Skip the magnifiers and go straight to a binocular stereo inspection microscope. You won't regret that one, even if you are just a weekend hobbyist and especially if you are doing surface mount. Assuming you don't totally abuse it, it won't really lose value and you can always resell it. You don't need a mantis. You can regularly find used stereo scopes on ebay for around 100 bucks. If you want to go new, check out amscope for just a bit more. Straight from china, but really good quality for the money. There are some reviews here on the forum for the amscopes. I use a trinocular one at work all the time.
Things to keep in mind:
1) 0.7-3 or 4 zoom with 10x wide-field eyepieces is all you really need. I usually work on 0402s at around 1x zoom with those 10x wide-field eyepieces. Anything higher is mostly for inspection. You can even get away with a fixed magnification and a couple sets of eyepieces. I really don't zoom around that often.
For the ebay specials, watch out when they say stuff like 10x-80x. That's probably not zoom. They are just saying its a fixed mag head that comes with a set of 10x and a set of 80x eyepieces or something like that.
2) Don't neglect the stand. The more steady it is the less jitter and less eyestrain. Even that said, a home built stand with a decent stereo scope head is better than a magnifier. A lot of ebay specials are just for the head, so keep in mind you are going to need some way to mount and focus it. You don't need a boom stand, but it's nice to have.
3) Get a ring light that will fit on the bottom of the scope head. I like the LED ones more than the florescent but either will work. The cheap ones are fine.
4) Above all else, it makes your lab look cool! Just like having that old Tek mainframe in the corner, a good microscope gives you instant geek cred.
Do the ebay search for "stereo zoom microscope", so even just "stereo inspection microscope" for fixed mag ones.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
