A new column for new products, Techniques and reviews—good or bad. All contributions welcome.

Here’s a couple to start with more to come.

I have purchased and organized the purchase of quite a few pipe camera systems over the years, most of the accessories available from the manufacturer - like cable rollers and lifters are a pain in the bum. Some don’t work well and all are very expensive. It pays dividends to make or invest in accessories that work in the particular environment you are working in be it Sewer, Storm water, walk-in manholes, IS shafts etc. The quickest way to lose money is to drop the camera while inserting or retrieving from the manhole or damage the cable on the edge of the pipe you are surveying.   If you can’t make up your own gear or want something a bit more professional looking have a look at the www.starky.com.au  web site at some of the gear he is making, as well as the P600 I reckon it would possibly suit the Ibak  KRA 65 system and the smaller Ipec tractor.I have spoken to a couple of contractors using the gear and both are impressed. The Pipe Jet hose rollers look good too. 

RIDGID TEXT WRITER

I have made a text writer box for the Ridgid push rod camera. It has been installed on a local contractors unit and seems to run well. I am making some more of these units that will be a plug and play system, so fitting them yourself should be a breeze. 

The unit has 4 Display pages that can be set up as Header page, Start Survey page, Working page and Finish Survey page. Background

Long Distance Surveying            

www.redzone.com have built a monster crawler unit for surveying large mains and outfall conduits. It is quite happy doing CCTV,Sonar,Pipe profiles, Gas detection and the list goes on. Their greatest claim however is the distance between manholes that can be serveyed, 2.5 klm. more if reqested. Have a look at the web site its interesting, they sent me a       Demo Disc, there is room for improvement but it shows it can be done.