Magnifiers on spectacles

[newshound]

Anyone using these or anything similar for fine work? Any advice or comments welcomed. Much more expensive than the "visor" type, of course.

[John S]

Bloody hell for that price you could get a guide dog and a white stick..........

John s.

[Peter Fairbrother]

"Much more expensive"? Crikey! Always wanted a pair of those, but..!

I have a single clip-on lens, cost £3.99 at Harrogate iirc, and works well enough for me. YMMV.

-- Peter F

[John]

Have a look at the Daylight Company magnifiers which are clip ons that flip up, supplied with a choice of lenses. And a hell of a lot cheaper!

H

[Steve R.]

> tia

Ouch! That's about 250 Canadian dollars!!!

Steve R.

[Rob G]

I suppose if you are doing close up work for an extensive period, something like this is worth it, but I found a wee while ago that all I had to do was to put one pair of glasses on top of another. I just buy 'readers' from Costco and have accumulated different strengths - if I put a pair of 3's over 2's I can work at 8" quite happily. And it doesn't cost me any more than the =A310 for 3 pairs from Costco.

Rob

[Peter Parry]

Not those specific ones but similar. I found with most spectacles they were too heavy especially when you were looking down and were constantly slipping forward.

A better and cheaper solution is to go to

in your normal prescription but add 3 diopters. You then have a set of prescription magnifying glasses.

[David Littlewood]

I have often done the same. On the (fortunately rare) occasions when sore eyes make me remove my contact lenses and wear specs for distance viewing, a pair of reading glasses over the top makes a quite serviceable bifocal set-up. Cheap as chips, also has the advantage you can vary the strength of the reading glasses to suit needs, as Rob suggests.

David

[Andy Dingley]

dental loupes cheaper than Heines for ages - GF is a hygienist), but with a working distance of only 13" these aren't really suitable for dental use. Short focal distances encourage backache.

always worth a look too.

Overall, the visor sort (single lens element, a few inches from your eyes) are about the best compromise. You'll usually have a wider view angle and far less off-axis distortion.

Zeiss ones for =A360 quid are really nice (jewellery making)

Personally I'd rather get a good illuminated magnifier, and a small add-on workbench that's high above my normal workbench.

[John Weston]

I found a similar solution was to heavy for my glasses. The solution I've found is a "head loupe" (google) that will take paired lenses of 3 magnifications, giving a good 3-D view. I can use them with my reading glasses on underneath and so look down below their lenses to read the instructions :-)

It's hard reading something a character at a time...

[John Weston]

Peter, why go to a USA store that doesn't publish its trading address? There are equivalent places over here, e.g.

that manufacture and deliver in the UK.

I still prefer my head loupe solution.

[newshound]

Good link, thanks. I thought there must be more suppliers out there

[newshound]

are always worth a look too.

Another good link, thanks. Now I have too much choice! I do have a couple of the "Peer" visors, but sometimes I am looking into big gearboxes in situ, so the surgeon's "telescope" types with their larger working distance come into their own. Apart from looking cool when I'm trying to justify our consultancy rates. Changing the subject slightly, I just bought a USB microscope from this guy

it really isn't bad for £40. Easier to cart this plus a small laptop around plant than a binocular microscope plus lights plus camera!

[dennis]

I tend to use a big table mounted magnifier with a circular lamp around it more though.

[Ian White]

Thanks, that's a very interesting device. Even though I don't have a use for one, I can definitely feel the pull!

But perhaps we pay too much attention to the specifications of the optics and not enough to practical convenience. Although my electronics workbench has a stereo zoom microscope on a swinging arm, for most close-up work still I find myself using a cheap pair of +4 reading glasses in front of the bottom (magnifying) part of my varifocals - simply because they are so convenient.

They don't block my view of the work, they let me move my head around to change viewpoints, and instantly let me re-focus onto the wider world - and all of that is completely hands-free. Only the Zeiss magnifiers that Andy mentioned share all those advantages, but the non-prescription reading glasses are far cheaper of course. Rimless letterbox shaped lenses are in fashion at the moment, so now is a good time to buy - or at the very least, to try them in the drugstore.

Another option for a true head-up display might be an old video camera mounted above the bench. Some of the bigger, older ones have excellent zoom lenses. In a quick trial, ours gave a very good magnified view of a PC board from about a metre distance - it was wonderful to have a completely open work area above the board and need no special glasses at all. However, a true HUD would need a dedicated flat-screen monitor on the wall, right in front of where I sit to solder, and I don't do enough SMD work to justify that expense... or not yet.

BTW, along with the need for magnification is the need for a good work light. This 3W white LED from IKEA is excellent:

icy blue-white light would be awful for reading, but gives superb definition for close-up work. The LED housing is very compact and doesn't get in the way - it can be clipped onto an over-bench shelf or even onto the arm of the microscope, and then is easily positioned with the swan neck. Highly recommended.

[Andy Dingley]

I have an old Intel QX3 USB microscope (three objectives on a barrel) that's good for this. x200 is hard to use as there's no depth of focus, but x30 has really good depth and is great for inspection work. It's better than any video camera I've had, and it's easy enough to dedicate an old PC these days.

I bought a couple of "Tritronic" LED pocket / book lights for a couple of quid each from Cheapo DIY (part of Homebase?). 3 AAA battery box and a nice triple LED head on a flex gooseneck. Two are now fitted under my stereo bench microscope (x36). Battery life is so long I haven't even bothered to mains power them yet.

excellent:

"May not be used as bed lamp, it may fall down and cause a fire." 8-) Think they need to update their boilerplate.

[Ian White]

Inspection work and assembly/repair work are two very different applications. Navigating a hot soldering iron puts much more emphasis on both depth and breadth of field, but requires less magnification. For assembly this typically balances out at 5-10x.

For really desperate SMD repair jobs (where the full value of some expensive piece of kit is hanging in the balance) I use the stereo zoom microscope. When soldering it is backed right down to 7x, and lit from a raking angle to create as much 3D effect as possible. When the iron is safely back in the stand, the magnification can be cranked up to 20x to check for gaps and solder bridges.

Other kinds of inspection may need much higher magnification, of course.

BTDT, already 4 in the workshop and none left over :-)

Tried some similar ones before settling on the IKEA. The single large LED is truly in a different league.

Think so... the metal lamp housing is a heat sink for the LED, but it only runs warm.

[geoff]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

"Dennis finds his dick" shock horror

[Andy Dingley]

By "inspection" here I really mean mechanical stuff or '60s electricals, rather than modern electronics, so the scale and need for depth is more like your soldering example. Electronics stopped being fun when everything went SMT, I haven't really done any in years.

(Although the Arduino seems to have re-engaged a bit of my interest.)

[Peter Parry]

It isn't a US Company but a Hong Kong one. In my experience over ten years they have proven to be very reliable and supply goods of good quality.

They are more expensive and my one experience with them was that they were unreliable and supplied goods of poor quality. Their "customer service" wasn't. I see no reason why I should give them a second chance.