I am in Jersey and we use the free Bullard and we also have a Argus. I must say that the bullard seems to be a much better TIC. This is just my opinion but we have not had any problem with it.
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I am in Jersey and we use the free Bullard and we also have a Argus. I must say that the bullard seems to be a much better TIC. This is just my opinion but we have not had any problem with it.
My dept has the MSA evolution 4000. Its a good camera. BUT some of the others are good too. (and maybe not quite so expensive)My advise , dont buy the best ,top o the line stuff until your dept has used and abused there first camara. We spent 19,000 on the camera and really tortured it in its first fire, a practice burn. there is a time to train and learn how to use the thing and it gets abused trying to test it. thats my experience with it. Stay low.
Our dept purchased 18 (one for every eng/truck company). We went with the Talisman Thermal Imager with remote video. Our cameras also have the video overlay. We've had these for about 2-3 years & have not had any problems with them. We use them on all structure fires & even used them on a search for a child that was missing. Pretty good cameras. rugged, dependable. It uses rechargeable batteries & even had a battery clip so you can use AA batteries (10 of them).
We use two (2) Bullard TICs with the microbolometer technology. We are very pleased with them.
Dennis Wolf
Germatown (TN) Fire Dept.
Our department has a Bullard TI, its been in service for 1 year now and has been very reliable.
Stay safe.
my department purchased the cairns viper along with other depts. in our area. we have a total of 10 viper cameras in the area. unfortunately not much fire to try them out yet. worked well for overhaul at working garage fire
[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Mike W ]
[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Mike W ]
AFTER MANY HOURS OF TESTING THE FIRE COMPANIES IN THE AREA PURCHASED 8 Cairns VIPERS WITH MORE TO BE PURCHASED LATER
Our dept. purchased 14 Bullard MX Cameras in June with money allocated in 2002 budget to purchase 14 more. We evaluated 8 cameras and liked the MSA 4000 and the Bullard MX the best. Bullard came in with a very attractive price and there distributor has been very good.
We just got a MSA evolution 3000. We used it on a small kitchen fire and have had problems with it, MSA is sending us a 4000 to use while they fix ours.
Anyone had any problems with the 3000.
Joe
I have used every major brand of camera in classes that I have taught. In my most recent classes i was able to integrate live burns into the hands on training session and we used several brands of cameras loaned to us from the reps. I have found several that are very good, the top 3 being #3 MSA 4000, #2 Scott Eagle, and #1, ISG Talisman. The talisman has better picture, better resolution, is lighter, and has a unique feature that is a tremendous assett in the video overlay. Its price has proven to be competative as well. At my classes I talk about the features of cameras although no cameras are endorsed and no sales pitches are given. There are several very good cameras out there and a few that are not so good-my advice is to beware of the kit cameras. I personally think the helmet mounted cameras were a good idea, and Fire Flir came real close with theirs, but just needed to fix the angle at which you had to crane your neck to see the image from in the crawling position. Good luck, and if all these posts dont give you some good ideas, be sure to call some reps, have a live burn and get the few last choices you have narrowed down to side by side for compairisons. Good luck
We don't have one as of yet, but I have used the Viper, Bullard, and ISG Talisman. I like the ISG myself. The Viper seems to be more of a two handed operation, although I do like the way that the viewing screen can be directed to look in recesses or overheads. The ISG offers a temp reading which is a great tool to have. We plan on purchasing one (t.i.c.) sometime next year and I'm sure we'll test quite a few of them out.
Go away FHgirl. trollQuote:
Originally Posted by 11LK349F
We have a Scott, MSA and a Bullard. Yes, 3 different manufacturer for 3 Stations. :rolleyes:
We currently have 1 Bullard TIC on our Heavy Rescue and 2 Engines, we also have 2 MSA TICs on the Heavy Rescue, reason for haveing 3 on the Rescue (2 MSA and 1 Bullard) is because our county mandated Bullard for all units we opted to leave the existing MSAs on there to have 3, since 3 is better then the 1 required.
We currently have an older Bullard on our rescue truck.
A few years ago, the military purchased a Scott for the National Guard facility we cover under contract with the new engines they purchased just before we assumed responsibility for fire protection.
We liked the Scott so much we just purchased on for our primary engine with our FireAct grant.
Thanks LaFire. Again. I am keeping track as we will be making our purchase within the next couple months.Quote:
Originally Posted by LaFireEducator
Our first imager was the ISI Vision which we just donated last year when we got our new ISG imagers. Our second purchase was the Bullard TI1, and round three was the Bullard MX. All of these were early versions and were large and heavy.
In 2009 we did extensive evaluations of Scott, MSA, Argus, Flir, Drager and ISG. We evaluated ease of use, picture quality, and handling.
In my opinion, and the overwhelming concensus of the department-wide evaluations, the ISG had the best image by far. It also had less of a tendancy to "white-out" when focused on extremely hot spots. The two-color pallet is simple and effective. We didn't see the need for multiple color pallets. We purchased 8 cameras last year with truck-mount chargers. We use them routinely on different fire scenes for victim search, to locate fire seats, and to search for hot spots.
The only problem we have had is with the batteries. It seems like ALL of our original batteries, which are NiMH type, are shooting craps after just 1 year. Other than that we love these new cameras.
Has anyone else had similar problems with ISG batteries? If so, please reply with the root problem and any solutions.
We have the SCOTT Tics - Eagle Imager 320 I think.