On 09/08/2012 19:22, Dave wrote:

Looking to buy an infrared thermometer without breaking the bank and
also without knowing exactly what I'm looking at - for instance, what is
"emissivity" and does it need to be adjustable?

Some surfaces radiate better than others. So when making an estimate of
the temperature based on the IR being emitted the device has to take
this into question. The cheaper meters will make a fixed assumption
about this. They work well on most surfaces, but will be fooled by
reflective things and shiny metal etc. o you could read the temperature
of a radiator for example, but would not get a sensible reading from the
pipework or valve's body.

I'm sure that these are the sort of things that are bought for one
purpose but actually end up being used for dozens of things and I'm sure
I'll find loads of uses for it, but my main use at the moment would be
to monitor temperatures of GPUs and CPUs on laptop motherboards.

Hence one with adjustable emissivity might be handy since you could be
looking at unpainted heatsinks.

I live about a mile away from CPC in Preston and have seen this one for
£43 inc VAT:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/level5/mo...ml&sku=IN05457

Looks fine.

Anyone have experience of them? Good? Bad? Anything better for
absolutely no more than £60, but preferably £50 or less?

I have a simpler one that works well, but would not be as well suited to
your application.


--
Cheers,

John.

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