I purchased this item for inspecting electronics circuit boards, with surface mount components down to 0402 size. It arrived quickly, well packed in two cartons. Self assembly is straightforwards, but be careful not to let the lenses roll of the worksurface! The item is supplied with flat eye guards for spectacle users, not shaped ones.
The stand is very sturdy and even with the boom arm at its fullest extent, there's hardly any unwanted movement or shake as I operate the focus and zoom controls. Spacing between the workpiece and the objective lens leaves room for working and allows me to look at components close to the board that are surrounded by tall components (That's not possible with a loupe eyepiece). Operation of the zoom and focus controls is smooth with plenty of range on both. Brightness of image, clarity of image, depth of field and field of view are all comparable with other binocular microscopes I've used. The LED lighting ring works quite well, but its light is not completely diffused and as a result the shiny surface of solder joints give lots of bright points. I have not experimented with adding a diffuser to trade brightness for uniformity of lighting. The lighting ring came with a 12V adaptor for US 2 pin sockets, I've replaced that with one for the UK. The lighting ring has a dimmer control, very useful. To use the camera, the image for the left eye is changed over to the camera by a pull-rod. It took a few minutes to get used to the camera view being different to the stereo view. The camera itself works reasonably well, but automatic exposure takes a couple of seconds to adjust and that can be a disadvantage when panning across a workpiece with varying brightness levels. The camera can give a shimmering effect at times if the workpiece moves slightly. The software supplied with the camera works quite well and the ability to define the area used for exposure control is useful. Captured camera images are not as good as looking through the eyepieces, but perfectly adequate for illustrating PCB faults. I get the impression the depth of field is smaller through the camera, but that may just be an effect of monocular camera v binocular eyepieces. Overall I'm pleased with the item, very good value for money, solidly built and good quality images. I dropped one star because the camera isn't quite as good as I'd hoped. That might be unkind given the price.
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