Re: Magnifiers - medical style

These look like the ones I use (I don't think you can fit your own lens in these). Loupes also take a little setting up but it is not rocket science.

I've got several stereo-zoom microscopes at different locations. There are units with pretty big working distance available. Old units (Olympus, American Optical, etc. are available on eBay. I have a base made out of a wrecked lathe chuck and some pieces of MacPherson strut rod that works quite well.

I made ring lights out of a piece of PC board stock and 8 white LEDs that works quite well.

I use the microscope without my glasses and tweak the eyepieces to get my two very different eyes to focus at the same time. I get so much more field of view that way that it works much better, even though my glasses have astigmatism correction.

Jon

A microsope may not work for me as I sometimes do small production run jobs and I like to work fast. I think moving things around may take too long.

Interesting that you mentioned astigmatism correction - my reading glasses have astig correction & I hate them as I can't judge if something is set up square. For my next pair I'm going to ask if I can have the astigmatism left uncorrected.

Thanks for the reply David. I think I'll go for it & buy a pair. I measured up & 420mm is too far, 320mm is a more practical distance.

cheers.

USB

I take pics through my Compact and with the full-size Masntii they have in production. My camera has a real poking-out lens (not one of those flat things) so I can get it a bit into the hood. The tricks are

Don't use the macro setting; start at medium zoom

Wave it and point it all around to find the sweet spot, off to one side. My lens usually winds up pressed against the upper-left interior of the hood, which stabilizes things.

I thought it wouldn't work at first, but it gets easy with a bit of practise.

I couldn't do electronics any more (bad eyesight, tiny parts) without good optics to help. The Mantis is wonderful, like flying a helicopter over Downtown.

Hey, we have a cabin

with tritium lighting

and I have a krytron!

A little dyslexia poking through?

"Masntii"???

Do you refer to the 'Mantis' brand of stereoscopes?

That is what we've been talking about here. Pay attention.

I don't type well, especially in low light, especially before I have coffee. It's only a news group, so I din't bother to spell check.

What do you do, teach English?

You can buy glasses cheap from Zenni Optical, so cheap that you can experiment.

experiment.

Seconded. I go to the ophthalmologist occasionally to get my lenses and retinas looked at, but never bother with an optometrist. Zenni reading glasses are cheap enough that you can buy 10 pairs and never worry about losing them again.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Don't get talked into progressives without trying some out from a place like Zenni. The closeup region of focus is stupidly narrow right-left.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Well, I have a pair of progressives from Zenni that work great, and a pair of *expensive* designer frames with Zeiss lenses that suck bilge. I got the designer frames (frameless) because the optician told me I could get larger lenses (which I didn't get). As I've noted before, I still haven't found a source for glasses with large enough lenses to suit my needs.

Good info, thanks. I'd be quite unlikely to buy the fancy frames, because I'm pretty hard on them. I've only needed reading glasses for the last 5 years or so, and I don't have the required spectacle-preserving instincts. My usual lab pair is +0.75 for reading and +2.50 for close work.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I was not angry. Why are you?

And unless you are receptive, no, you will not learn anything.

I think he was just pinging you in jest. Wasn't that what you were doing to him?

It is just Usenet after all.

Am not. Why be angry at some no-name lurker? There's an infinite supply of them.

What sort of electronics do you design?

I've only needed reading glasses for

Ah yes, the good old days. I wear 4.75 diopter contact lens and use +2 when at the computer. That's my good eye. That said, I love my contacts, I still remember the first time! I slipped it in and it was amazing, everything was in focus. It fit perfectly. I didn't even know I was wearing it. I hope the last line got your mind out of the gutter. :-) Mikek

Neat!

I want one!

I ordered my small tritiums from the UK, via ebay. The old four-poster bed in Truckee has big wooden balls at just the right to smack one's head into after getting up to pee in the middle of the night. It's DARK up there. Tritiums on the tops of the posts are perfect.

I have a bigger one on my key ring, just enough light to be helpful in total darkness.

Mine came from Los Alamos too. It was from their Thursday (or was it Tuesday?) surplus sale, apparently an oversight. I bought it from a surplus dealer for $75.