Leica S9 or A60 as an electronics/microsoldering microscope

[chephato]

I've become pretty good at soldering and recently purchased a microsoldering iron for my Hakko 951 station and a set of FX-1003 Hakko hot tweezers for my Hakko FX-100 station. With that, I am looking to get into SMD-level microsoldering and taking a few goes at data recovery from flash drives.

I am specifically looking at two microscopes, both from Leica.

1 - Leica A60 - ~ $2200 USD with flex arm
2 - Leica S9i - ~ $5500 USD with flex arm

While there is an obvious price difference, I intend to hold onto and use this microscope for years to come. My philosophy is always to buy once and buy the best. But we are taking about more than 2x price difference here.

Primarily, I would like to know if anyone here has either and their thoughts.

I've heard good things about the A60 but it unfortunately has no camera and no way of adding one in the future. The S9i has an integrated camera and the lenses are apochromatic instead of achromatic but I can't find much online in terms of reviews and difference in image quality between it and the A60. I know the question can be answered fairly simply by "do you need a camera or not" but the answer to that is, well, if the camera itself is going to cost me more than double the cost of the A60 then it is not worth it, but if there is also a difference in image quality as well then perhaps it might be worth it.

+1 if anyone owns (or has used) the S9 for electronics please chime in with your thoughts.

[DaJMasta]

The A60 seems to have a slightly longer depth of field (13.6mm vs. 12mm) at the same working distance, and the S9i has more than double the available magnification (no point for soldering work, but could be useful for small feature inspection).  Then there's the trinocular port/integrated camera, which I would consider a must have for a general purpose inspection scope (rather than an assembly line one), but you can buy an eyepiece adapter and just put a camera in one eyepiece, so it's not impossible to get the feature on the A60.  The apochromatic lenses will be more highly corrected, but I wouldn't expect big differences in quality between either - you'd probably have to see for yourself, but I'd expect both to look good.

You could consider a stereo scope from a reputable refurbisher/reseller on the used market, there are quite a number of older product lines which will have nearly identical features and quality, but which may have a trinocular port or other feature that you'd have to step the price for in the current model range.  Most good microscopes could easily last decades and would still be quite competitive with any current offering, so looking into availability of older models could save you some price and get you the featureset you're after - it's at least worth a look.

[chephato]

... and the S9i has more than double the available magnification (no point for soldering work, but could be useful for small feature inspection).

Yes, thanks for pointing that out. That is also a major difference between the two in favor of the S9. With that, one can do some really hardcore microscopy on chips and analyzing layers of a PCB. And the fact that it is apochromatic will probably make a noticeable difference at high magnification.

[jfiresto]

It would be cool if Lukego were to chime in and report what a year with his S9 has been like.

For $2200~5000 you could get a very fine, used, trinocular research microscope from the 1980s and 1990s and with likely little trouble, add a modern, mirrorless APS-C or micro four thirds camera.

[Kjelt]

Been using an A60 for over  5 years now, actually I just saw I bought it in 2012 so 9 years, time flies.
I like it very much but the standard min 5x is sometimes too much for board overview or standard component soldering. So I replaced the lower lens with an i believe 0.5x
Furthermore during soldering add some kind of fan or smokeextractor to keep the lower protection glass clean.
And I have the fixed stand which I do not like that much since the vertical adjustment isvery limited.
I would like to have a sturdy flexible arm but have doubts about the provided one. I sometimes see them have quite some play. Wonder if someone who has such an arm can comment.