Thermal Imaging Camera for Transmission Cooler Diagnosis

A handheld infrared camera you point at a transmission to read surface temperature instead of guessing. The 2.8 inch screen shows a 320 x 240 thermal picture built from a 120 x 90 sensor, upscaled to 240 x 180 effective resolution by the TISR processing, refreshed at 25 Hz so the image keeps up while you sweep the pan or walk the cooler lines. Range is -4 F to 1022 F with plus or minus 3.6 F accuracy, and it tags the hottest and coldest spot in frame automatically.

The job it does best on a transmission is telling you whether the cooler is actually cooling. Bring the vehicle to temp, then shoot the inlet line and the outlet line at the cooler. A healthy cooler drops fluid temperature noticeably across it; a plugged or partially restricted cooler shows almost no split, which is the same cooler that will cook a fresh rebuild in a few thousand miles. Same trick works on an auxiliary cooler that was installed but never plumbed correctly.

On the vehicle it also finds a converter that is not locking, a clutch pack that is slipping and dumping heat into the case, a dragging brake that gets blamed on the transmission, and a hot spot on a pan that points at a specific circuit. Off the vehicle it is a general shop camera: electrical connections, relays, wiring harnesses, wheel bearings, exhaust, and coolant flow through a radiator. Nine color palettes, a laser pointer and an LED light for working under a car, and high and low temperature alarms that beep when a reading crosses a limit you set.

It stores over 20,000 images and videos on 8 GB of built-in memory. Photos transfer to a Windows PC where the included software does point, line and area temperature analysis, 2D and 3D plots, and builds a report you can hand a customer when you tell them the cooler needs replaced. IP54 rated and drop tested to 6.6 ft.