Thanks for the video. One big issue is that the distance to size ratio on these guns is very different. The fluke is 30:1 and the Milwaukee is 12:1. From the video it looked like you had them about the same distance from the object. That means you are measuring different areas with the guns. That is going to account for some of the variability.
I use one I got of Ali-Express for about 35 dollars a few years back. I use it for metal casting sometimes, it is a Holdpeak, and it goes up to 1500C. A few degrees up or down doesn't really matter for what I do but it gives me a good indication when melting in my home made furnace. For my electric furnace I don't need it off course because you set the temp on the furnace itself. Thanks for this little review, I am now not to worried about my reading being to far off
It would be interesting to see how much variation there would be if you did a temp measure on 3 separate tools from the same manufacturer. I would expect there to be some variation within manufacturers too. Great job guys on the testing! I’m going to go back and update my Father’s Day list.
Dittos that. Reviewers often don't work with precision VS accuracy. Distance also comes into play with infrared thermometers. If you want to have some fun, ask MDs about their infrared thermometers. I did a deep dip on fingertip O2SAT monitors. +/- 3% for ALL of them. Good enough for medical office use, not good enough to integrate with CPAP. Skin translucence matters. And don't get me started on house thermostats.
I have a cheap General brand. IRT207.. It's 12-14 years old... When it is off temp wise. I've found that plowing off the lens with air corrects it and making sure it's not frozen. I'll cup my other hand over the top of it to kind of warm it up and so far this seems to get it back to reading my body temp correctly with in a degree or two.
A subscriber asked me if he should buy a 20 dollar IR thermometer or a 200 dollar one. I said I’d grab some cheap and expensive ones and shoot a few things which I did. Thanks for watching
A chrome bumper is a terrible thing to test with. Highly reflective items cause temp guns to read low, yet when you touch it with your hand you get burned. The surface materials and finish will greatly affect the temp gun's ability to get an accurate temperature reading.
The ratios are different on each one. You have to measure from their listed focal. eq 12:1 is measured at 12 inches , the cheap one was 8:1 and should be compared at 8 inches. Couldn't read the focal off the Fluke but it is probably 12:1 as a well.
Ken, I have been in the motorcoach trade over 40 years and when they came out they were the best thing to help diagnose. I have used one for about 20 years in my trade and have owned 3 different ones. The first was one I purchased off a local tool truck that didn’t have a laser pointer. Great if you want to know the general area temp. The next one was a Mastercraft (I live in Canada) that has laser pointer, so it is more direct, but you also have to take into account the distance you are from the object as the beam fans out (still not as accurate). The last one I purchased was a Flir thermal imager which is the best. I can now see the difference of temps in relation to the area. It is invaluable for checking bearings, electrical relays, a/c in & outs, brake rotor/drum temps etc. All these are crucial in the motorcoach industry for breakdown prevention on the road. Just a little food for thought. Like all the live streams you and colleagues have when I can catch them. RIck
Thanks Rick. I didn’t want to get too technical on the video regarding distance and beam width. We also use Flir equipment where I work to diagnose “hot-spots” where connections are loose or components are beginning to fail. It’s also cool to scan your walls in the winter to see where your heating dollars are going lol! Thanks for watching and commenting!
It would be nice to see you test some things in the 300+ degree range to see if it has a greater error of margin as temperature increases. Also, would be good to text something really cold for same thing. Thanks for the video.
@@KensSmallEngineRepair There's been some interesting discussion of temperature sensing of transmissions for fluid change. (Operating temperature only!). ODB2 is a royal pain, infrared tends read cooler than real temperature, and they both lag lag lag...
Interesting. Wonder how much of it is affected by "emissivity" - ask flir users about it, apparently some materials have different coefficients of ir vs temperature. (Metal is hard to measure, tape makes it more accurate) And of course because it's like light, reflective things are hard to measure, so I wasn't surprised there was a difference in your bumper. Thanks for the vid!
How would you able to assure that the professional tool is more accurate that the cheaper one despite you are not measuring a constant value or a known value of a temperature example like boiling water?
My method was purely comparative. Would a $20 tool give the same result as a $150 or $300 tool. I agree that accuracy was not addressed and and will produce a Part 2 using a calibrated thermocouple to test accuracy of measurement as well. Thanks for watching!
The fluke is variable emissivity, the harbor freight is fixed at 0.95. This is a big difference as depending on the object you are measuring, you will need to set the thermometer to match the emissivity of the maaterial it's made from, otherwise it will be inaccurate. That's one reason the fluke will always be better than the harbor freight, depending on your application!
Thanks for pointing that out, I tried to be consistent on whatever distance I used. I had a subscriber that just wanted to see three price ranges tried out.
@@KensSmallEngineRepair - I was looking for something that would help find slab leaks. Thanks for the response! And I’m thinking if you ever do another one of these, test the temp at 15” and at 3’ and see if the measurement is the same, close enough, or out of expected temperature. 👍🏽😎
The chrome bumper is a horrible test material. Even if you had set the correct emissivity shiny materials like that are notoriously inaccurate to measure. For this test to have been in any way valid you would need to test against some materials that have a known surface temperature.
All in all for general use I’d say the cheap ones are good enough. Everyone has been asking for a part two with specific tests. I’m working on it. Thanks for watching
An interesting and useful guide, Thanks. However while it shows the difference between the guns, you didn't show actual correct temperature the actual of the object measured. So we don't know the accuracy of any of the tested guns. While 3 degrees is nothing at low temps the 2"cheap" guns were out by nearly the same amount. So maybe the expensive gun needs re-calibrating. Does the difference (error) increase with higher temps? 70f is pretty cool in workshop situations.
Think cheap ones are always going to be a bit out. It's ok for the money I know when you're buying Muilty meters cheap one's are never going to be that accurate.👍
I mainly use is for automotive uses like checking radiator hoses and water pumps. Also exhaust headers to see if a cylinder is dead. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The fluke is not calibrated. No infrared thermometer is calibrated, because infrared emission depends on the type of material being measured, and each material has to have a constant applied to the result. For example aluminium has a different emissivity to concrete and if its polished it has a different emissivity again. Google infrared emissivity and you will tables that list all the different values for different materials. Newer IR thermometers let you set the constant factor that range from 0.1 to 1. 1 is for the most black material and is only acheived by "super black" paint from 3M for example
Thanks for the comparison. Not for nothing, but the display on the Harbor Freight brand looked pretty awful! In any case, for most of us home DIY folks, the cheaper models are sufficient.
They can be used. However, there are a few things you need to be aware of. A general purpose thermometer like this has a much wider measurement range, and thus the margin of error is much great like you saw in this video. +/- 3* is acceptable accuracy for most purposes and is reasonable for the temp range these are designed for. However, it's unacceptable for body temp measurement since 3* is the difference between healthy and fever. Medical thermometers measure a much more narrow range and have a much smaller margin of error to give you a more precise result. Also, skin temp is going to be much cooler than internal body temp, so medical thermometers take this into account and add on a few extra degrees to adjust for that. If your industrial thermometer has adjustable emissivity, set it to 0.78 so this shift is automatically added on. If you don't have adjustable emissivity, just take several measurements of healthy people in order to establish a normal baseline (ex: 93*) so you will know if the reading is higher than normal. The laser pointer doesn't pose a threat beyond the eye damage it can cause, so just be careful with it. These lasers are not powerful enough to burn though. Turn the laser off if you can, or just tape over it if you're going to be using in on humans.
The fluke has the emissivity set at .95 but what are the others set at? different surfaces require different emissivity settings. if you cant change the emissivity on the tool its really not worth buying if the temp reading is important.
Why was everything roughly room temperature? Why not test with something in the freezer, or something in the oven…? I get it’s hard to control temperature, but get someone to help. Shoot the same target at the same time with two guns at a time? Idk… I just don’t think this was a valuable test.
@@KensSmallEngineRepair right, I see that. You showed a 3 degree spread. But what if that 3 degree spread turns into a 100 degree spread when you measure a catalytic converter temp? I’m sure it wouldn’t, but I guess we’ll never know lol.
here is a good explanation from Fluke on Emissivity and how 0.95 is a sort of standard calibrated value. www.flukeprocessinstruments.com/en-us/service-and-support/knowledge-center/infrared-technology/what-emissivity%3F
Well you can live with 3degrees out & you know it now so hey ho! Funny thing about the fluke we use that word if you’re doing something tricky & you nail it first time we call it a fluke lol, My mates a mechanic he bought a snap on bore cam thingy, £300 and it hardly gets used, only for checking valves etc, he’s sorry that he didn’t just buy a £40 draper or such, I seen Henry’s workshop tour he’s a lot of Milwaukee stuff, personally I like Milwaukee but man , all these shootout videos & head to head tests are getting a bit much & trying to research what’s best bang for your buck is an absolute nightmare nowadays it’s a multi million dollar industry and the marketings off the scale so I just try not to think about it too much anymore & be happy with what I’ve got lol. Sorry for the rant but it’s getting out of hand 👍
Thanks for the video. One big issue is that the distance to size ratio on these guns is very different. The fluke is 30:1 and the Milwaukee is 12:1. From the video it looked like you had them about the same distance from the object. That means you are measuring different areas with the guns. That is going to account for some of the variability.
Absolutely. It was just a basic test of cheap vs expensive as suggested by a subscriber. Thanks for watching!
It is good to see the difference between cheap and expensive isn't worth worrying about when it comes to these thermometers.
I think the General is just fine for homeowner use. Thanks for watching!
Makes you wonder if the fluke is actuality calibrated lol. I work in HVAC and a lot of tradesmen are never wrong in their own mind...
Blessings 👐 💚
I had access to the expensive ones and just wanted to see how they compared to the cheap harbor freight unit. Thanks for watching
I use one I got of Ali-Express for about 35 dollars a few years back. I use it for metal casting sometimes,
it is a Holdpeak, and it goes up to 1500C.
A few degrees up or down doesn't really matter for what I do but it gives me a good indication when melting in my home made furnace.
For my electric furnace I don't need it off course because you set the temp on the furnace itself.
Thanks for this little review, I am now not to worried about my reading being to far off
Thanks for watching Ralph. How’s your fish coming?
because of emissivity the chrome bumper is the worst thing you could use an infrared on.
It would be interesting to see how much variation there would be if you did a temp measure on 3 separate tools from the same manufacturer. I would expect there to be some variation within manufacturers too. Great job guys on the testing! I’m going to go back and update my Father’s Day list.
Let me think about that one. Thanks for the suggestion!
Dittos that. Reviewers often don't work with precision VS accuracy. Distance also comes into play with infrared thermometers. If you want to have some fun, ask MDs about their infrared thermometers. I did a deep dip on fingertip O2SAT monitors. +/- 3% for ALL of them. Good enough for medical office use, not good enough to integrate with CPAP. Skin translucence matters. And don't get me started on house thermostats.
I have a cheap General brand. IRT207.. It's 12-14 years old... When it is off temp wise. I've found that plowing off the lens with air corrects it and making sure it's not frozen. I'll cup my other hand over the top of it to kind of warm it up and so far this seems to get it back to reading my body temp correctly with in a degree or two.
This isn’t very scientific but 100% worth watching. Thank you. Very good and honest comparison.
A subscriber asked me if he should buy a 20 dollar IR thermometer or a 200 dollar one. I said I’d grab some cheap and expensive ones and shoot a few things which I did. Thanks for watching
@@KensSmallEngineRepair thank you for the video. God bless brother.
A chrome bumper is a terrible thing to test with. Highly reflective items cause temp guns to read low, yet when you touch it with your hand you get burned. The surface materials and finish will greatly affect the temp gun's ability to get an accurate temperature reading.
Thanks for sharing. A lot of changes coming in part 2!
$275 for 3 degrees can save you hundreds of thousands on inventory, let alone a lawsuit
Good comparison Ken. I'll stick with my General for what I use it for.
Me too, for now!!
The fluke is a 30:1 which most likely make it reading a smaller area at the same measuring distance.
Thanks for the input!
The ratios are different on each one. You have to measure from their listed focal. eq 12:1 is measured at 12 inches , the cheap one was 8:1 and should be compared at 8 inches. Couldn't read the focal off the Fluke but it is probably 12:1 as a well.
Still trying to drum up some new units for testing, stay tuned. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Ken, I have been in the motorcoach trade over 40 years and when they came out they were the best thing to help diagnose. I have used one for about 20 years in my trade and have owned 3 different ones. The first was one I purchased off a local tool truck that didn’t have a laser pointer. Great if you want to know the general area temp. The next one was a Mastercraft (I live in Canada) that has laser pointer, so it is more direct, but you also have to take into account the distance you are from the object as the beam fans out (still not as accurate). The last one I purchased was a Flir thermal imager which is the best. I can now see the difference of temps in relation to the area. It is invaluable for checking bearings, electrical relays, a/c in & outs, brake rotor/drum temps etc. All these are crucial in the motorcoach industry for breakdown prevention on the road. Just a little food for thought. Like all the live streams you and colleagues have when I can catch them. RIck
Thanks Rick. I didn’t want to get too technical on the video regarding distance and beam width. We also use Flir equipment where I work to diagnose “hot-spots” where connections are loose or components are beginning to fail. It’s also cool to scan your walls in the winter to see where your heating dollars are going lol! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I was just thinking about getting one of those from Harbor Freight.. you just made up my mind Ken...
Y
E
S
I think it’s worth the money Rick go for it!
It would be nice to see you test some things in the 300+ degree range to see if it has a greater error of margin as temperature increases. Also, would be good to text something really cold for same thing. Thanks for the video.
Trying to get all 3 guns together again for Round 2!
@@KensSmallEngineRepair There's been some interesting discussion of temperature sensing of transmissions for fluid change. (Operating temperature only!). ODB2 is a royal pain, infrared tends read cooler than real temperature, and they both lag lag lag...
I have a cheap one from Princess auto. (Canada) Thanks for this.
Bruce you should do a walk-through at Princess auto to show us US people what’s in that store
Interesting. Wonder how much of it is affected by "emissivity" - ask flir users about it, apparently some materials have different coefficients of ir vs temperature. (Metal is hard to measure, tape makes it more accurate) And of course because it's like light, reflective things are hard to measure, so I wasn't surprised there was a difference in your bumper. Thanks for the vid!
We use Flir IRs at work. A nice visual of what’s going on! Thanks for watching
How would you able to assure that the professional tool is more accurate that the cheaper one despite you are not measuring a constant value or a known value of a temperature example like boiling water?
My method was purely comparative. Would a $20 tool give the same result as a $150 or $300 tool. I agree that accuracy was not addressed and and will produce a Part 2 using a calibrated thermocouple to test accuracy of measurement as well. Thanks for watching!
Very good test Ken. 3d difference not that bad when you think of the cost, Great vid.
Money comes into the equation for sure. Thanks for watching
I would have thought there'd be a big difference in temperature but it's in the price. Good one my friend!!!
Thanks Gravelyman!
The fluke is variable emissivity, the harbor freight is fixed at 0.95. This is a big difference as depending on the object you are measuring, you will need to set the thermometer to match the emissivity of the maaterial it's made from, otherwise it will be inaccurate. That's one reason the fluke will always be better than the harbor freight, depending on your application!
Thanks for the info!
No worries, thanks for the video :)
What’s 2or 3 degrees Amun friends it works . Go one Ken
That’s what I say!
The instructions on almost all of those say 15” away from the item. In some of your tests you aren’t even close.
Thanks for pointing that out, I tried to be consistent on whatever distance I used. I had a subscriber that just wanted to see three price ranges tried out.
@@KensSmallEngineRepair - I was looking for something that would help find slab leaks. Thanks for the response! And I’m thinking if you ever do another one of these, test the temp at 15” and at 3’ and see if the measurement is the same, close enough, or out of expected temperature. 👍🏽😎
Great suggestion thanks!
Great test Ken
Glad you liked it more to come
The chrome bumper is a horrible test material. Even if you had set the correct emissivity shiny materials like that are notoriously inaccurate to measure. For this test to have been in any way valid you would need to test against some materials that have a known surface temperature.
So, are we assuming the expensive device is accurate? Maybe it is reading 3 degrees too hot.
All in all for general use I’d say the cheap ones are good enough. Everyone has been asking for a part two with specific tests. I’m working on it. Thanks for watching
You should test on ice and at full boil water
I would have been interested to see a test against something like a running engine.
I can do a part 2. Stay tuned.
An interesting and useful guide, Thanks. However while it shows the difference between the guns, you didn't show actual correct temperature the actual of the object measured. So we don't know the accuracy of any of the tested guns. While 3 degrees is nothing at low temps the 2"cheap" guns were out by nearly the same amount. So maybe the expensive gun needs re-calibrating. Does the difference (error) increase with higher temps? 70f is pretty cool in workshop situations.
Next time I plan a visit to Big Dog Henry’s place I’ll bring them and do a proper test. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@KensSmallEngineRepair great! I'll watch for it
I paid $20 for a Milwaukee one at the flea market
Great deal!
Think cheap ones are always going to be a bit out. It's ok for the money I know when you're buying Muilty meters cheap one's are never going to be that accurate.👍
I mainly use is for automotive uses like checking radiator hoses and water pumps. Also exhaust headers to see if a cylinder is dead. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The fluke is not calibrated. No infrared thermometer is calibrated, because infrared emission depends on the type of material being measured, and each material has to have a constant applied to the result. For example aluminium has a different emissivity to concrete and if its polished it has a different emissivity again. Google infrared emissivity and you will tables that list all the different values for different materials. Newer IR thermometers let you set the constant factor that range from 0.1 to 1. 1 is for the most black material and is only acheived by "super black" paint from 3M for example
Thanks for the comparison. Not for nothing, but the display on the Harbor Freight brand looked pretty awful! In any case, for most of us home DIY folks, the cheaper models are sufficient.
It was just a basic comparison. Thanks for watching!
@@KensSmallEngineRepair Oh, it wasn't a knock on you, Ken, but rather on the Harbor Freight's display quality. You did a great job!
how do you know the fluke is the correct one?
The Fluke is used by a friend who’s company calibrates it monthly
Have you tried two flukes against each other ?
Need to find two Flukes!!!!
Hi quick question can these be used on a person to check the body temperature? obviously to check if person has a fever or not. thanks :)
Absolutely NOT! Each is marked danger as burns from lasers can result!
They can be used. However, there are a few things you need to be aware of. A general purpose thermometer like this has a much wider measurement range, and thus the margin of error is much great like you saw in this video. +/- 3* is acceptable accuracy for most purposes and is reasonable for the temp range these are designed for. However, it's unacceptable for body temp measurement since 3* is the difference between healthy and fever. Medical thermometers measure a much more narrow range and have a much smaller margin of error to give you a more precise result. Also, skin temp is going to be much cooler than internal body temp, so medical thermometers take this into account and add on a few extra degrees to adjust for that. If your industrial thermometer has adjustable emissivity, set it to 0.78 so this shift is automatically added on. If you don't have adjustable emissivity, just take several measurements of healthy people in order to establish a normal baseline (ex: 93*) so you will know if the reading is higher than normal.
The laser pointer doesn't pose a threat beyond the eye damage it can cause, so just be careful with it. These lasers are not powerful enough to burn though. Turn the laser off if you can, or just tape over it if you're going to be using in on humans.
good vid keep up the vids
Thanks for watching Lee!
Nice video mate
Thanks for watching!
Interesting, I use a cheap one, bought it off of my local auction site.
I say whatever works!
@@KensSmallEngineRepair Same here.
Good video
More to come on those. Thanks for watching
You should really do some reading about ir thermometers and shiny metals.. or at least read the manual..
Enlighten us!
The fluke has the emissivity set at .95 but what are the others set at? different surfaces require different emissivity settings. if you cant change the emissivity on the tool its really not worth buying if the temp reading is important.
All three stated 0.95 emissivity in their respective manuals.
Are they all set to the same emissivity?
All had fixed emissivity of 0.95, at least according to their respective manuals. Thanks for watching!
@@KensSmallEngineRepair thanks for the update, a year later!
@@74357175 a year later? The question was yesterday
@@KensSmallEngineRepair i meant that you were still replying to questions posed a year later 😂 (which is great)
There's an app for infrared thermometer for Android phones.
Yes and they work pretty good. Mainly seen them used for checking wall insulation in homes. Thanks for watching
Why was everything roughly room temperature? Why not test with something in the freezer, or something in the oven…? I get it’s hard to control temperature, but get someone to help. Shoot the same target at the same time with two guns at a time? Idk… I just don’t think this was a valuable test.
Trying to show if a 20 dollar Harbor Freight unit would compare to professional grade units costing hundreds of dollars.
@@KensSmallEngineRepair right, I see that. You showed a 3 degree spread. But what if that 3 degree spread turns into a 100 degree spread when you measure a catalytic converter temp? I’m sure it wouldn’t, but I guess we’ll never know lol.
@@radioman321 my channel only deals in small engine repair, a 100 degree difference would end up being a catastrophic failure to a small engine!
Emmissivity?
here is a good explanation from Fluke on Emissivity and how 0.95 is a sort of standard calibrated value.
www.flukeprocessinstruments.com/en-us/service-and-support/knowledge-center/infrared-technology/what-emissivity%3F
Food one Ken
Food??where? Lol
your checkin against all cold stuff how bout on running engines
That makes two requests for that. I guess a part two will be forthcoming!
For $ 15 not a bad buy 👍
I thought so
Well you can live with 3degrees out & you know it now so hey ho! Funny thing about the fluke we use that word if you’re doing something tricky & you nail it first time we call it a fluke lol, My mates a mechanic he bought a snap on bore cam thingy, £300 and it hardly gets used, only for checking valves etc, he’s sorry that he didn’t just buy a £40 draper or such, I seen Henry’s workshop tour he’s a lot of Milwaukee stuff, personally I like Milwaukee but man , all these shootout videos & head to head tests are getting a bit much & trying to research what’s best bang for your buck is an absolute nightmare nowadays it’s a multi million dollar industry and the marketings off the scale so I just try not to think about it too much anymore & be happy with what I’ve got lol. Sorry for the rant but it’s getting out of hand 👍
PS. Don’t get me started on nail guns lol