Digital Microscope purchase

FWIW: You can get a Chinese camera/microscope for about $300. It's perfect for working on SMD.

You need a monitor, but you may already have one that's not being used.

I'll try to grab the link from work. It's an amazing deal at $300 (Maybe $320?) You get the camera, base, adjustable arms, cables, ring-light (which is crap), etc...

You get plenty of space above the work-piece to solder, etc., and plenty of magnification. Our have a remote control for taking still images and videos, using a micro-SD card.

On a sunny day (Tue, 23 Jul 2019 17:27:46 -0700 (PDT)) it happened snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote in

I have an ebay visor, never use it (too heavy on my head) and a third hand with magnifying glass, (no stereo depth) and a big table magnifying lens with (defective) light. Never use those things Sometimes a cheap webcam can help, big monitor:

it of programming and you can add any real time data you want .. I have tried stereo too, have several stereo LCD goggles: defeating_the_mantis_1_img_1545.jpg alignment is then a problem. What works best for me is some high strength goggles from the local drugstore. Indeed you need to get close then.

Maybe I will get those other ebay lenses, will think about it.

Visors and jeweler's loupes are usually single lenses with very short working distances.

The dental loupes I bought are mini telescopes with 420mm working distance.

Yes, I've tried all of those too, and a handheld 30x microscope. None of them are very good. Side lighting helps, but it's hard to get the light in the small gap between those magnifiers and the work.

I might try modifying my 2.5x dental loupes for higher magnification, trading off shorter working distance. I could add an extra lens & experiment cheaply. 2.5X in stereo is a big help for seeing the board and parts from 420mm, just not quite enough for close-pitch soldering / solder joint inspection.

Cheers, James Arthur

I have at least 5 microscopes of varying purpose and quality. I've added a few more since these photos were taken: The Bausch and Lomb stereo microscopes and the Olympus SZ30 are the ones suitable for doing SMD and PCB work. Missing from the photos are the LED ring lights, the fan to blow away the fumes, and the glass lens protector to keep flux fumes from condensing on the lens. These microscopes have an adjustable power from 0.7x to 3.0x. Most of my eyepieces are 10x WF (wide field) giving a range of magnification from 7x to 30x. For PCB work, they spend most of their time around 15x-20x.

For smaller stuff, I have an Olympus BH series trinocular biological microscope: Data sheet on the later BH-2 model: The objective lenses on the turret are 5x thru 40x. With a 10x eyepiece, the resulting magnification range is 50x to 400x. You can do 1000x with a 100x objective lens, but that will require an oil immersion lens and extreme care not to touch the work with the lens.

I also have a USB digital microscope camera that will fit in either the 3rd tube or in place of one of the two eyepieces. Something like this: However, here I made a big mistake. Such a camera should have a 0.5x lens or the digital image will cover only about half of the field of view. Also, 1.3Mpixels isn't really enough. My resulting photos are rather lacking in quality: I also have a few endoscope cameras, that are good for inspecting the insides of things, but produce truely awful images:

Amscope has some really good software: However, these only work with Amscope USB microscope cameras.

For cheap USB microscopes, I've found them to be useful for anything that doesn't require much quality. These were taken with a $20 eBay USB camera: I cheated with the lighting and used my LED pocket flashlight.

Despite all this hardware, what I use most is desk light magnifier lamp. Something like this: Get one with a glass lens, not plastic.

Look at a new scalpel blade under the microscope. When your blade edge looks like that under the microscope, then you have a sharp edge. Most of my knives look like a saw blade under the microscope. I've spent many hours sharpening a knife using various whetstones and not come close to the knife in the video. I polish the bevel until it's almost like a mirror, and it's still not sharp enough. If I screw up stropping off the inevitable burr that forms along the trailing edge of the blade, the resulting edge is even more like a saw blade. Worse, if the blade was made from "mystery metal", then the knife become dull after the first few cuts.

I've tried sharpening under a microscope and failed. Sharpening takes too long and looking through the eyepieces for hours is really tiring. It's much easier to sharpen by feel, or maybe use a jig. So far, I've done better at sharpening with a jig, and then continuing by feel for the stropping and polishing. Looking at the edge under the microscope makes a good QA check, but seems to be of little use while sharpening.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I bought one of these for my B&L StereoZoom Microscope

/Black-144-LED-Bulb-Microscope-Ring-Light-Illuminator-Adjustable-Bright-Lamp

Thanks! I was looking at those sorts of ring lights with interest.

Do you know of a good source for the sort of externally-threaded tubing that could be used to improvise a ring mount which would screw into the fitting on the bottom of the pod? I've seen a couple of ring-light mount adapters offered for the StereoZoom on eBay and elsewhere but they are more expensive than the ring lights are :-(

I've de-soldered two terminal stuff with just my visor and loupe. (Laying iron across both sides, or trying to.) For smd prototyping we bought a nice binocular microscope years ago.. a little less than a kilo buck, IIRC. It's great! I couldn't do smd work without it.

George H.

It's a conspiracy. Notice the prices: $18 for ring light adapters except the 38mm flavor at $46, which is what you need for the Bausch and Lomb Stereo Zoom 4 microscope.

What I did was start with a 1-1/4"x1" PVC Schedule 40 reducing adapter: Using a lathe, I cut down the 42mm OD (34.5mm ID) to about 37.2mm which is approximately the root diameter of the 38mm thread.

I used the lathe to cut a slight ledge into the other end of the PVC coupling into which I dropped a 35mm dia flashlight lens. Something like these: I press fitted the glass in place and locked it in with 4 drops of cyanoacrylate glue on the outside because I didn't want to use any glue inside that might later outgas and ruin the microscope optics.

I also shortened the coupling to a little larger than the thickness of the ring light. Using a drill, I added 3 indentations to match the ring light mounting screws to keep the light from moving around.

I decided not to thread the PVC. Instead, I wrapped it with one layer of Teflon tape and jammed into onto the threads. Ugly, the functional.

It took me about $6 in parts and about 2 hrs to make 4 of these adapters. I mangled the first two because I didn't bother using a dial indicator to center the workpiece. The other two worked quite well.

You might consider making one of these ring lights, which attaches directly to the microscope without an adapter ring: "Wireless LED Ring Light for Stereo Microscope" (14:48)

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

Mine came with a threaded adapter that is about 56mm or 1-7/8" that I didn't need:

I posted but I didn't see it, so this might be a double but I found a little critic added at the bottom.

AND THE REPOST.

OK, I picked up the microscope from the building I used to work in. I met the owner there, the building was heavily damaged by hurricane Michael, water ingress all over the building. Someone had broke into the building and stole stuff, the best he could tell it was mostly scrap metal, aluminum and stainless steel, but strange that there was so much easy metal picking left. It looks like they were thinking about coming back, the microscope and several items were all set aside like, this is what I want to steal, I'll pile it here and come back to get it. Anyway, the model number of the scope is ???-10. (AKA MBS-10) >

Judging by the picture, I have the F'=90 objective lens and I have one set of eyepiece lenses, labeled 8x/23. It's missing the glass above the reflective plate and has a little rust in external screws, but everything moves smooth. I'm missing the power supply to the light, so may need to purchase the ring someone posted. AHH! Found the manual.

The unit has an objective magnification knob with a range of 0.6,

1, 2, 4, and 7. I noted the field of view ranged form 1.5" down to 0.150".

Here's a webpage with the MBS - 10 microscope complete with additional accessories. >

Has links to other Russian optics. I have no eyecups and I think they might help keep me centered. If you have any info you might think helpful, I'd appreciate it.

Mikek Ctitic of scope. >

This is more descriptive, ait is a bit different in design.

Someone was gushing on the good optics and then this obout, >

I got them, their use will be for removing slivers. With the x10 lenses the focal distance is 1-3/8". with the x25 well it's a lot less. There is absolutely no way you could use both eyes, you would need to look very cross eyed, but even then the lenses don't angle. They do have a nice light! After I pressed buy, I thought, those are only going to focus at a close distance, they won't be any better than my optivisor. Well because the magnificaion is twice my optivisor, I need to get even closer. But, They do have a nice light! :-) Mikek Actually, two, nice lights.