USB microscope

[Nick]

Just got one of these - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131560443344 - as my old USB microscope was dying...

It's very very good indeed. Metal, pretty robust, micro-adjusting stand (the knurled main support) as well as focus on top of the pen.

1600x1200 with adjustable LED ring round the lens. Nice accurate focus, stable, clear image: look at the flecks in that paint on the £10 note - who'd have known !

Highly recommended

NB: sample photo greatly reduced in quality from 5.5MB BMP (non-lossy)  to 700KB JPG (lossy) so that it can be uploaded to this site !

   
   

[pwdrive]

Just got one of these - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131560443344 - as my old USB microscope was dying...

It's very very good indeed. Metal, pretty robust, micro-adjusting stand (the knurled main support) as well as focus on top of the pen.

1600x1200 with adjustable LED ring round the lens. Nice accurate focus, stable, clear image: look at the flecks in that paint on the £10 note - who'd have known !

Highly recommended

NB: sample photo greatly reduced in quality from 5.5MB BMP (non-lossy)  to 700KB JPG (lossy) so that it can be uploaded to this site !

Great...get the printer out

Lawrence.

[Nick]

NB: sample photo greatly reduced in quality from 5.5MB BMP (non-lossy)  to 700KB JPG (lossy) so that it can be uploaded to this site !

Great...get the printer out

Not commonly known, but all modern (last 10 years or so) colour printers secretly put tiny UV-visible dots on every colour page they print - the dot pattern contains the serial number of the printer, the date and other information. Lots on the www about this...  i.e. if you use a colour printer to print money, you'll shortly be in jail...

More recent, top-end, copiers will automatically detect that you are trying to copy currency, and refuse to even attempt it.

[Radio Fixer]

All very clever Nick about the printers, didn't know that.

Microscope seems great but not sure what I would use it for unless I got into SMD etc. Looking at close ups of bugs, well seen enough.

But thanks Gary

[pwdrive]

NB: sample photo greatly reduced in quality from 5.5MB BMP (non-lossy)  to 700KB JPG (lossy) so that it can be uploaded to this site !

Great...get the printer out

Not commonly known, but all modern (last 10 years or so) colour printers secretly put tiny UV-visible dots on every colour page they print - the dot pattern contains the serial number of the printer, the date and other information. Lots on the www about this...  i.e. if you use a colour printer to print money, you'll shortly be in jail...

More recent, top-end, copiers will automatically detect that you are trying to copy currency, and refuse to even attempt it.

Damn...nowt's simple these days

How about some Tin Wiskers?

Lawrence

[Mark Hennessy]

That looks quite useful - any chance of some more sample pictures? Perhaps some SMT stuff to give me an idea of how it performs in practice?

What's the focal length like - how close to the work does it get? How about latency/lag - can you work OK with it? Some of them are too slow, apparently. I haven't tried any yet, so can't say.

I've been thinking about one for a while, but how on earth do you choose from them all? Anything in-particular that led you to this one?

And no review is complete without a tear-down

[Nick]

No time for detailed review today or tomorrow, but very quickly:

• Focal length is pretty good - can get to within 5mm of subject, or 5cm+
  
• It can be used out of mount as a dental/medical camera (I always wondered what the inside of my ears looked like ! )
  
• No tear-down. Sorry
  
• Not much lag at all - on max resolution is was doing 14fps quite happily - I didn't really notice it
  
• Photos below
  

Subject board is one of the new TI MSP432 Launchpads. Smallest chips are 0402 (C134/5/6).

Note the original BMPs look better than the JPGs below as obviously the JPGs use lossy compression.

EDIT: If I wasn't in such a rush, I could have made these far sharper - this unit is way better than any other I've tried.

                   

[Mark Hennessy]

Tempted...

(Glad you didn't include the inside of your ears)

[zx80nut]

Looks good. Did that eBayer send it from the UK or did it have to come from China (eBayer is registered in China but item location is Manchester)? I've been caught out a couple of times by China businesses showing a UK location.

Thanks.

Grant.

[tiv48]

Will it work on windows 10 ?
my chepo one worked ok on win 7 but wont on win 10
I need one for examining record player stylus and tape head gaps.
Rob T