Okay, so this quick video is going to be showing you, the ref, Co infrared thermometer. It's a really nice infrared thermometer. I like it. I don't use infrared thermometers a lot, and so I want to go over for you, some of the applications that you can use.

This and then some of the features - and maybe you'll, learn that, even though that you can't use it for everything, you can use it for some pretty cool situations that will help you diagnose air-conditioning issues and maybe even some electrical issues to start with with this device. It has a trigger that you hold in and you can set it so that way it works in a either an averaging mode, min/max mode or unlock mode, and in lock mode it just is running constantly. So you can see it's picking up the temperature of my hand, even though I'm not holding the trigger. So it's just constantly running and if I change the off of lock mode - and you can see that that's right here where it says lock, I change it off of lock mode.

I just hold it down a little bit and then it goes back to hold mode and hold mode is where you actually hold the trigger, and then that reads and it will average out as long as I'm holding the trigger. So you can see, we've got the average and the temperatures are the same until I put my hand and then you'll see the temperature will rise and then the average will slowly rise as the time extends the longer I hold that trigger in as soon as I Let go then it locks in the readings, and so that's typically the way that you're going to use these one thing I like here is that it shows you right on the side, one of the most misunderstood parts of an infrared thermometer, which is that most of Them only have a single dot, but this shows you that the spot to distance ratio increases the further it goes away or the ratio stays the same, but the size of the area that you're measuring increases the further you get away from the tip. One thing: that's nice about this: one is that as you shoot and you move in or out, then the range or the area that it's averaging on or measuring from is going to increase and decrease as you go in and out, so it kind of makes that A little bit easier, you get that visual representation from a safety standpoint. Obviously don't don't point it in people's eyes and don't point it in a reflective surface that could bounce it back into your eyes, because it does give off radiation that can damage your ear vision.

On the other side, it shows you here that you can turn the backlight on and off by holding measure and pressing up at the same time or turn the laser on and off. You turn the laser on and off. If you were in an area, maybe were you were concerned about it reflecting into somebody's eyes or if you're measuring very close, you can see that the laser and the actual infrared thermometer they're not directly aligned. So there has to be a little bit of separation for them to measure accurately.

If you're gon na be right up on something, then you really just point the infrared thermometer at it. So one very useful thing that you can use an infrared thermometer for that. I found more usefulness for them pretty much anything else, set it on 0.9 emissivity and then go through and measure different circuit breakers against one another. So it's what we would call a comparative diagnosis instead of using it for an absolute number and that's something that is actually quite useful.

So you can see here we're generally reading in a 72 degrees and as you go up the breakers, I'm just looking for any significant temperature change, because that's going to tell me you know potentially where we may have high load or there may be actually an issue. So right here we can see that we've got an 81 right here. You can see we had an 81 degree circuit breaker when the bulk of them, even the main breaker, is a lower reading of about 74 to 72. In that range, that's one area that you can use infrared thermometers like this ref Co.

Infrared thermometer very effectively is by measuring one electrical device against another. I even use it in the case of comparing condenser fan motor temperatures when I have multiple condensers that have the same motors and they're running in similar conditions to compare those condensing fan motors to one another. In order to see if I have one that's running warmer than another under the same conditions, obviously this is especially helpful when you don't have a published number like, for example, you're not going to have a manufacturer. Who tells you exactly what this breaker is going to run under normal load conditions or what temperature a condensing fan motor should be, but using it for a comparison is actually a really good use of this device again, making sure that you try to get it set Into at least close to the proper emissivity, something else that a lot of technicians get confused, is they forget that an infrared thermometer is measuring surface temperature? It's not measuring air temperature.

One thing that a lot of technicians get confused about is they use an infrared thermometer and they think that it's measuring air temperature, but it's actually measuring surface temperature. So, as you can see, if I put my hand the temperature jumps way up, even though the air in between the thermometer in my hand, isn't changing so when technicians shoot things like vents, for example, they're measuring the temperature of the vent averaged out, depending on the I know how far away you are from that vent: surface and you're measuring the surface area and not the air temperature and in many cases it takes a long time for that surface temperature of the vent to achieve the same temperature as the air coming out of It so run time becomes a really big factor. Now let me show you one of the most important parts of using an infrared thermometer and that is setting the emissivity properly. So that is this e value here.

So, in order for me to set it, I would have to hit mode again and now I can go up and down and all I do is hit up and down in order to change the emissivity for average reading of most common surfaces at point, 9 is Going to generally be sort of in the middle, but you have to understand that every different type of service is going to absorb and reject different amounts of energy from the infrared thermometer. So you have to set it inappropriately for the emissivity of that object. If you want to get an accurate reading as an object, becomes more reflective, it's going to be less and less accurate with an infrared thermometer. So measuring things like wall temperatures, maybe breakers within a panel.

Those things are going to be more accurate than measuring a shiny surface or trying to measure glass or something of that nature. You're gon na find that infrared thermometers become more and more inaccurate, the more reflective or transparent a surfaces alright. So this is a emissivity table that I found online there's many of them that you can find - and you know, they're not gon na - be a hundred percent accurate because there's a lot of particular considerations in order to choose emissivity. But it gives you an idea, and you can see you know aluminum, for example anodized aluminum 0.77, but with its polished it goes all the way down to point zero.

Five and again, my experience is that as something becomes more reflective, it really becomes more difficult to use and infrared thermometer. If you look at something like some find something else, that's practical, masonary, 0.94. Brick is 0.9 good. End up.

You know plastics, which would be a common thing that you would measure like on a black plastic on a circuit. Breaker is 0.95, and so this is why, if you can see sort of an average point, nine is going to be the most an area for most common things that you would be measuring. Human skin is 0.98, as you pay attention. You'll notice that that the surfaces that are more reflective tend to be lower numbers and the surfaces that are more matte finish, you know, less reflective tend to be higher.

Numbers is most common. Alright, so that's a quick demonstration of the revco infrared thermometer. I think it's a good tool to have in the toolbox it's good to have one, it's good to know how to use it. It's important to not use it in a way.

That's going to be inaccurate. It's gon na give you a false outcome or a false reading, which is where I see a lot of home inspectors and and people who maybe don't know what they're doing as much just pointing it at event and expecting that. That reading is going to be absolutely correct without adjusting for emissivity and without taking into account the fact that that reading cone increases the further the distance is away from the infrared thermometer, but once you know how to use it, it's a good tool to have thanks For watching.