Choosing a Borescope
Hawkeye® Precision Borescopes
Choosing a Borescope
Which borescope do I need?Choosing a DiameterChoosing a LengthDirection-of-View (DOV)Field-of-View (FOV)Magnification
IlluminationEndoGRINs® Design
Everyday, G.P.Agencies help customers select the correct Hawkeye® borescope and it's accessories to suit their applications.
Contact us:
Cellular: Glenda: 083 626 4422Tim: 083 625 2029E-mail: glenda@proscopehr.co.zatim@proscopehr.co.za
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Hawkeye® Borescopes by Gradient Lens Corporation Video
Hawkeye® Precision Borescopes provide you the best value in the industry. Gradient Lens Corporation's Hawkeye® Classic scopes give you great images at the lowest prices. The Hawkeye® Pro Scopes provide more ease-of-use features, still at a remarkable value. All of the borescopes are designed to accept any of the Luxxor® or Hawkeye® light sources and can be used with video or digital cameras to document your inspections.
Which borescope do I need?
Hawkeye® Rigid Borescope
Rigid borescopes have superior sharpness and detail because their image is not broken into pixels like flexible fiber optic scopes.
Hawkeye® Classic and Pro Rigid Borescopes have a DOV's of 0˚, 30˚, and 90˚. Hawkeye® Blue Rigid Borescopes offer a wider selection of DOV's and lengths.
Rigid borescopes are more durable, easier to use and are less expensive than flexible scopes. Choose a Hawkeye® Rigid Borescope when the entry path is straight.
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| Button rifled 0.204 Rugeras seen with a Hawkeye®Pro Slim 17" |
Diesel injector body taken with a Hawkeye® Pro Hardy 7" |
Burr in a cross hole in anABS brake manifold viewedwith a Hawkeye® Pro Slim 7" |
Hawkeye® Flexible Borescope
Flexible borescopes use optical glass fibers to relay the image. Resolution depends on the number of fibers and their diameter. Each fiber forms a pixel in the final image. Flexibles bend to go around curves and some articulate to change the DOV
A flexible fiberscope lets you see inside spaces that a rigid borescope can't penetrate. Hawkeye® Blue Flexible borescopes can offer the additional benefit of articulation - the ability to remotely control the tip of the scope so that it bends in two or four directions to look around a cavity. With up to 25,000 pixel image resolution, and flexible, durable, tungsten or stainless steel sheathing, Hawkeye Flexible Borescopes are the finest fiber scopes on the market.
When your entry path is curved, you'll need a Hawkeye® Classic, Pro, or Blue Flexible Borescope.
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| A complex casting isinspected using a Hawkeye®Pro Flexible borescope |
Interior of aluminum castingviewed with a Hawkeye® ProFlexible with 90˚ adapter |
Timing chain in Honda500cc motorcycle engineusing a Hawkeye® Pro Flexible |
Hawkeye® Semi-Rigid Borescopes
Hawkeye® Pro MicroFlex Semi-Rigid and Flexible Borescopes offer diameters as small as 0.5mm, and a 10,000 or 30,000 fiber image bundle, all in "bendable," semi-rigid, Nitinal or polymide sheaths.
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| A Hawkeye® Pro MicroFlexSemi-Rigid borescopeinspecting a very smallelectrical socket |
Medical tubing is inspectedfor flaws or defects with a0.9mm Hawkeye ProMicroFlex Flexible |
An electrical circuitboard as seen with a0.9mm Hawkeye ProMicroFlex Flexible |
Hawkeye® Rigid Video Borescopes
The Hawkeye® Rigid Video Borescopes offer the convenience and image quality of video, built right into each scope! Built-in CCG cameras allow these borescopes to be attached to a variety of portable and benchtop video monitors, or computers, for fast, convenient visual inspection, and video and still image capture.
Hawkeye® Flexible Video Borescopes
The Hawkeye® Flexible Video Borescopes are the perfect choice when portability, and easy image capture, are key factors. These are 2-way and 4-way articulating, fully portable, video borescopes, with 5x the image definition of fiber scopes. Rugged, flexible tungsten or stainless steel sheathing adds to the great value of these scopes! Integrated still and video image capture.
Luxxor® Video Systems
Connect any Hawkeye® Rigid or Flexible Borescope to a video camera and display the image on a computer or video monitor. Store, document and e-mail images as well.
Luxxor® Video Microscope
Easily converts from microscope to borescope for external and internal inspection of metal machined parts, castings, or welded parts. The Luxxor® Video Microscope can be used both as a microscope and with a borescope. The high quality, f/4.5 zoom lens delivers sharp, close-up views of the exterior of any object placed on the microscopes 15" x 10" table.
Choosing a Diameter
The borescope must fit through the smallest hole required. When choosing a borescope diameter, consider more than clearing the sides of the hole. A slightly smaller scope may allow "wiggle room" so that you can see more by tilting the scope. If you need to see into very small holes and relatively large ones, it is usually best to optimize for each, by using two borescopes. The Hawkeye® Pro MicroSlim Rigid Borescope can fit into 0.075" (1.85mm) diameter hole. The Hawkeye® Borescope diameters range from 0.035" (0.9mm) to 0.355" (9.0mm) for rigid borescopes and 0.020" (0.5mm) to 0.314" (8.0mm) for flexible borescopes.
Examples of few of Hawkeye® Borescope Outer Diameter Sizes
Choosing a Length
Choose a borescope to penetrate to the greatest depth required, but not so long as to be unwieldy outside the hole. Hawkeye® Borescopes are available in a variety of lengths from 2" to 37" for rigid scopes and 27" to 70" for flexible borescopes
Direction-of-View (DOV)
Take a longitudinal axis through the center of the body of a rigid borescope, or the tip of a flexible. The direction-of-view is the angle from that axis of the center of the field-of-view. Look at your particular application, noting the point of borescope entry and the area to be examined. if the subject is straight ahead of a convenient entry hole a 0˚ direction-of-view might be best. If the subject is very close to the entry point, like engine valves near a spark plug hole, a backward-looking 120˚ borescope might be best. When examining a bore, like a rifle barrel, a 90˚ Mirror Tube will be perfect.
Hawkeye® Pro and Classic Rigid Borescopes see straight-ahead (0˚) and sideways (90˚) with a mirror tube that slides over the borescope tube, making them two borescopes in one.
The mirror tube rotates the view over a full 360˚, using the knurled knob. Gradient Lens Corporations new mirrors are robust and durable for easy cleaning.
Fixed Prism Direction-of-View (DOV's)
Hawkeye® Blue Fixed Prism Rigid Borescopes use prisms to achieve the direction-of view.
Swing Prism Direction-of-View (DOV's)
| Valves | Cylinder Head | Cylinder Wall | Piston in Cylinder |
Hawkeye® Blue Swing Prism Borescope Scan
View the entire engine cylinder cavity with a single borescope. use the Hawkeye® Blue Swing Prism Borescope to sweep out views that previously required several borescopes. Save money and time!
Field-of-View (FOV)
Field-of-View may be very wide, wide, medium, or narrow. Think of it as a cone coming from the borescope tip, so that anything within the cone is visable. The field-of-view of the Hawkeye® Slim Borescope is approximately 37˚. Field-of-View should be dictated by the distance from the distal end of the borescope to the subject, for your application. The wider the field the lower the magnification, and vice versa. if you have pleanty of space to move inside the cavity, but want to see both detailed close-ups and big picture views you might choose a 67˚ moderate wide angle. if the space is more confined but you still need to see most of it at one time, try a 90˚ extreme wide angle. On the other hand, if you can't get close enough to show the detail you need, a 30˚ telephoto might be required.
Magnification
Microscopes and loupes have very limited depth of field - they are only in clear focus at a single distance, so the magnification is also fixed. A borescope, however, has a very large depth of field - often from infinity down to an inch or less - that makes them easy to use without constant refocusing. The closer an object is to the lens of a borescope, the greater the magnification. To calculate magnification you must know the distance of the subject from the lens. The same principle apply to rigid or flexible borescopes.
Most inspection situations need a "normal" objective lens (like a typical camera) with an angle of about 40˚.
Wider lenses see more, but at a lower magnification, giving less detail. Magnification increases as the borescope approaches the subject, unlike a microscope objective, which gives a fixed magnification at one object distance.
Illumination
Before you can see anything in a dark cavity, you need some light on the subject. Prior to 1960, borescopes used hot and often dangerous incandescent lamps at the distal (working) end. Today, quality borescopes usually uses fiber optic illumination, where glass fibers carry light from an external light source through a flexible light guide, then through the borescope, to the distal end. Some inexpensive borescopes still use a bulb at the tip of the scope for illumination, which can lead to illumination, heating and contamination problems. All Hawkeye® Borescopes use fibwe optic illumination in the scope body and can connect either directly with a Hawkeye® light source for a more portable operation or the brighter wall powered Luxxor® light sources.
EndoGRINs® Design
The heart of a rigid borescope design is the relay system, Gradient Lens Corporation's patended endoGRINs® design makes lens manufacturing and assembly easier and less costly, without sacrificing image quality.
Gradient Lens Corporation's patended endoGRINs® gradient index lenses are the core technology of Hawkeyes® Pro and Classic Rigid Borescopes. The elegant simplicity of the endoGRINs® design gives excellent optical quality at a much lower cost than traditional alternatives, like the Hopkins design, which uses many expensive micro-lenses and optical glass rods.
Achromatic Doublet Design
The first optical design used for relays was the achromatic doublet. A series of lens pairs form and reform images, each image the subject for the next relay set. The spacing between series is proportional to the diameter of the lenses, so this colour-corrected design works quite well for larger diamter borescopes. The Hawkeye® Blue Rigid Borescopes 5.8mm diameter and above use this design.
Small diameters borescopes using an achromatic doublet design need far too many lenses, too close together and image quality becomes poor.
Hopkins Design
The achromatic doublet design was improved upon by H.H.Hopkins who patented a new design in 1966. H.H.Hopkins' design combined convensional lenses with short, optical-glass rods to give higher brightness, accentuated colour, higher contrast, and sharper images when compared to the achromatic doublet relay of the same diameter. This conventional design is typically used in top of the line small diameter borescopes and is used in all the Hawkeye® Blue Rigid Borescopes under 5.8mm in diameter, resulting in superb image quality.
Innovative endoGRINs® Gradient Index Relay
Gradient Lens Corporation developed the Hawkeye® Precision Borescope using endoGRINs® gradient index lenses, combined in a patented design of elegant simplicity and excellent optical quality. EndoGRINs® lenses are longer optical glass rods treated in an ion exchange process. Cost saving are large. Expensive micro-lenses which had to be ground, polished, coated, and centered can simply be replaced with several glass rods. The Hawkeye® Borescopes were launched with quality and prices that guaranteed their success.
Flexible and rigid borescopes have a lot in common. Each have objective lenses to form an image of the subject on the relay system. Each have eyepiece lenses to magnify the image from the relay system so you can see it.
The difference is in the relay itself.
To allow flexibility the image is carried from the objective lens to the eyepiece by a bundle of optical fibers, instead of a system of lenses. Light cannot escape through the side once it enters a fiber, so it follows the fiber around twist and bends.
The ends of the fibers must occupy precisely the same respective positions at both the lens and eyepiece ends, or the image would be "scrambled."
The resolution of a flexible borescope depends on the number of fibers and their diameter. More fibers of smaller diameter gives higher resolution. They also increase the cost of the scope.
| Flexible Borescope | Rigid Borescope |
