are oil coolers still over-rated?

[Steve Wood]

Our cars originally came with 180 deg thermostats altho I have heard a couple of people claim their cars had a 195.  Neither bought their car new, however.  On the other hand, it is true that the oil cooler location makes it a stabilizer as much as anything.  Oil will be close to water temp and when you run it really hard, it will raise the water temp.  On my GN, I found the water temp to run about 10-12 degs hotter in the summer on a big three pass aluminum radiator when I used the internal cooler for oil than it did otherwise.  Normal was about 175 without the cooler.

[daveismissing]

Earl: sounds like LM35DZ ?

[earlbrown]

if you've already got the gear, that would be awesome to see some data on that !   
I thought about grabbing the laser heat gun from work just for poops and giggles and see what that would tell me, but given I'm only getting the temp of the hose or tube and not the oil, I know it wouldn't be incredibly accurate.

The IR guns really don't lend themselves to stuff like that other than verifying your car's not overheating with a faulty gauge says it is..   That being said I got one of those guns for like $15 off Ebay out of china and it outperforms the hell out a friends Matco and Snap-On units. I use that thing several times a day on goofy stuff around the house. Best 15 clams I ever spent. It's great for checking hottub temps and judging with the frydaddy is ready for hushpuppy mix!

Earl: sounds like LM35DZ ?

It's one of those in that family. I bought a bad of which ever ones are calibrated in C, and built the cables. Then tore apart a VCR for parts and made a small automated comparator circuit to compare my solar roof heater to my hottub temp and run pumps off of a car battery.  They units calibrated for F work a lot better for what I was doing but they're like 5 times the money.
It didn't work as well as I thought it would. Turns out I think I needed an OP-AMP for a comparator instead of using an actual comparator IC.   The sun melted my piping in the roof heater last spring so now It's an air heater sending 149F air into my living room with a desk fan

[tb3]

Holy cow!  that things melted all to hell! 
well.... at work, we have not only a snap-on, but we have TWO snap-on temp guns! 
one is the single laser pointer, and the other uses a "pattern" of pointers and does a average. 
but no doubt for what they are, as long as the calibration is correct, no need for name brand for a temp gun.
 

[earlbrown]

Just for kicks if you shine that hi-dollar Snap-on at something hot and shiny, does it read way wrong?   My $15 unit is dead on the money but my friends Snap-On is way off on anything semi-shiny. 

I can even read the upper atmosphere with mine!

[tb3]

the only time I dont get as accurate of a reading is when I am pointing it at a angle other than 90 degrees.  I always try and point it straight-on to a flat surface so less chance of deflecting away the return.

 I really only use one when I'm powdercoating or when I'm checking to make sure all the Infrared heaters way up high on the hangar grid are working

[Top Speed]

The more expensive heat guns have adjustable emissivity settings where as the cheap ones don't are are fixed.