EEVblog #390 - Mantis Elite Microscope Review

[EEVblog]

Dave.

[Salas]

27:25 what was that you said you can see in there after you said its Utopia?

[nitro2k01]

27:25 what was that you said you can see in there after you said its Utopia?

Oompa Loompa. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reference.

Isn't the LED light just a DC voltage jack? Wouldn't it be trivial to add an external PWM or current control?

[Salas]

Never watched that film beyond its first minutes. Cheers.

[mikeselectricstuff]

27:25 what was that you said you can see in there after you said its Utopia?

Oompa Loompa. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory reference.

Isn't the LED light just a DC voltage jack? Wouldn't it be trivial to add an external PWM or current control?

Yes, but for what they charge it would have been nice to include it.
Having said that I've never felt the need to dim the light on my Mantis Compact. You could always plug it into your bench PSU on the odd occasion.

[MartinX]

We have a number of Mantis Compact at work, I think it was the first version with LEDs as light source. After a while the LEDs started to die and the light became dim and blueish, the light assembly was replaced on most of them but recently I discovered that one of the least used microscopes had failing LEDs. I found out that a new light source costs 280$ so I took the failing one apart and found it was a horse shoe shaped circuit board with 20 LEDs on it and four resistor networks and one power connector, that was all. I measured the current trough the LEDs and they crammed 40mA through each LED, that seemed a bit to much for a 5mm LED and that is probably why they were failing.

Feeling a little grumpy about the price of the replacement light and the fact they were failing because of poor engineering decisions I decided to replace the LEDs on the old board and I managed to bodge in a 1N4004 diode in series with the power connector to drop the voltage a little. The hole operation was relatively easy and the current dropped to 26mA which is still a bit high but under the absolute maximum of 30mA in the data sheet. There are a bunch of plastic parts aligning the LEDs so focusing their beams is not a problem, after screwing everything back together again it worked perfectly.

I used these LEDs as replacements: https://www.elfa.se/elfa3~se_sv/elfa/init.do?item=75-100-21&toc=20292
When I compared the old and new LEDs (under the microscope of course) I found they looked exactly the same, the internal construction of the metal parts, the bond wires, the colour of the phosphorus layer, could not find anything different on the Sloan LEDs I used. Do the manufacturers all use the same tooling?

Other that that there have been no problems with the microscopes we have and they are really excellent to work with.

[nicknails]

They have an older version in sick bay on ST Voyager 

[gregariz]

Mantis's are really common all over the industry, but there are a number of others that are really common as well, usually radial arm binocular scopes from fuji or white etc.. I have one workmate that swears by them and another that hates them so its kind of a personal preference thing. I will say that I've found the low fatigue thing is real with them and is a plus. On the downsides I've always found their plastic construction a bit junky and they will tend to develop alot of creaks as time goes by. Also the magnification is a bit on the low side I find these days for the small pitched components. I'm kind of on the fence with them, not quite sure what I would buy if I were looking for a new scope. I kind of like the newer video systems just for low fatigue inspection.

[IanB]

I can't imagine why you would want an expensive optical microscope for inspection? Surely a hand held camera on a wand and a big monitor would be much more convenient and far less expensive? I have found the macro setting on my camera and then viewing the image at full size shows me much more fine detail than I can see with the naked eye. A still camera is no good for production use of course, but a video camera would yield the same detail.

Where it seems stereo microscopes have the advantage is for actually working under them, positioning parts and soldering rather than inspecting finished work for faults. It's harder to do that with the flat view from a camera.

[gregariz]

I can't imagine why you would want an expensive optical microscope for inspection? Surely a hand held camera on a wand and a big monitor would be much more convenient and far less expensive? I have found the macro setting on my camera and then viewing the image at full size shows me much more fine detail than I can see with the naked eye. A still camera is no good for production use of course, but a video camera would yield the same detail.

Where it seems stereo microscopes have the advantage is for actually working under them, positioning parts and soldering rather than inspecting finished work for faults. It's harder to do that with the flat view from a camera.

Its kind of hard... as I said.. I'm on the fence... I was using a Mantis recently on some 0.35mm pitch IC's for soldering. I flicked it over to the x8 (or x10 cant remember) and it just wasn't quite enough. Maybe my eyes aren't as young as they once were, but I found that I just couldn't inspect the job as I would have liked.... it was right on the edge, and unlike the binocular systems you don't have a fine height adjustment ... you have to move the whole head which is a pain. But yes I agree... for inspection I just prefer to look at a large monitor driven by a camera.

[Smokey]

check out the promo video from Vision Engineering on youtube...


The highlights are the creepy pupil morph animation at 0:50 seconds, and the slab of hair transplant skin at 1:07.  Strange!

[EEVblog]

They have an older version in sick bay on ST Voyager 

LOL! Engineering prop fail!

Dave.

[firewalker]

Is it an actual Vision Engineering device?

Alexander.

[EEVblog]

Its kind of hard... as I said.. I'm on the fence... I was using a Mantis recently on some 0.35mm pitch IC's for soldering. I flicked it over to the x8 (or x10 cant remember) and it just wasn't quite enough. Maybe my eyes aren't as young as they once were, but I found that I just couldn't inspect the job as I would have liked.... it was right on the edge, and unlike the binocular systems you don't have a fine height adjustment ... you have to move the whole head which is a pain. But yes I agree... for inspection I just prefer to look at a large monitor driven by a camera.

Yes, x8 or even x10 isn't quite enough to really inspect a 0.35mm pitch IC.
Vision Engineering told me that any lens greater than x10 really needs the compact stand, as it has finer vertical adjustment than the Universal or Articulated arms.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

I can't imagine why you would want an expensive optical microscope for inspection?

I find them better for real inspection work myself. I like the "analog" nature. Kinda like using an analog to a digital one for subtle details

Dave.

[firewalker]

Can someone find cheaper "compatible" lenses?

Alexander.

[EEVblog]

Can someone find cheaper "compatible" lenses?

If you can afford $2600 for the head, why quibble over the lens?
Although if oyu got a cheap head on ebay or something, yeah, you'd be looking for cheaper lens maybe. None that I know of though.

Dave.

[firewalker]

If you can afford $2600 for the head, why quibble over the lens?
Although if oyu got a cheap head on ebay or something, yeah, you'd be looking for cheaper lens maybe. None that I know of though.

Dave.

I had saw a couple of those sold without lenses (~1300 usd). An extra 1k for two lenses for example adds to the value.

[Wartex]

For anyone thinking about buying: I was on the fence for a long time, and for the money you can build a much better rig. I use Canon T2i with an HDMI cable and some lense rings to turn it into a microscope, I'm getting maybe 2-5 ms lag on the 1920x1080 screen. I can take video and pics at the same time too.

[M. András]

that almost unnoticable, and at what rate? 24 or 30fps?

[mikeselectricstuff]

I think my Mantis Compact with x4 lens was about £1K - the only difference is it doesn't have the lens turret - you can still swap lenses manually easily though. Can;t tell for certain but I think the x4 lens at least is a single element. Must have a play with all those lenses I got out of that big projector a while ago....

[djsb]

Am I correct in assuming the compact can only go upto a X6 lens? Does this limit it's usefulness for work with small SMT parts?
If the compact can do the job I will start saving for one.

David.

[Wartex]

that almost unnoticable, and at what rate? 24 or 30fps?

It's 30 fps, I think the camera downscales it to 720p in HDMI to save CPU cycles, but it's realtime and very useable.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Am I correct in assuming the compact can only go upto a X6 lens? Does this limit it's usefulness for work with small SMT parts?
If the compact can do the job I will start saving for one.

David.

There is a x8 but I've never felt the need to go above x4 for any SMD work & nowadays I NEED the mantis for anything smaller then 0805.
Price list :  http://www.grovesales.co.uk/products.php?id=68

[robrenz]

For anyone thinking about buying: I was on the fence for a long time, and for the money you can build a much better rig. I use Canon T2i with an HDMI cable and some lense rings to turn it into a microscope, I'm getting maybe 2-5 ms lag on the 1920x1080 screen. I can take video and pics at the same time too.

Wartex, I am not dissing your setup! just making people aware of no depth perception with a screen setup.

I have a trinocular microscope with a 5Mpixel video/still camera and it can do 30fps at lower resolution. BUT any flat camera view is not stereo therfore no depth perception and it is much more difficult to work without depth perception.

More on my microscope camera setup and warnings/complaints here