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Storage of Thermal Images

Last post 03-04-2010, 8:26 AM by David Meiland. 7 replies.
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  •  02-17-2010, 12:09 PM 4184

    Storage of Thermal Images

    I was wondering how best to store themal Images. We recently took out first surveys of our Electrical Substations. Breakers, switches etc. Would it be best to make a report on all these devices even though they show no anomolies? Or simply discard them and keep only the ones that require immediate attention or further monitoring? After I placed one substation's images into its folder I noticed it used 77 mb of memory!  Will welcome any recommendations.
  •  02-17-2010, 1:05 PM 4185 in reply to 4184

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    Attachment: OCB bushings 2.jpg

    Excellent question! Thanks for raising it. Typically folks only keep the problems AND baseline data on large equipment like OCB or transformers. But storage space is now pretty cheap and you may want to consider keeping 3-4 rounds of inspections until you are confident in your results and in the trends you are seeing (or not!).

    Categorize them by equipment type, area or route, whatever works best for you when you want to retrieve them. Certainly there is value to permanently saving images of problems as they can be valuable in the future for reference images of similar equipment.

    And, of course, you always want to get back to verify or qualify the repairs that are made as they all too often are not made properly the first time, even by the best maintenance teams!

    Ease into it and don't make this task a full time job! I want you to stay out in the field doing good work. Would also love to see some of what you found. I've attached a good one of two OCB bushings we found a couple years ago. Thanks again for a great question.

     



    Thermally Yours,

    John
    ASNT NDT Level III #48166
    The Snell Group
    www.thesnellgroup.com
    www.thermalsolutions.org
    800-636-9820
  •  02-18-2010, 5:25 AM 4192 in reply to 4185

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    I myself keep EVERYTHING.  I currently have 10 years of images on my laptop ( about 35000 images). Storage space has gotten so cheap I see no reason for discarding anything. If I have every been on your property, I have the images, equipment lists and reports right at my fingertips.

     


    Peter Plein
    peter@certifiedinfrared.com
    www.certifiedinfrared.com
    201-444-3620
    201-215-7329 fax
  •  02-18-2010, 6:23 AM 4193 in reply to 4192

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    certir:

    I myself keep EVERYTHING.  I currently have 10 years of images on my laptop ( about 35000 images). Storage space has gotten so cheap I see no reason for discarding anything. If I have every been on your property, I have the images, equipment lists and reports right at my fingertips.

     

     

    I am with you my business State License requires 5 years of record keeping I keep a external hard drive and dump all images to it for safe keeping


    CMORE Thermorgraphy Level II
    http://www.oklahomathermalinfraredimaging.com/
    http://www.freedomexpressinspections.com/
    Commercial Inspections Thermal Imaging, Mechanical, Structural, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas,Texas
  •  02-18-2010, 7:12 AM 4195 in reply to 4185

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    Thanks for the recommendations John. As you and others have said here, it won't hurt to keep all the images and just simply make the storage accomodations. I will post a few of my recent finds. Since I'm pretty much a rookie at this I would be glad to here what all the pro's have to say! Thanks again.
  •  02-18-2010, 8:48 AM 4198 in reply to 4195

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    I'm also assuming you have a good system for backing up all your electronic data...
    Thermally Yours,

    John
    ASNT NDT Level III #48166
    The Snell Group
    www.thesnellgroup.com
    www.thermalsolutions.org
    800-636-9820
  •  03-03-2010, 7:18 PM 4289 in reply to 4184

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    "If you don't understand 4,000 years of history you do not understand the present" Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832), German poet and writer.

    A baseline is your foundation to build on. Sometimes changes are subtle and with a history you can assess and evaluate progress.

     


    Dieter
    Environment Canmore Ltd.
  •  03-04-2010, 8:26 AM 4292 in reply to 4198

    Re: Storage of Thermal Images

    I pay about $50/year for a subscription to Carbonite's service. Everytime I walk away from my computer and leave it idle for more than a few minutes, it uploads every new or changed user file to a remote server. I have roughly 10,000 files stored in this manner, and can access them from any computer at any time. It is very dangerous to store all of your data locally with no remote backup. There are several good online backup services available now, and they are all cheap.
    General Contractor & Building Consultant
    IR Level 1 -- Fluke Ti32 user
    http://www.bailerhill.com
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