Cheap pipe camera endoscope effectiveness and recommendations?

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gzt

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#268603 27-Mar-2020 21:47

Cheap pipe camera endoscope effectiveness and recommendations? I see many on trademe under $50.

I have a subterranean rainwater gutter white pvc which I expect is broken or lacking a seal. I can mostly drain it. Waterproof camera would be better. It may need to traverse one 90deg bend. Several access points. Four or five meters required.

They are advertised as pipe cameras. The sample pictures on the few I looked at show other things. Anyone used one or have an opinion?

Bung

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#2448528 28-Mar-2020 07:36

I wonder about how good they'd be as well. Is your buried pipe proper stormwater pipe or just light downpipe?
A neighbour had some drains using lightweight pipe that were leaking under some steps with about 4 places the leak could come from. Starting just above the lowest point we poured some water with red food colouring through a hose pulling the hose up until the leaking water on the steps showed the dye trace.

neb

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#2448934 28-Mar-2020 15:58

They're actually pretty good, however I wouldn't trust their watertightness at all, it's just a cheap plastic case clipped around a bullet camera sensor and some LEDs. Also if you get one get one of the ones that set up a WiFi access point that you connect to, not a USB anything because you'll end up spending half a day trying every single device in the house to try and find at least one that can talk to it.

You can also get it done professionally, they have robot cameras that move down through pretty much anything, but they won't be cheap. We had to get it done for the drains as part of the building consent.