Anyone Using Thermal Cameras for Troubleshooting Power Supplies or Motor Drivers - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: camello
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 03:02:54 am
content: Hi all,I’ve mainly been using thermal imaging in HVAC and light electrical work, but lately I’ve been running into more control board and power circuit issues—especially in inverter-driven AC units and some older pump controllers. That got me wondering:How useful have you found thermal cameras for pinpointing faults on power supplies, motor driver boards, or similar gear?I’ve used borrowed FLIR tools a few times and could clearly see hotspots around caps and regulators. Pretty impressive for spotting where to probe before diving in with the multimeter. Now I’m looking at getting a mid-range camera for regular use—nothing crazy, just something that won’t choke on small hotspots or mislead me in field conditions.I mentioned in another thread I was looking at the Thermal Master Thor001. Haven’t seen much hands-on feedback about it, but it looks promising on paper. Anyone tried it specifically in repair work? Or compared it with similarly priced FLIR or Seek models?Would appreciate any practical feedback—especially from those of you doing board-level repair or field diagnostics.Thanks!

author: benj38
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 08:03:37 am
content: This thing is popping around lately more and more. The short answer is: thermal cameras do have theoccasionaluse in repairing certain faults in electronic equipment in general, and power electronics in particular, but this use isextremely limited.@camello, I obviously do not know your level of knowledge and expertise but, in general, people who have limited knowledge of electronics hope that thermal imaging would allow them to diagnose and repair circuits that they do not understand. It is simply (almost always) not the case that these cameras would provide such help!In HVAC work you are literally trying to diagnose machines whose purpose is tomove thermal energyaround. Thus, it is no surprise that being able to see the temperatures everywhere is very helpful. In contrast, electronic equipment is aboutmoving electrical chargesaround, and what you need is to see these electrical phenomena (using a DMM, oscilloscope, etc.). Any heat generated in an electronic circuit is a side-effect which in the majority of cases would provide you with very little information of value.My advice to a person venturing into the world of power electronics repair is: use your money to buy instruments that measure electrical phenomena, spend the time learning electronics, and start gaining experience. Once you become good enough, adding a thermal camera to your arsenalmaybe justified, for those rare occasions when it can help you save some time.I am afraid there is no magical thermal shortcut.

author: Shimonu
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 08:15:17 am
content: I don't have experience with thermal cameras but I did recently troubleshoot something where a part was getting abnormally warm. It did guide my troubleshooting and while it didn't give me the answer directly I think it was very helpful to reduce the troubleshooting time. Now it was a relatively small board for battery charging and it was easy to find a warm part, although I slightly burned my finger and could thereafter use a temperatureprobe.I'm still thinking about getting a thermal camera for larger boards to get a quick overview.

author: benj38
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 09:44:32 am
content: Quote from: Shimonu on August 07, 2025, 08:15:17 amThat is exactly part of why a thermal camera is of little use, except as a convenience and a bit of a time saver in those rare occasions.Most problems have nothing to do with things being too hot (or too cold).When it is too hot your fingers, and/or eyes (discoloration due to heat, etc.), and/or nose (burnt smell, etc.) will let you know. No need for a camera. When the heating is not so severe, a camera can help but only if you know what temperature to expect. Would you know without understanding the circuit very well? I don't think so, unless you have an exact working copy of the circuit to compare to, and believe me even then it is of little value in most cases.Don't get me wrong, a thermal camera is not useless, but it is very far down the list.

author: kite31
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 11:07:51 am
content: When it is useful, it is brilliant. The rest of the time it isn't.I recently had a minor problem with noise in one channel of a vintage transistor amp. A repairer gave me a piece-of-string quote to test components one by one. I declined, and after eliminating the preamp and tone circuits (by isolation) I used the old Testo to compare the driver boards. A hot resistor stood out on the faulty board. However, that was a symptom, with the problem still needing to be traced. The virtue was that it quickly confirmed the difference between the two channels and directed further work.How often do you have a mirror circuit as I did, as an experimental control?I love my thermal camera which has been useful to me for over 12 years. I may even upgrade it, but I would not buy one purely for electronics.

author: oz2cpu
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 07, 2025, 03:10:30 pm
content: I use thermal cams all the time for error finding, used together with experiance about what is normally hot, what is not supposeed to be hotand compare with other similar parts in the circuit / other channels and suchit is a very powerfull tool.every time i find an error this way, not even looking at schematics or block diagrams,i laugh loud and call it cheating, it is that feeling like getting the answer before thinking in a quizzso thermal cam much recommended from me, I do repair all the timeand also veryfy own designs in my EE job.at home i use HTI HT-A2 with a flip in macro lens i 3D printed, the lens is cheap to get, same type used in CO2 laser cutterswith the macro i can get down to the smallest SMD parts, with out it it is more larger parts in large power boards,if you use a wooden or plastic stick, to try point to the hot part on the pictureyou fint the real hot part very easy, even with out the macro or super sharp image,so in reality you dont need super high resolution, you just need to use your smart a bit more.search for this on thngiverseThermal Camera Macro Lens CO2 lens laserit also show the macro in use

author: camello
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 02:46:05 am
content: Thanks for sharing your perspectives. I can see both sides here — thermal cameras aren’t a magic bullet, but in the right situation they can save a lot of time. I’ve run into cases where the fault wasn’t obvious until I saw a clear temperature difference on the board. That said, I agree that without understanding the circuit, the readings can be misleading.For me, they’re more like an extra tool in the box rather than a first-line diagnostic method. I usually start with the basics — measuring voltages, checking with a scope — and only reach for the thermal camera if I suspect heat-related issues or want to confirm a hunch. It’s probably not something I’d recommend as the very first investment for beginners, but learning how to interpret what it shows can definitely be useful later on.

author: all_repair
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 02:57:03 am
content: when you have it, you shall use it to scan first and then proceed from there:1. if it did find something unusual, or2. NOT find something unusual.Both indications are useful and productive for me. Only thing is low battery level is always a hassle for me. My next cam need to run 18650 that I can just pop-in fresh set and not wait for the charging.

author: particleman
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 03:48:24 am
content: Saved an amp 3 days ago with a topdon tc004. Put a transistor in wrong and it drove the outputs crazy hard. spotted it instantly with the topdon and shut it down. Fixed mistake and G2G. Recapped a old tiny dell pc yesterday that Im using to backup RPI images. Had a bunch of popped caps. Figured they were just old. Replaced them fired it up and for gigs I hit it with the topdon. Inductors smoking hot 165f at idle. Now I see why the caps popped in the areas they did. Added a fan and now 120F. Handy tool.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 04:22:56 am
content: It simply gives you an extra sense to tell what is hot at a glance.But of course you have to have the thermal camera looking at it when something happens when trying to pickup intermitted issues.For fault finding sometimes you want a dedicate thermal camera setup and a dedicated LCD always showing a live thermal view.That way you can always glance at the LCD and get thermal data in an instant.It also super useful if you have your hands free to probe stuff and don't have to hold the FLIR/Phone in one hand while trying to work on stuff in the other.

author: DaJMasta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 08:46:01 pm
content: They are absolutely useful in electronics troubleshooting, but it's mostly a triage stage kind of role - you can see if something is cooking itself quickly and without burning your fingers, you can see if a section of the board isn't getting power, you can see if something is driving a short but hasn't failed yet, you can see if power dumping resistors are active, etc. You can even pick out aging caps without pulling them out to measure them in some situations.Definitely useful, makes an appearance with most of my repairs, but it rarely points directly to a solution without any additional testing or troubleshooting. Probably more valuable in a situation repairing the same stuff as you could make a profile of a good one and then just compare the faulty one's image and get an idea of what was going on.

author: hfleming
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 10:01:40 pm
content: It is just a tool, just like your multimeter and oscilloscope is… the biggest factor in all fault-finding is your own brain, and you have to make do with whatever tools you have available. For some people a multimeter is their standard tool, for me, it is an oscilloscope… looking at youtube, for some it seems to be a thermal camera. You use the tools that you have available… ok, ok, for some diagnosis, you need very specialized tools, but 99.9% of the time you can fix the stuff with what you have AND know its limitations/perks/ and how to squeeze that extra bit out of it… Knowing schematics/being able to derive a block diagram from whatever you are looking at, and knowing what to expect at certain points, is more important than having dedicated test equipmwnt, IMHO (barring that 0.01% of stuff where you absolutely need the right test kit)

author: kite31
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 08, 2025, 11:41:55 pm
content: Quote from: DaJMasta on August 08, 2025, 08:46:01 pmPretty much how they are used in industry, with repeat inspections and comparisons used to spot potential problems before they bring down the system. If you were in a repair or similar business then building a library of working devices or boards may increase the camera's value for initial diagnosis, or at home just take a thermal image of every device you buy.

author: OhmBob
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 07:24:22 am
content: I use thermal cameras quite a bit for PSU and motor driver troubleshooting — they’re a great complement to the multimeter and scope, especially for quickly spotting a regulator running hot or a shorted FET. The key is to let the board reach thermal steady state first, otherwise you might chase transient warm-up effects. I also recommend using a bit of matte spray (or Kapton tape) on shiny components to avoid false hotspots from reflections.Regarding the Thermal Master M01 you mentioned, I’ve had a chance to try it alongside a FLIR E6-XT. The M01’s resolution and thermal sensitivity are good enough for board-level work — it clearly shows heat differences on individual ICs and power traces — and its refresh rate feels smooth enough that you can “scan” across the board without lag. I like that it doesn’t overheat even after a long session, which was an issue with a couple of older handhelds I used.If you’re doing this often, I’d say a mid-range handheld like that is a solid investment — much easier to aim than a dongle on a phone, and the manual focus helps a lot for getting crisp images of small SMD parts.

author: Paceguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 10:07:31 am
content: I have been thinking of purchasing a thermal camera but prices are still a bit high for the amount of times that I would put it to use. For now, I have been using a Fluke 62 thermometer and it has been better than using my fingers. Maybe not as precise but not a major expense either.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2025, 05:18:47 pm
content: Just used the FLIR yesterday to debug my Lexus. Saved quite a bit of time (seat heating is slightly on, even when it's turned off).