Borescope

A borescope is an optical device used for inspection work, because of its ability to inspect areas that hard to reach, or even totally inaccessible by other means. The flexible borescope consists of a rigid tube with an eyepiece on one end, an objective lens on the other linked together by a relay optical system in between. Flexible borescopes also are called Fiberscopes - because their relay optical system that transfers the image consist of thousands of tiny fibers (fiber optic image bundle).

Usually the fiberscope has 2 type of bundles: fiber optic light bundle (for illumination of objects) and fiber optic image bundle to relay image to eyepiece. The lens is often a wide-angle lens, and the eyepiece is occasionally instead connected to a camera.

Rigid and flexible boresopes have their own advantages and disadvantages, that you must be aware of so that you can make the right choice. First of all, it must be admitted that flexible borescopes are the more expensive ones and the image they produce is sometimes not as good as the image produced by the rigid one. But there is one thing that they lack – flexibility. As the name suggests, flexible borescopes can be used to access cavities which are around a bend, as oppose to rigid ones, that have the limitation that access to what is to be viewed is a straight line. Apart from the flexibility, the other advantages of the flexible borescopes are the higher length (then rigid borescope) and articulation capabilities. Articulation means that inspector can manipulate a tip of the fiberscope and pass along the corners, angled tubes and hard to reach areas as well as inspect object from different angles. There could be 1, 2 or 4 way articulation fiberscopes (fiber optic scope).

Because of the fiber image guide used in the relay optical system, flexible borescopes suffer from pixelation and pixel cross talk. Hence, image quality varies widely among different models of flexible borescopes depending on the number of fibers and construction used in the fiber image guide. For flexible borescopes parameters like articulation mechanism components, range of articulation, field of view and angles of view of the objective lens are also important. Fiber content in the flexible relay is also critical to provide the highest possible resolution to the viewer. Therefore, you must look for a model that has a high quantity of fiber content. Minimal quantity is 10,000 pixels while the best images are obtained with higher numbers of fibers in the 15,000 to 22,000 range for the larger diameter borescopes.

Flexible borescopes are ideal for examining small components in tightly packed equipment, when the inspector cannot easily access the part requiring inspection.

Fiberscopes (fiber optic scopes) are used in aircraft inspection and maintenance, engines machining, computer repair, espionage, locksmithing, safecracking, and computer forensics, among many other uses.

There are different brands of flexible boroscopes, such as Provision borescopes, Karl Storz borescopes, Olympus borescopes, Richard Wolf borescopes.

Upper Endoscopy | Borescope Lens | Camera Lens | Gradient Lens | Optical Lens | Rod Lens |