Testing a temp-gun

Would anyone be willing to share a way they test their temp guns? I'm just paranoid about it for when I have eggs, maintenance, husbandry, etc. maybe I should just trust it but I'm still curious. Thanks in advance!

infrared temp guns are extremely accurate. I wouldnt worry about it as long as you bought a decent one.

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Originally Posted by jedidiah578

infrared temp guns are extremely accurate. I wouldnt worry about it as long as you bought a decent one.

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No they aren't. Not the cheap ones we use in the reptile hobby anyway. Most are +/- 2 degrees which is about the same as most cheap digital thermometers.

I think if you are going to test two temps guns you have to look at the d:s ratio for them both to make sure they are both at the appropriate distance of the surface of the temps being measured.


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I think the best thing to do is compare it against your other forms of temperature management. So test your temp gun against your thermometers and thermostat (assuming you have good models of both).

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Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant

No they aren't. Not the cheap ones we use in the reptile hobby anyway. Most are +/- 2 degrees which is about the same as most cheap digital thermometers.

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I think you get what you pay for. If you buy cheap you take the risk of it being off. That's why I said if you have a decent one I wouldn't worry about it.
But then again if you have a cheap thermostat & a cheap thermometer & try to use a cheap temp gun you'll never really know what your temps really are.

Aaron is right only I think I can say all of them we (my university) have a Fluke 574P (retails around 1200$) it is only +/- 1.6ºF or 1% which ever is greater. It is about as good as it gets. The average is +/- 2ºF some are worse and a few are *slightly* better. They also reflect off of glossy surfaces and may respond with incorrect readings from metals and metal oxides. (like what maybe found in high end paints and opaque plastics) They do best pointed at objects that are the reflectance of brown paper. This makes testing them a bit interesting. A basic test is to place an ACCURATE thermometer on a brown paper bag and use the IR gun there. The kicker is the thermometer, most thermometers are +/- 2ºF, (some very popular thermometers in reptile keeping are +/- 4ºF) So your gun could read 88º and the thermometer read 92º (94ºF!!!! if you had a bad Accurite) but the actual temp be 90º the rest is error. The problem most have is you still need something accurate to compare with. The proportional T-stats often will be good enough for this. (Helix, herpstat, eco, herpkeeper) •VE? reps say it has about the same specs as the others but the manual does not guarantee it, the complete specs are missing...•

Well I have a helix thermostat hooked up to flex watt, but people always say the temp is not very consistent with the stat. If I have the stat at 94, the flexwatt measured by temp gun is 90 to 92. I'm guessing its pretty accurate. My reptile store guy says he uses it for his incubators so I guess it's okay... It's a Zoomed product btw

Try putting a bit of masking tape on the UTH giving it some time to warm and checking that, plastic can cause reflections with IR guns sometimes you get wacky readings.

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23.4 is correct 6.8ºC different that is about 13ºF different.

yes for the best measurements you should be taking the temp on a non glossy surface it should also not be transparent because the IR wont reflect back right with a transparent surface