Lazer thermometer?

[fatelvis]

Does anyone use one for checking your alloy temp, in the pot? Does it work well?

[ipijohn]

For me it hasn't worked well due to the shiny surface of the lead.

[dragon813gt]

Won't work. They need a dark non-reflective surface to sense properly.

[fatelvis]

How about leaving a ww clip floating, and aim at that?

[dragon813gt]

Won't work. The clip is a reflective surface. The thermometer takes the temp over a broad area. It's not pin point accurate. Get a cheap analog one and call it done.

[Willbird]

The technical term at play here is emissivitity if I spelled that right....but some better ir thermometers can be calibrated to work....or so I read anyway. But the more general consumer models will not work. You might be able to float a disk of sheet metal and make it work

[theperfessor]

The laser is just a pointer and has nothing to do with the temperature measurement by the way.

I have one, a cheapo Harbor Freight unit. It's not even close when reading the melt temperature by shooting the shiny surface. Gets a little closer if you shoot a piece of oxidized metal floating on the surface. It gets closer yet when you cover the surface with charcoal or carbon dust and shoot that. But it is still way off from the temperature reading I get from a using a thermocouple/PID setup.

The best thing IR thermometers are good for is finding hot spots on buildings where you have poor insulation and air leaks. They're also good at finding hot spots on machines. But IMHO they are almost useless for measuring molten metals.

[ipijohn]

As stated above, I think they are useless when measuring anything with a reflective surface.

[fatelvis]

Ok, thats what I wanted to know. Scrap that idea! Lol