# How to Test Breakers Using an Infrared Thermal Imaging Camera
Things You'll Need
- Thermal imager
- Circuit breaker panel
Instructions
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1
Run the calibration procedure for your camera. If you are very concerned about accuracy, you can also perform your own calibration, in which you set up a target with different known temperatures and record the temperature readings from the camera. That level of accuracy is probably beyond what you need for simple fault detection.
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Record an image of a properly functioning breaker. Ideally, you will have an entire breaker panel that is known to be good, but you can also examine a single image of a breaker panel and observe differences to learn the appearance of a properly functioning breaker.
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An infrared thermal imager doesn't detect reflected light, it detects light emitted by warm objects. Take an exposure of the breaker panel under normal usage conditions. Allow the loads to run for at least a minute, to reach a reasonable thermal equilibrium before you record the image.
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Repeat the exposure under maximum load conditions. Again, let the system come to equilibrium before recording the image.
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5
Identify hot spots within the image that represent overheated circuitry. You can choose to do this quantitatively, using the temperature-calculating ability of your camera, but significant faults will be visually quite different from normally-operating circuitry.
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