Recommendations for soldering magnifier or microscope

I have a heavy astigmatism too. But wear contact lenses which correct for that. Obviously at my age need reading glasses too. If I could find ready reads powerful enough to do the job of the headset I use I'd buy them. But they tend to stop at about +5. So I use the headset in addition to the glasses I use at the bench. Surprising any light gets through all those layers of plastic. ;-)

We're not talking microscopic nerve surgery here. Only surface mount ICs.

In message , LumpHammer writes

I have been known to wear two pairs of specs (at the same time). It works fine.

Whatever you buy, get one with a glass lens not a plastic one as splashes of hot solder are not a good thing on plastic!

Brian

That's ok for occasional use, but you'd get eye strain after a while. For close up work with glasses your eyes may not need to focus, but they still need to converge, and this means using muscles to hold them in a non-relaxed state. With a stereo microscope, your eyes are relaxed and 'focussed on infinity'.

Cheers

Mine has a 22w florescent ring in it so its about as bright as a 100w halogen but its white not yellow. I do use it as an anglepoise at times.

On Sat, 07 Feb 2015 15:14:56 +0000, LumpHammer wrote: [...]

My preference would be for a dissection stereoscope; that's what I've always used to great effect.

If you splash your glasses with solder, you need a new technique. ;-)

To most on here the ability to focus is just a distant memory...

You're using the wrong sort of contact lens.

The only ones I have seen are weighted and blinking causes them to shake.

Well sadly back in my day, we used to solder all sorts of stuff, and splashes could not be totally avoided. Nowadays with the precision work needed its not so bad, but odds are the magnifier will be used for more messy soldering so the advice stands. Brian

I sometimes do that, it works well.

I assume that is what Syd and I are talking about. This seems to be the only one in eBay.

It doesn't have "through the lens" lighting like the "pro" models but might well be good enough.

It does depend on your astigmatism. If all or the majority of the lens distortion is on the front, a plain rigid lens sorts it. But not a soft lens.

If it's on the back of your cornea, you then need some clever lens - like weighted or whatever, even with a hard lens. Which basically don't work.

Luckily mine is mainly on the front of the cornea so a plain gas permeable hard lens works fine.

Can't say I've ever experience one in many many years of soldering.

Same here. But only for a short time.

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

It rather depends on how much soldering you need to do!

If you're concerned about getting splashes on your specs, just buy some cheap ones for when you're soldering (£ shop?). You can always buy a few pairs with different magnifications.

Yes.