AmScope 3.5X-45X Trinocular Zoom Microscope with Double Arm Boom Stand

[cowasaki]

I have some of those same Ikea clip on spots, they’re OK but the beam width is quite wide so bear that in mind, they’re nowhere near as good as those Lloydtron 3W jobs I mentioned.

Yesterday I modified the stock camera port adapter to directly take an MFT camera wihiut extra optics, and it’s definitely a usable solution, although it still doesn’t seem as clear through the camera port as kt is through the eyepieces. I’m still working on that part.

The Ikea light is just to keep me going till I get an alternative.  :-)

[agehall]

You probably want a ring light too but those lights make great extras. I have one attached on my scope so that I can get a bit of extra light and some more yellow light in the view.

[SteveyG]

Thanks for this post, I was looking at the same model - didn't know about the inability to capture video at the same time 

In terms of cameras, I've been testing a couple of low cost items out on my channel. I'll shortly be doing a video on a "21MP" camera (it offers 2K recording anyway), but so far the this one is performing well and the manufacturers are actually updating firmware.

I used this camera in my latest soldering video with a cheap 180x lens. (https://www.banggood.com/custlink/KmDmyuomIK)

https://youtu.be/bGkbXPUzcmE

[SteveyG]

Been there, done that. In the end I bought the "proper" three port simul focal job, the trinocular head sits in a cupboard now. I feel it should be made a lot clearer: trinocular is fine if you only want stills, but useless if you're making videos.

These are the gooseneck LED lamps I used: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00H1O1ZF2 They're unavailable now, but you can probably find them elsewhere. Importantly, the beamwidth is only about 30 degrees: most small LED worklights are much wider.

Edit: to be clear you really need at least two light sources, each from a different angle. Both of the gooeneck jobs I have are clipped to the microscope's head so they also move as the head moves.

For some reason I missed all your recent videos, not sure why YouTube didn't put them in my feed. Great close-ups - what microscope are you using please?

[coppice]

The problem with the LED ring lights is that they get in the way of some tools in particular hot air desoldering tools. I don’t use the LED ring as a result, instead I use a pair of gooseneck 3W spots clipped onto the microscope itself.

Even if you find a ring light doesn't get in your way, you should consider supplementing it with some directional lighting. Ring lights avoid dark corners, but used on their own they can result in a so little shadowing that there is no contrast in the image, and details are hard to make out.

[SteveyG]

I noticed this recently. Some lights 45° to the board give much more contrast.

[cowasaki]

I noticed this recently. Some lights 45° to the board give much more contrast.

I've seen your channel

[Howardlong]

Great close-ups - what microscope are you using please?

It's a bit of a Frankenstein setup TBH.


Originally I had SM-8TW2-144S. This is a trinocular, not a simul-focal head. The articulating arm is great. I don't use the LED ring because I found that it gets in the way of some tools like hot air irons. I do use the 0.5x Barlow permanently. Instead of the ring I use a pair of gooseneck Lloytron 3W L1507SV narrow (~45 degree) spots clipped onto the microscope's head that are still available on ebay. The problem with desk based goosenecks is that you'd have to repeatedly adjust them as you adjust the microscope head's position. Having them clipped to the head itself saves you this inconvenience.

A couple of years ago, I swapped the trinocular microscope head for a simul-focal one (SM745TP): simul-focal is pretty much essential if you do video. The trinocular and simul-focal heads look almost identical from the outside, and all the ports are the same.

Originally for the camera I used a 0.5x reducer with C mount and a third party HDMI 1080p camera. Although the latency isn't bad, it's still useless trying to solder using a screen compared to having a 3D view that a fully optical stereoscopic microscope affords.

I also modified a 4k60p Yi 4k Plus action camera to take a C mount, but the results weren't great. As a result I have been using a Micro four-thirds camera (MFT) on the mount for the past year or so, still with the 0.5x reducer, but with a C mount to MFT adapter, and using the in camera cropping at native sensor resolution. The camera I've been using is either a Panasonic G7 or GX9 in 1080p. Over the past few days, I've modified the camera port to directly take an uncropped MFT sensor without the 0.5x reducer. Although it's a bit better, I'm not totally happy with the results. At present there still seems to be little point in going to 4k as initial indications suggest that the results don't seem to improve compared to 1080p, but I probably need to play with it a bit more. My ultimate ambition is to be able to take decent 4k60p video on the camera head: I do already have a couple of MFT cameras with that capability.

This brings me to whether or not these microscopes are parfocal or not, i.e., do they maintain a reasonable focus throughout the zoom range? The answer is yes, but you do need to spend time setting them up properly in a systematic and iterative way. The reason I mention this is that I believe this is at least part of the reason that I'm having difficulty with the camera port giving the same kind of image quality that I see through the eye pieces particularly over the complete zoom range. I can get close, but it's still a little disappointing at the moment, I need to spend more time at it. For example, as well as the aforementioned parfocal aspect, focus still isn't maintained across the frame.

Finally, with the 0.5x Barlow there is about 8" of working distance which is good, but you need to make sure you can adjust your chair height for this comfortably. I have to set my chair at its highest setting for this to be comfortable. Not a big deal, assuming you have a height adjustable chair of course!

[jfiresto]

.... I've modified the camera port to directly take an uncropped MFT sensor without the 0.5x reducer. Although it's a bit better, I'm not totally happy with the results....

Perhaps just a silly question: if you move an eyepiece from a binocular tube to over the photo port, is the view just as good?

For example, as well as the aforementioned parfocal aspect, focus still isn't maintained across the frame.

Is the focus good over the central 60% of the field of view, by area?

[Howardlong]

.... I've modified the camera port to directly take an uncropped MFT sensor without the 0.5x reducer. Although it's a bit better, I'm not totally happy with the results....

Perhaps just a silly question: if you move an eyepiece from a binocular tube to over the photo port, is the view just as good?

It's not at all bad, although I suspect my eye is doing some correcting.

For example, as well as the aforementioned parfocal aspect, focus still isn't maintained across the frame.

Is the focus good over the central 60% of the field of view, by area?

Some 0603 parts and a 0.5mm pitch QFM on a 0.635mm pitch prototyping board.

Original large area image (20Mpx, 11MB)
Original zoomed area image (80Mpx, 31MB)

[jfiresto]

Thanks for posting the pictures. I downloaded the originals and believe that the camera is capturing enough pixels. More than enough. I can't view the second, zoomed image without slowing my computer to a crawl while it pages out memory.

Do you have a Greenough design microscope? If you do, I would expect the usual intra-microscope aberrations will be radially symmetric. The gradual, left-to-right focus problem, here, is not. Is one side focusing too high and the other too low?

Have you tried tilting the specimen 5-6 degrees to make it perpendicular to the eyepiece/optical path the camera is viewing?

Does the focus gradient(?) disappear and the focus greatly improve when you remove the 0.5X auxiliary objective (assuming you are using one)?

Could anything be tilting the camera's image sensor with respect to the camera port?

Has the camera port image somehow gotten tilted or moved off center?