Thread: infrared temperature probes

Is there a reason that I have not heard of people using infrared temperature probes. I figured that they either did not exist for the temps that we use, or that they were prohibitively expensive. Neither seems to be the case. Just curious.

The ones that are able to do high temps are quite expensive if you want any sort of accuracy... when i last checked.... and the door must be open to measure...

The open door is certainly a very good reason to not use them with an oven.


I guess that the people who HT in a forge are old school enough to not go that route. Dafonz was over at my place and watched me HT some blanks in a forge yesterday. He asked why I did not use one. I said that I had never heard of anyone using them. He found one with high enough range and accuracy for a couple hundred $ and asked if I wanted to go halves on one. "Nah" was my response

Mmm... a tc of the same range is below 50 us... a good one... my ht oven will be less than 500 us after i built it... i think for a forge it would be useful... but you can just get a cheapy... multimeter and a cheap tc would be good as long as you put a muffle in the forge...

The saying goes... loosely translated from afrikaans. You dont know until you measure... as long as you know what you measure...

More poetic in aftikaans though...

Originally Posted by AndreGrobler

Mmm... a tc of the same range is below 50 us... a good one... my ht oven will be less than 500 us after i built it... i think for a forge it would be useful... but you can just get a cheapy... multimeter and a cheap tc would be good as long as you put a muffle in the forge...

Trouble is that a TC tells you what temperature IT is, not the steel. Testing labs put the TCs in the steel for this reason. An infrared probe would be far more accurate than a TC in a forge.

We don't need to belabor it. Like I said, I was curious to know if there were reasons I had not heard of anyone using them. The open door, and cost are two good reasons, though cost seems to have come within reach at this time. I suppose if most people are using ovens that would be a reason, since the open door is a non starter.

I suppose if you can calibrate it to view through thick glass panel...
Agreed on the tc... there are ways and means to make that variation as little as possible... but it is still there and you need constant verification that nothing drifted...

Sample rc tests probably the easiest to implement... but that just tells you to start looking for issue...