until you get a decent one I'm sure it would be reasonably ok. I intended to use it full time but I think I will invest in a dual probe thermometer from the herp shop instead.


 
that seems to be accurate, normal range is 31 to 35 for human foreheads, 35.6 is considered fever (the things you learn when your kids are sick!)


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## MissFord (May 8, 2011)

jack said:


> that seems to be accurate, normal range is 31 to 35 for human foreheads, 35.6 is considered fever (the things you learn when your kids are sick!)


 
Don't know where u heard that from but it's common knowledge the average temp of healthy humans is 37 degrees celcius... Can any one back that up? Lol


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## abnrmal91 (May 8, 2011)

37c is core temp, the skin temp varies depending on outside air temp


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## Ramsayi (May 8, 2011)

Jaycar for around $100


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## dangles (May 8, 2011)

Try a hobby shop for the compact ones. The nitro rc guys use them to measure head temps.

Depending on the material reflecting the ir you will get diff temps from the guns. There is an amicity (sp) setting which can be changed to get closer to the true temp


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## bigfella77 (May 8, 2011)

I have a two of the cheap I.R temp guns to check engine temps on nitro engines.
If I use both I can get temp differences of upto 15 degrees on the one engine.
Spend a bit extra on a good one, Around the hundred dollar mark you will start seeing some reliability in them.


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## wranga (May 8, 2011)

tandy, dick smiths, jaycar, or snap on tools. but expect to pay alittle more for the snap on one


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## AirCooled (May 8, 2011)

*Fluke Food Pro Laser Temperature Gun*

Temperature: -30 °C to 200 °C
AccuracyAssumes ambient operating temperature of 23 °C ±2 °)Between 0 °C and 65 °C: ±1 °C
Below 0 °C : ±1 ° ±0.1 degree/degree
Above 65 °C): ±1.5 % of reading
Response time: <500 ms after initial reading
Spectral Response: 8-14 microns
Emissivity: Pre-set for foodservice applications
Distance to spot size/Optical Resolution (D:S): 2.5:1 @ 90 % energy, typical
Typical working range (target illumination): ˜25 mm to 250 mm
Minimum target size: 12 mm ø
Illumination to IR channel offset: 13 mm
Repeatability: Within accuracy specifications of the unit
Ambient operating range: 0 °C to 50 °C
Relative Humidity: 90 % (+/- 5 %) RH non condensing @ 30 °C
Storage Temperature: -20 °C to 60 °C
Weight: 100 g (with battery)
Dimensions: 150 mm x 30 mm x50 mm
Power: 1 AA alkaline
Battery Life: 10 hours minimum @ 23 °C
Target illumination: High Brightness LED
Display Resolution: 4 digits, 0.2 °C
Displayhold (7seconds):yes
LCD backlit display: no
Temperature display: 4 digits, 0.2 °C resolution
Maximum temperature displayed: no
Timer: no
Environmental Data: IP54 sealing (hand-washable, non-submersible)

Sale Price: $169.00+ GST


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## fugawi (May 8, 2011)

We use fluke in refrigeration where temperatures are our livelihoods. Try a refrigeration wholesaler or electrical wholesaler.
PS Optimum temp for beer.........................4 degrees celsius


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## cracksinthepitch (May 8, 2011)

Bought mine from BOC for $29 . Check it out John.


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## Kyro (May 8, 2011)

I recently got the dick smith one for $100 & so far so good, it seems to be really accurate.


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## eitak (May 8, 2011)

jack said:


> that seems to be accurate, normal range is 31 to 35 for human foreheads, 35.6 is considered fever (the things you learn when your kids are sick!)


 
Normal range for human is between 36 and 37.5/38 degrees Celsius. . if your temp was 31 you would be pretty messed up!!


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## bigfella77 (May 8, 2011)

Just out of curiosity, how is everyone checking the accuracy of there I.R thermos?


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## cement (May 8, 2011)

eitak said:


> Normal range for human is between 36 and 37.5/38 degrees Celsius. . if your temp was 31 you would be pretty messed up!!



Don't get confused with temps inside the body and temps of the skin. The skin is always a lower temp especially outside in the middle of winter or after a swim in cool water!


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## Duke (May 8, 2011)

bigfella77 said:


> Just out of curiosity, how is everyone checking the accuracy of there I.R thermos?


 With science!

Grab a pot of distilled water. Bring to the boil. Check temperature.

AND

Grab a cup of crushed ice. Add water until you get a slushy type mixture. Let it stabilise for a few minutes. Check temperature 



You might have to be patient and/or repeat a couple of times. Taking IR readings from a liquid can be tricky due to reflections.


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## Thyla (May 9, 2011)

Duke said:


> With science!
> 
> Grab a pot of distilled water. Bring to the boil. Check temperature.
> 
> ...


 
So I assume you've taken into account how your altitude and barometric pressure affects the boiling point and melting point?


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## abnrmal91 (May 9, 2011)

Thyla said:


> So I assume you've taken into account how your altitude and barometric pressure affects the boiling point and melting point?


 
Come on we don't need to get to technical. I doubt he is living in a vacuum, were water boils at room temperature, but with a decrease in atmospheric pressure the boiling temp decreases. If you were to test it at sea level it should be 101.3 kPa atmospheric pressure. 
You should get a accurate enough reading. Lol

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## slim6y (May 9, 2011)

A good way to calibrate or check accuracy is to point at melting ice in a slurry - it should be 0'C or as close to. Pointing at a forehead will give a reading below 37'C - 37'C is an internal temperature - not an external one. And as said earlier, 34'C would be quite acceptable. However, if it was set to Fahrenheit I'd be checking to see if your mum was a zombie.


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## bigfella77 (May 9, 2011)

Duke said:


> With science!
> 
> Grab a pot of distilled water. Bring to the boil. Check temperature.
> 
> ...


 
Whats wrong with turning on your oven to 100c and pointing it at that?:lol:


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## slim6y (May 9, 2011)

bigfella77 said:


> Whats wrong with turning on your oven to 100c and pointing it at that?:lol:



Only good if you put the water in it too 

And incidentally - distilled water won't boil at 100'C unless standard atmospheric pressure, so you may as well just use tap water to save the hassle!


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## bigfella77 (May 9, 2011)

slim6y said:


> Only good if you put the water in it too
> 
> And incidentally - distilled water won't boil at 100'C unless standard atmospheric pressure, so you may as well just use tap water to save the hassle!



Why do you need to put water in it too? Should be 100c if its set to 100c wouldnt it?


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## slim6y (May 9, 2011)

bigfella77 said:


> Why do you need to put water in it too? Should be 100c if its set to 100c wouldnt it?



oh, at first I thought you might be kidding - and as the internet doesn't allow sarcasm or humour to be heard, I'll just assume you were joking... But for those without the keen eye for a humour biting post, I'll elaborate that an oven is about as accurate as a thing that isn't as accurate as a thing that is more accurate.... 

Anyway - two ways around that...

One... use an alcohol thermometer that also reads 0'C in a slurry and 100'C at boiling point...

Then use that same thermometer to get the oven to 100'C - using the incredibly accurate dial on the oven... Then use the infra red thermometer to test that oven  they should be similar(ish).

Don't be fooled though - a digital read out is merely precise, not accurate! 

Only a well calibrated instrument can be accurate no matter what the display reading!


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## Jonno from ERD (May 9, 2011)

Get a Raytek temperature gun. I have had mine 7 years, it's travelled all over the country and it's very accurate. Not cheap at around $250 but brilliant quality, much better than what the shops sell. You can get them from places that sell bearings.

Noncontact Infrared Themometers - Fluke 60 Series - Raytek.com


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## fugawi (May 10, 2011)

Damn, mixing up slurries etc, you still wont be exact. Boil some water on a stove and when it has steam coming from it, it will be close enough to 100 degrees, get an ice cube out of the fridge and it should be close enough to 0 degrees for all purposes to do with reptiles. Unless you are breeding for particularly males or females in your incubator, this level of preciseness is not necessary. If you really want to have it tested, take it to NATA and have it tested, but it shouldn't be necessary.
From memory, a IR gun doesn't tell you the air temp anyway, it tells you the temp of a solid object. If you point it through the glass of your enclosure it will either tell you the temp of the glass or the back wall. Neither of which is any good anyway. Neither is controlled by the t/stat. The t/stat only controls the temp at the sensor point.
The end result is that the guns are a good guide only, if you want accuracy, put the sensor/bulb of a thermometer at the height of the reptiles head where it spends most of its time. The t/stat sensor should also be located there.


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## 85Hickey (May 10, 2011)

Not sure if this was mentioned, but go to TEMPGUN.COM $30 will get you an accurate temp gun, $35 will get you one a little upgraded with features such as a laser sight and a tighter measurement field. These temp guns are used in Zoos and parks alike and well worth the money. Once you buy one of these, you wont look any further. Had the PE1 For just over two years, bought the PE2 a few months ago and its my new best friend


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## gillsy (May 10, 2011)

Grunter023 said:


> I got mine from Snake Ranch at an expo. They are compact and only $40 and work great.



That's the one I have, in the little leather pouch. Works a treat, and is accurate to within about 1c.


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## slim6y (May 10, 2011)

fugawi said:


> Damn, mixing up slurries etc, you still wont be exact. Boil some water on a stove and when it has steam coming from it, it will be close enough to 100 degrees, get an ice cube out of the fridge and it should be close enough to 0 degrees for all purposes to do with reptiles. Unless you are breeding for particularly males or females in your incubator, this level of preciseness is not necessary. If you really want to have it tested, take it to NATA and have it tested, but it shouldn't be necessary.
> From memory, a IR gun doesn't tell you the air temp anyway, it tells you the temp of a solid object. If you point it through the glass of your enclosure it will either tell you the temp of the glass or the back wall. Neither of which is any good anyway. Neither is controlled by the t/stat. The t/stat only controls the temp at the sensor point.
> The end result is that the guns are a good guide only, if you want accuracy, put the sensor/bulb of a thermometer at the height of the reptiles head where it spends most of its time. The t/stat sensor should also be located there.



I disagree about the slurry - the slurry is the most accurate way of calibrating most thermometers - or at least checking the validity of their output. A slurry will always be at around 0'C - where as an ice cube could be anywhere from -12 to -2'C - and almost unlikely to ever be zero until melting. 

My washing up water has steam coming off of it - and I would not trust rubber gloves to protect me from 100'C water, so I conclude steamy water is not 100'C. However the first part of that statement i correct, at the point water has begun boiling (fairly rapidly) you've reached 100'C.

It's also funny - I can ask almost any (non science) adults and school children - what causes the bubbles in the water - and almost all say air!!!

They are in fact steam - pockets of gas where the water has turned to steam, become less dense, rise and exit the water - hence boiling.

However, I do agree that an IR thermometer is good for surfaces - we used to use them for soil temperatures at the surface.

But I am not sure what Hornet is using the IR thermometer for - so I can only assume he has a decent use for it


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## Moreliavridis (May 10, 2011)

Fluke temp gun! Can't go wrong you can pick them up from electrical wholesalers for about $250


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## fugawi (May 10, 2011)

Actually by definition a slurry must be a couple of points above 0. Water temp will drop and when it reaches 0 will stop decreasing in temp and start to change state into ice, therefore a slurry will contain water at above 0. If you take an ice cube out of the fridge and put it on the counter and give it a couple of seconds, water will start to form. At this stage the surface of the ice should be starting to change state at 0 and an IRgun should show 0. Really this type of method can still only give an accuracy of 2-5 degrees either way. If the IR gun takes the temp of the ice through the water it will be lower. If it takes the temp of the water, it will be above 0. You need to take the temp as the water is changing to ice, where the temp is constant and the water is changing state. This is the same for boiling point. To get it any more accurate you would have to get it tested professionally by NATA.
At the end of the day this degree of accuracy is only needed in labs and for fridgies, not for a reptile enclosure that has a 10 degree temperature gradient from 1 side to the other. Being able to check the temp of a surface is handy and can be fun but the T/stat is sensing the temp of the air going past it, not the surface. The best way of checking temps in an enclosure is to use a bulb/sensor/probe and that will also come down to the accuracy of the thermometer, but at least it is checking the air temp.

The steam coming off washing up water means that some parts of the water have been over 100 degrees and started to boil, probably in contact with the heating element and under pressure the gas/steam has been compressed into solution. When the water comes out of the tap, the pressure is reduced and the gas expands and comes out of solution, creating small bubbles of steam. Same as the bends in diving.


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## slim6y (May 10, 2011)

I agree - the slurry isn't perfect... but by slurry i also didn't mean adding water to the ice, i meant holding the ice in a container melting... which is essentially what you said...

Water can vaporise without boiling - look after a rain shower and the water on the road 'steams' up and vaporises - essentially, providing the water temperature exceeds the air temperature, evaporation can occur. Enough evaporation is often confused with steam - though the make up is the same (H2O) the way they became gases is quite different.


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## fugawi (May 10, 2011)

I think we are getting too technical...........LOL.


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## Snakeluvver2 (May 11, 2011)

A lot of people get mist and vapor confused to. Like in this thread. 
Steam from temperatures under 100 are just from water molecules at excited states near the surface of system.


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## saximus (May 11, 2011)

Jannico said:


> A lot of people get mist and vapor confused to. Like in this thread.
> Steam from temperatures under 100 are just from water molecules at excited states near the surface of system.


 
Do you know how many times I've asked about this and never got an answer


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## Snakeluvver2 (May 11, 2011)

haha grade 12 chem dude 
It's about thermodynamics and kinetic energy. 
In any body of water you'll have a range of different water molecules are different energy states moving at different speeds. So when heat or energy is applied they all move up to different energy states at different rates and you'll get some that just decide to bugger off ad evaporate. 

It's something like that any way.


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## saximus (May 11, 2011)

The word thermodynamics makes me sad in the pants. 
I even asked high school science teachers. Maybe mine just sucked


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## Snakeluvver2 (May 11, 2011)

Haha probably I owned at chem during school. Hopefully I do well in uni. I don't like electrical. 

I reckon a pair of infra-red binoculars or a camera would herping nearly cheating and great if something got out of your herp room.


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## saximus (May 11, 2011)

Give me an electrical circuit any day over that stuff. 
Forgive me for being a bit behind in this but it was my understanding that a sufficiently mixed slurry would only rise above 0 once all of the ice had melted


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## Snakeluvver2 (May 11, 2011)

Yep that's it. 
It'll never really be at zero any way.


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## slim6y (May 11, 2011)

Best way to tell the difference between steam and vapour.... Put your hand in it!!!

Steam burns way worse than water, because in order to turn back to liquid state (condense) it requires an output of energy - that output goes straight into burning you just a little bit more 

Of course evaporated water doesn't burn at all - if it condenses, it does so like on the mirror of your bathroom after a shower on a cold night... I did have other examples of water condensing - but I was worried saximus would become happy in his pants.

So stream from the washing up water is in fact water vapour - just like Jannico said - and has never reached 100'C thankfully - because if it did - my rubber gloves wouldn't be enough!

So hornet - what are you using your IR thermometer for? You still haven't answered (or I missed it).


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## Snakeluvver2 (May 11, 2011)

Hornet can't get on the net  
I was talking to him the other day he is working on getting a new computer.


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## Wild~Touch (May 11, 2011)

85Hickey said:


> Not sure if this was mentioned, but go to TEMPGUN.COM $30 will get you an accurate temp gun, $35 will get you one a little upgraded with features such as a laser sight and a tighter measurement field. These temp guns are used in Zoos and parks alike and well worth the money. Once you buy one of these, you wont look any further. Had the PE1 For just over two years, bought the PE2 a few months ago and its my new best friend




Just ordered a PE2 and it will be here in 5 days. From Pro-Exotics, Colorado, USA


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## fugawi (May 11, 2011)

(Sigh) Vapour, gas, just different names for the same thing. Do I really need to go through this? Water doesn't heat evenly, if you start to boil water in a large pot on the stove, you will start to see bubbles of steam forming on the edges of the pot. At this point you can probably still put your finger in the water in the cooler centre. The water in the centre isn't at 100 c, probably around 60-70c but at the edges it is at 100c and changing state into steam. In your water heater, the water is standing in a pressure vessel at something like 500kpa under pressure. The water in contact with the heating element will be heated above 100c causing steam bubbles, which under pressure are kept pretty much in solution. The vast majority of the water is still only at around 70c. When you turn on your tap, the pressure is reduced and the water, containing the bubbles in solution flows down the pipe. Because the pressure is reduced, the steam starts to come out of solution and will react like normal steam and will rise to the top and your 70c water will have steam coming off it. Simply fill a glass with hot water and you can see the bubbles.
With the water on the road, it is a similar thing, tiny parts of the water, usually at its thinnest point, will absorb enough energy from the sun and the warm road to get to 100c. We are talking at a molecular level, individual molecules will get to 100 but the vast majority will still be at a much lower temp. It doesn't only happen on the road but everywhere, off leaves, grass, dirt and as the steam rises it becomes what we know as humidity or the amount of water vapour in the air. It continues to rise and eventually forms clouds as the temp and pressure reduces and starts to go back into a liquid form, water drops. When the drops are big enough and heavy enough they start to drop as rain.
This is the same as sweat on your body. Even though your body is not at 100c, sweat still evaporates(boils) off your body, as each molecule absorbs heat energy from your body.

I have tried to keep this as simple as possible without talking about the absolute temp scale, measured in Kelvin, absolute zero or explaining that there is no such thing as cold, cool etc, only lack of heat energy, as this will only confuse further.
I am a refrigeration and air conditioning technician with over 29 yrs of dealing with pressures, temperatures, thermodynamics etc and could probably teach at a university level.

Hope this is helpful.

Sorry if I am hijacking this away from IR Guns.


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