good quality magnifiers

I have a head-mounted device called "magni-focuser" by

Edroy Products Inc.

It takes two lenses to get what you want. So, they're like two telescopes.

I find them absolutely useless. You move the lenses in and out to match the distance between your eyes EXACTLY so the images overlap.

If you move your head ever so slightly or wrinkle your brow or the wind blows or anything happens within a mile of you, the images no longer match up. I found them far more distracting than helpful.

My dentist had glasses with little protrusions glued on the surface to do that function. I assume they work somewhat better because they're much closer to the eyes and have less weight to move them around as you move your head.

I think I asked him what they cost, but I fainted when he told me the number and don't remember what it was.

Might be interesting to do some experiments using reading glasses plus a head-mounted magnifier to get the effect of the two lenses in increasing the working distance.

I think there are optical newsgroups that might be more helpful. Report back what you find.

If you look on ebay you can find magnigfiers that are cheap enough that if they are not good you won't be out too much money. The problem is that you need telescope type magnifiers to get a good working distance, good depth of field, and goodm color correction. This requires at least two lenses. And the two magnifiers need to be centered on your eyes, as well as pointed in slightly toward each other. This angle changes with the working distance. Another type of magnifier that can work almost as well is the type with lenses that have an adjustable center distance. These can be had that clip onto your regular glasses. The lenses sit some distance from your eyes and have a screw with both left and right hand threads that you turn to change the center distance of the lenses. These can make life way easier, like good binoculars. However, for most of the close up work I do I use a single lens and one eye. I have a good B&L lens that clips on my glasses and swings down that gets a lot of use and I also have several loupes of different powers that I use. Next week I will be ordering the lenses to make my own Galilean type telescopic binocular magnifiers because I don't wanna shell out 300 bucks for the good ones I want, don't trust the Chinese ones, have a machine shop, and mainly because I want to. If you would like I can post the lens info when I order mine. Cheers, Eric

Try Edmund Optical.

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I don't know if this will be any help. I have several of those visor things, but almost never use them. I'm nearsighted anyway, so for a quick look I just look under my glasses and can see quite a lot. For REAL close-up examination or anything that will take some time, I have an Olympus stereo-zoom microscope I got by contacting an eBay seller. (I didn't buy what he had on eBay, but some other gear he had.)

There are lots of these stereo-zoom microscopes. The trick for electronics work is to get one with a long "working distance". We have 2 other units at work, too. All of them have at least 4-5" of working distance, which is enough to do micro-soldering on ICs and other tricky stuff, with hands and tools under the scope. I do chips down to 0.4mm lead pitch.

Note that there are binocular microscopes that are NOT stereo, they only have one objective lens, and beam splitters to feed both eyes. You really WANT true stereo.

Maybe more hardware than some people want or need, but doing the level of stuff I do, I really love the microscopes.

Jon

I have a Unitron ZSM stereo zoom microscope. Unaided, I have to get the lens too close to the work to do anything. For inspection, it's fine. If you want to work under it, it's difficult. Also has a lens that extends the working distance at the expense of viewing angle. Also has the fiber optic illumination from a ring around the lens. It's still hard to get a soldering iron under it to work on a circuit board. Also has the mount that extends up to two feet from the base support and can move up/down to accommodate thicker parts.

But, with all that, it's still a pain to use. The depth of field is so low that I'm always refocusing it.

For inspection of stuff that has a very narrow height variation, it's great. For doing any kind of work at all, I find it not much help.

If you can find someone to let you demo theirs, I'd do that before spending much money on this stuff.

On Thursday, March 5, 2015 at 7:20:53 AM UTC-8, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrot e:

gs, made in India glasses

e seems to have what he needs as far as magnification and with a 2 foot wor king distance to boot. I asked him about the glasses and he couldn't commen t on the technical specs of them except to say that he purchased them while in dental school, and that they were hundreds of dollars.

fication of that reveals a whole different world to me the focal length of

or that matter is seeing for a reasonable price? Thanks, Lenny

The things your dentist uses are dual telescopes, and require accurate fitt ing to your face by an optometrist or somesuch. Designs for Vision is one outfit that makes t hese, in lightweight form in a glasses-like frame. Simple magnifiers (lenses) only magnify well with short working distance. Non-head-mounted stereo microscopes (STEREO NOT BINOCULAR) are a better vie wing experience yet.

Yes, there are microscopes specifically made for assembly and other manual tasks that have MUCH more working distance than those made just for inspection.

I make my own LED ring illuminators, they are pretty simple to make. A piece of PC board, cut a groove to make two concentric copper rings, solder LEDs and resistors to the rings, add a wall-wart power supply. Best to make the PCB ring on a lathe, but it can be done by hand, too.

Jon