Customer Reviews

Mastercool MSC52224A Non-Contact Infrared Thermometer with Laser

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this to use at my stove when cooking. It takes a little getting used to, since surface temperatures are significantly different from interior temperatures. Like, when cooking caramel, the surface temperature seems usually to be about 10F cooler than the interior (measured with a normal digital thermometer), whereas things in the oven, the surface will obviously be much hotter than the interior (so much hotter that this is really only useful on the stovetop.)

Once you learn to compensate for stovetop use, though, this thing is incredibly handy. Checking frying oil to make sure it's at 375F for best deep-frying results, checking on confections to stop them at the right temperature, making sure custards in a double-boiler aren't approaching a boil, I use this thing all the time. It sits on the shelf immediately above and to the left of my stove so it's within easy reach when my intuition isn't enough or I'm trying to do many things at once.

This was the least expensive one I could find on Amazon, too, with a decent FOV. For cooking, this one's 1:12 view cone is great -- means when you point and shoot from a foot away, it's sampling a 1" circle. Some of the other inexpensive ones have cheaper optics and some are as bad as 1:1, which means to sample a 1" circle you'd have to hold it an inch away from the surface -- completely unfeasible when cooking something like caramel, if you value your skin.

I LOVE this product where I use it to figure out how much energy my home is losing through its various walls, floors, ceilings, and windows. First I point-and-click to measure the temperature of an article *inside* the room to find out the average room temperature. Then I point-and-click on the various room walls, windows, floors, ceiling etc, to see which one is coldest compared to the average room temperature. The surface which is coldest is the one I need to focus on to increase the insulation value. By doing this I have been able to reduce my home heating costs by a third, saving hundreds of dollars every year!

Just got my Mastercool IR thermometer the other day. It's easy to use and works exactly as it's supposed to.

There's no on/off switch, simply point the trigger and shoot and you'll get an instant read. The unit automatically shuts itself off after 15 seconds. The laser beam is very useful and let's you know the exact spot you're reading.

the LCD screen is backlit, and allows you to view readings in C OR F. Battery life is approx 15hrs (uses 2AAA).

I highly recommend this product.

I've been wanting one for years, but they've finally gotten cheap enough to buy just to geek around the house.

I now know the warm and cold parts of my fridge. I know the best place to keep wine in my basement. I know which windows need to be replaced and my pancakes never burn. Yeah, it is kinda clunky and the display is a touch hard to read but come on, it works great.

I wanted to check how badly my house was insulated. My ideal choice would have been using an infrared video camera, but that wouldn't be practical. An infrared Thermometer seemed to be an excellent alternative. I began to look at the available options, comparing temperature ranges and measuring area (Ratios 6:1, 12:1, etc). This IR Thermometer had the best mesuring areas (12:1) and largest temperature reading range out of everything that I looked at (-58 to 932°F). The addition of a case and analog thermometer was a really nice bonus. The day it was delivered, it had been sitting outside in temperatures below zero for several hours. It caused random error messages until it started to warm up. Once it warmed up, I began to measure the temperature of the inner walls of my house. The room temperature was set to about 68 and the inside walls were measuring around 65. Since I expected the walls to be slightly cooler, I was pretty confident with it's accuracy. I began to test the windows and the outer walls (from inside the house). I found that my windows were about 10-15 degrees colder than the walls. My older windows were even worse. It helped me realize the importance of newer windows. One window was so cold that I began looking it over to see if something was wrong. It turned out that the window was open about 1/4 of an inch. I'm sure i was losing lots of heat through that window. I probably never would have noticed it otherwise. The thermometer probably paid for itself right there. It turned out to be a really handy tool. The only problem that I noticed was that when I used it outside, it gave me temperatures that were a lot colder than the actual air temperature. With -4 degree temperatures, I was getting -18 degree readings from the sidewalk. I'm guessing that's why many of the IR thermometers don't give readings that cold. It doesn't really bother me though since I didn't get it for reading cold temperatures and it still wasn't too far off. After using it for serious reasons, I decided to just play around with it. I measured the temperature of light bulbs, my cooking range, food, and just about anything else in my range when it's in my hand. It's really handy and fun to use. I would recommend this product to anyone interested in an IR thermometer.

I have performed thermal analysis in an engineering environment for over 30 years. This product provides an accurate picture of the thermal conditions associated with auto engines, home heating systems and the like. It was shipped immediately and has a great case for storage.

I have used this device for aobut 1 month now and I find it to be OK for the price but the temperature readings vary and are not completely accurate. It reads lower than actual temps by about 7% in the 200F to 290F range. This percentage increases to about 11% in temps in excess of 350F. Very good for the price and general household use but not for use in critical temp reading requirments.

I bought this for my home inspection business, but have also used it to find a dead cylinder on a buddy's truck (that exhaust port didn't heat up as fast), found missing insulation between studs without opening the wall, evaluated the Dachsund's temperature from across the room.

Very easy to use- point the laser at the object and pull the trigger. It also includes a conventional rapid read thermometer for even more measurements.

If what you do involves knowing temperatures, this is a great addition to your toolbox.

This thermometer works great for household use such as checking temperatures of air vents, windows, ceilings, oven, grill, etc. I have especially found it useful for checking water temperature. Just point it at the water and you have the temperature. I use it at the pool, lake, ocean, hot tub, and any other body of water. It was also fun having this at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, checking the temperature of all the geologic hot spots.

I have done a decent job of weatherization of my home previously, but am now stepping it up to a higher level. I had an energy audit done (under an excellent program run by the Maryland Energy Administration) and am now fixing issues identified by that audit. But the previous audit did not deal very well with wall insulation issues. So I got an inspector to do some infra-red imaging, which was quite informative (which normally costs $100-300).

It was intrigued to find that infra-red thermometers were available in the price range of $45 and above. Among the offerings on Amazon, I chose this one based on the reviews. I am VERY impressed by it. With it you can easily assess the magnitude of heat transfer through walls. On a cold day when the house is "at temperature" (ie. not in warm-up after low temp period), determine which walls are several degrees lower than the surfaces inside the room (such as inside walls, tables). This simple test quickly identified the problem walls/areas observed by the high tech infra-red camera analysis by the inspector,