[time-nuts] Working with SMT parts.

[Brooke Clarke]

Hi Chuck:

The Mantis is very expensive and the arm in the EEVblog review is not as stable as my arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3o0EWHEH08
about US$ 3300 retail, maybe $2000 eBay.
In the review he is confused about 3D vs. perspective.
The working distance does not look as long as the B&L.
http://www.prc68.com/I/SMT.shtml#Mag

-- 
Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html
The lesser of evils is still evil.

-------- Original Message --------
> Lots of good suggestions have already been made, but for
> me, a boom style stereo microscope, with a distance between
> the objective, and the focal point of at least 3 inches works
> fairly well...
>
> One other thing that may force your decision, if you are
> older, your eyes will likely have lots of "floaters", which
> are debris that floats around in your eyeballs.  This debris
> floats in and out of the center of your field of view, and
> looks like a bunch of translucent worms, or shadows.
>
> Your brain, the magnificent organ that it is, tries to compensate
> for your eye's degradation, and as long as your eyes can move
> about in your field of view, it effectively removes the floaters
> from the scenes you are viewing.
>
> However, if you use a stereo microscope, your eye position
> is fixed by the very limited amounts of off axis motion
> that will allow a through optical channel.  This lack of off
> axis motion will emphasize your floaters in a great way, and you
> will see *every* *single* *one*, clearly, as if it were something
> you really wanted to view.  Some times, the floaters will cover
> the exact thing you need to see clearly, and you will have to
> move it off axis by moving it on the microscope stage.
>
> The only answer to this problem, is to either have perfect eyes,
> or to use a microscope where you are looking at a screen, rather
> than through a pair of oculars.  This way, your eyes can dart
> around, and inspect what they need to see clearly, and the
> floaters will be ignored by your brain.
>
> As far as I know, there is only one optical microscope built this
> way, and it is the very expensive Mantis.
>
> Because of the great expense of flat screen optical microscopes,
> most modern SMD viewing equipment is going to the trivially cheap
> method of using a CCD/CMOS color video camera and an LCD screen.
>
> You can do a lot with a cheap USB camera mounted to a boom, a fiber
> optic light source, or a ring light, and a laptop computer to
> display the image.
>
> -Chuck Harris
>
> Bob Albert via time-nuts wrote:
>> What are the important parameters regarding purchase of a stereo microscope?  I
>> see some on ebay for around $50; are those good? Bob
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>