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Bench microscope based on a DSLR

A project log for Silly hardware wishlist

Too simple for a project page & which may never happen.

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 04/17/2020 at 19:570 Comments

The lion kingdom inherited a lousy Amscope student microscope.  It's stereo, has good lighting, but an extremely small area to work in.  The lion kingdom also has a DSLR with 100mm macro lens.  That would have a much bigger working area, with the right stand.  The magnification isn't as high, but good enough for soldering.

The key requirements are a stand for the DSLR, HDMI capture, & lighting.  The stand wouldn't need an adjustable height, which reduces it to just a simple U.  A tripod would be too high & take up too much space, though.  The stand would also provide the lighting.

A  big advantage is the DSLR has a wide range of working distances, in exchange for magnification.  Its closest distance is plenty for soldering, so that could be fixed.  A purpose built microscope has only 1 working range. 

The Amscope currently has to be moved to the bench.  The DSLR would involve moving the soldering station to the computer monitor.

The DSLR has scaling in software.  That would allow some control over magnification.

Based on the internet, no-one uses a DSLR as a soldering microscope, so either lions are crazy or people who are into DLSR's aren't into soldering.  

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