Cheap USB Borescope Endoscope Camera Review

I bought a cheap USB Endoscope camera on eBay to use as a borescope to look at the piston in my motorcycle. The USB endoscope has an led light on the end of it, and you can put it into small places and record what it sees. This endoscope camera is a useful tool anytime you want to take a look at something in a place too small to fit your head into. For mechanical work on a car or motorcycle, it would be better if it had a wide angle lens, but it does give you a look at what is inside of a small space. For the price, this USB endoscope is a good value, but it is not the best borescope you could buy. It is probably the cheapest one you can buy.
Since this video was made, better endoscopes have come out.
Here is a good cheap one:

[gtdoering]

Thank you!
I bought the hardware and needed help with the software. Your video walked me through the process quickly and accurately.

[ronanian]

Thank you so much for posting the video. I've wanted a borescope for a long time. I don't know if I've never checked ebay before or if there hasn't been a cheap Chinese craposcope until recently. When I saw them there I was intrigued and went looking for video.

I wouldn't expect anything great but what I saw here tells me that it's all of $20 worth of borescope. It'll give me a look into places where I couldn't look before. It'll also be able to show me stuff under the hood *while I drive*.

[Steve-K.G.]

I had one delivered last week and couldn't get it to run to deleted all files and looked on Google as a last resort. So glad I did, and this was the first thing I looked at. Thank you so much for posting this :-)

[keithnoneya]

Thanks, you helped guide me in the right direction for using my USB Chinese Borescope.
However the Windows Live Movie Maker was using the one built into the laptop by default.
To solve this problem do the following:
1. Go to the little Notepad with the down arrow, top left of the Movie Maker program window,  above the clipboard.
2. Click on it.
3. Select "Options".
4. Select "Webcam".
5. Select "Available Webcams".
6. Select one of the cameras in the list.
7. Select "OK", at which time the pop up options window will close, and return you to the main Movie Maker window.
8. Select the "Webcam Video" Icon.
9. If the Borescope camera is selected you will see its video in the square box. If it's not there repeat the process, this time selecting a different camera in step 6.

For VLC users:
If you have VLC media player V2.1.5 you can also use this program to cature snapshots and veiw the video as well as record your videos. Ps it may also work on other versions like V1.1.0.
To use VLC media player with your borescope do this:
1. Download and install VLC media player, it's a free program.
2. Select "Media" on the top left menu bar in VLC media player.
3. Select "Open Capture Device", an "open Media" window will appear with several options.
4. Select "the down arrow" in the box next to the video device name. A drop down menu will appear.
5. Select "one of the cameras listed in the drop down menu".
6. Select "Play".
7. If the camera you wish to use is selected the video will appear in the video screen.
8. If the camera veiw is not the camera you wish, repeat the process again, except chose a different camera in step 5.
Hope this helps. Jesus bless, Keith

[mikelyon]

Thank you for posting this, I found it helpful! When I have time I'll check out more of your posts! Thanks again!

[joelr]

Great video. I just received a similar one today. I installed movie maker on my laptop and it works. Thanks!

[miguelbenitez]

Thank you very much. Exactly the kind of review I needed.

[ACoustaDC]

I can't wait to get one and do home medical treatment LOL... thanks for the review, i would never have known it existed.

[Isaiaher]

Great tip on using different software! I'm now using the webcam software I already had installed and it works great!

[locouk]

So what was that on top of the piston? A broken piston ring?

[WallaceRoseVincent]

thanks! I have a clogged sewer and need to view the problem. much appreciated!

[Brainiacstudio]

I was unshure about this cam. But i'm gonna buy one. For that money it look to work realy whel. Thank you for the review.

[ruthlessonek]

If it still runs thats a good sign that the valves are not destroyed, I've never had that happen on a motorcycle before. But I had it happen on a nissan skyline, It ran alright but was just a little bit lower than normal on power and had trouble building boost. Turned out that 5 of the pistons had cracked ringlands and one had the ring popped up like this. didn't know until the boost filled the oil pan and emptied all my oil via the dipstick tube and 10psi of boost. Let me know what you find.

[ruthlessonek]

That pointy thing that you don't like is infact a piston ring, the compression ring to be more specific. You would seem to have a broken ringland on your piston. That ring failure has almost certainly caused cylinder damage. You are going to need to get that cylinder bored and get a new piston and ring set to match the new cylinder bore. Hopefully the valves have not hit it and caused valve damage. If the valves are ok it shouldn't be to hard or expensive to fix.

[crateandbarrels]

I need to get behind some drywall to try and find exactly whats going on with some water leaking issues before I tear it all down. Is the cord stiff enough that you can feed it and get it roughly where you want it to go, or is it pretty loose?

[featherstonekid]

What do you mean by wide angle? How many degrees? Also to do an automotive piston, how close should the minimum focusing distance be?

[wyattoutlaw]

is it possible to have this video on my phone? ie plug the camera into an android phone via mini usb adapter?

[dennyevans]

I received a snake camera from china, and they did not give me a program or driver files to run it. Thank you for this information, it was very helpful.

[WertzOne]

Get one of those iPhone wide angle lens and attach it to the camera, they go for like 3 dollars.

[RomanTashev]

Hi. What is the focus distance? Because the keys of your keyboard seemed out of focus.