sod123 ( or similar) diode with sloping package

sod123's are nasty little things. They tend to not solder well, to float up on the solder and not connect. They are physically symmetric and can have a faint cathode indicator.

My eyesight is terrible too... mostly always has been. My Mantis is an enormous help in soldering and dremeling and such.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I often use “6 eyes mode”, i.e. another pair of bifocals over my usual ones. You can get a set of, say, +1.25/+2.5 with no astigmatism correction, which helps a lot.

Cheers

Phil “four eyes is the new hotness” Hobbs

I love my Mantis because the view is so clear and 3D, and because there's gobs of working distance for soldering and probing and dremeling.

I have one too, and like it very well, but (a) it’s only useful for stuff I can fit on my bench, and (b) it cost 40 times more than a pair of nice coated bifocals in good quality frames from Zenni.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Can't you use a better hot air gun? Create a localized reflux oven.

That's not the issue... it's picking them out of the carrier and when they ping or drop, finding out which way round it goes...

We have a Yamaha pick-and-place machine and a 7-zone nitrogen-purged reflow oven.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

I'm looking at getting some glasses for very close work, and I was wondering whether it is necessary to decrease the IPD that I order, to account for the fact that when my eyes are both pointed at something very close, (a) my pupils would actually be closer together than usual and (b) because the glasses are some distance from my pupils, the point where the light rays pass through the lenses on the way from the object to each pupil would be closer together still.

I imagine that the lens form should ideally also be different, to account for the fact that the light is not intended to pass axially through it, though I don't know what it should be, or whether it is something one could order.

What is your suggestion on how to specify these optimally?

I think the key word is 'prism'. Those headband type magnifiers use this so that your eyes aren't straining to look inwards.

But I've found a second hand stereo dissection microscope (10x or so) to be invaluable.

I don't have one of those...I don't need one to solder 15 components on

As Kipling’s shipwrecked mariner (that man of infinite resource and sagacity) said to the whale, “Not so, but far otherwise.“

You need to measure the width of your head to make sure the frames aren’t going to fall off or squeeze too tight, and you need your interpupillary distance, but you can measure those easily.

Then you pick out five different frames that you like, with slightly different widths, order all of them with the cheapest single vision lenses, and try them.

That will be a fair bit less than one pair of custom fitted ones.

Then you do the same with the IPD—get three pairs with your favorite frames, with IPD +-1mm from the measurement, and see which gives you the least eye strain.

Bending the frames for maximum comfort is pretty easy when you’ve done it a couple of times.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs (Who has never darkened the door of Lenscrafters)

I designed one board with just over 1000 parts.

Lately, production wants us to panelize boards, and a panel can easiy have 1000 parts. Many of our boards have parts on both sides.

Hairy stuff to get all right.

John Larkin Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center Lunatic Fringe Electronics

Umm. See following.

True. You also need to split this into left and right segments, centered on the nose, or the lenses won't be centered above their eyes. The IPD alone isn't enough.

If you are doing close work and hope to be able to fuse the images and to distinguish distances, you will need the both-eyes-open focus and correction measurements made with target at the desired working distance. When this step was omitted, I ended up with glasses that didn't quite work, and induced headaches in the extreme.

Yes, BTDT. One can also get special pliers to do this cleanly. I'm fond of Western Optical Supply

Yes, there are better choices. Beware shops that do not actually make the glasses, as some adjustment cannot be made in a pretty store. And shops sometimes cut corners, especially with wire-frame glasses. They all want to sell you fancy lens materials on the claim that they are thinner. It's true, not enough to matter, and those materials are very easily scratched. What works better is CR-39. On which they make far less, so expect the full sales pressure.

.

Joe

The Mantis does get me some distance from solder smoke and Dremel dust.

I have a small battery operated fan to blow the smoke away if needed. But all the lead and smoke has maybe made me resistance against it.

Invest in a genuine, US made, Optivisor (tm) and a couple of added lenses for the different mag levels. Hands free and comfortable enough to use all day. Microtools Europe used to stock them, but probably on Amazon now, or even Ebay.

Not cheap, but still using the original every day of the week, bought over twenty years ago.

Chris