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EEVblog #1125 - Amazing $500 Soldering/Inspection Microscope!

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nigelwright7557:
You can pay all sorts of silly money SMD kit.
I use £15 soldering iron, £20 hot air gun and £1.50 2.5 reading glasses, £3 tweezers and a £2 magnifying glass.
Strange thing is I have few problems with that kit.

Southerner:

--- Quote from: nigelwright7557 on June 03, 2022, 01:27:10 am ---You can pay all sorts of silly money SMD kit.
I use £15 soldering iron, £20 hot air gun and £1.50 2.5 reading glasses, £3 tweezers and a £2 magnifying glass.
Strange thing is I have few problems with that kit.

--- End quote ---
Nigel is correct. You can pay silly money for smd tools and equipment...or you can go cheap.  A Hakko 858D clone hot air station is about $40usd and up to about $60usd.  With that and a magnifier you can do what you need to do.  I use a 2" UltraOptix 7x lit magnifier to check the work.  It helps if you can get a solder mask template (stencil) for your board. That makes applying solder paste a snap.  Then place all the parts. They do not have to be exactly aligned and hot air will mostly pull them into place.  You can go cheap on the hot air gun too as a stamp embossing gun that sells for about $10usd at places like Hobby Lobby will work too.  The 858D allows setting the desired temperature though.  Just be sure to make sure the air output is not set too high or the smd parts will go into outer orbit never to be seen again.  Places like Harbor Freight sell a "jewler's loupe" set for about $5 usd.  I use the 10X from that set.  I do also have the cheap dental student magnifiers that have the 420mm focal length and they work well and are about $30usd.  So you can spend lots of money or a small amount.
Good luck.

rthorntn:
Sorry for the thread necro.

I just have this bare camera for use in my stereo microscope eyepiece socket but I would rather use it standalone, so the question, which stand and lens should I pick up for this, to use as a soldering inspection scope?

Thanks.

thm_w:

--- Quote from: rthorntn on June 05, 2023, 01:27:14 am ---Sorry for the thread necro.

I just have this bare camera for use in my stereo microscope eyepiece socket but I would rather use it standalone, so the question, which stand and lens should I pick up for this, to use as a soldering inspection scope?

Thanks.

--- End quote ---

If you read the thread you can find lots of lens suggestions. Around 120x seems to be common. Although if you go with the very cheapest 120x lens it does not have a zoom adjustment, you have to manually move the camera up and down to zoom.

For a stand I used a microphone boom arm stand w/ 1/4" mount. Pro is that its very easy to move around and reposition, but, it can shake if you don't have it solidly mounted or buy a cheap one.

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