How do you tell if your microscope's imaging sensor is not genuine? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 09:22:53 pm
content: Hello,I purchased a microscope for soldering which was advertised as having an IMX415 sensor.My problem, how do I tell if it is or isn't an IMX415? I had this problem with a "4k action camera". That was easy to examine. The photos and videos were all 1080p and were quite blurry.Well, this microscope camera does give me 4K photos and videos. But both are a bit blurry. Not too horrible, mind, just enough to drive me nutty.I'll attach a photo of some salt so you can see what I'm talking about. Mind, the camera is in focus in the photo.Now *before* you post,Code:"Buy $$$$$$$ camera!"I'd like to point out that I'm just a student. I'd like to be well below the $500 mark if possible and there are a few posts here listing what are believed to be "good" cameras.How do you tell if your microscope's imaging sensor is not genuine?Thanks!PS: The image attached is quite large at about 1.5MB.

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 09:35:43 pm
content: If it helps, the actual camera board has some printing on it:oseecam 2336 L-N3VS20_S415_V1.0

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 09:59:54 pm
content: A bit more examination shows that it connects to the PC via USB2.0. When rapidly moving the camera, it streams 4K 30fps mjpeg video to the PC at 22Mb/s. IDK how good a compression ratio mjpeg typically gets, but that's a compression rate of 91.2% (assuming each pixel is 1 bit) -- which sounds like something only h266's successor, h267, could possibly achieve.

author: shabaz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 10:22:31 pm
content: It's possibly moot. If the images are blurry to you, then it's no good for your needs and should be returned.You say you're a student, if you're young you will already have sharp eyes most likely, and can use any magnifier for post-soldering inspection (a cheap, plastic, Carson magnifier would be good, they are aspheric, and give a great flat image with little distortion).If you do need some magnification _while_ soldering as well as for inspection, then a head magnifier would be more convenient, I think. Optivisor ones are more than good enough for soldering and don't cost a lot (there are cheaper clones, but I have no idea how good/bad they are; they may be fine, too). You'll still save $400 from your $500 budget by going with the genuine ones.There may be no need for a larger microscope, camera, monitor, etc., unless you're working on things beyond what a typical student may want to do.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 11:30:32 pm
content: - Your lighting looks dim, start with really good lighting and then go from there.- Visually inspect the sensor, find images online of the IMX415 and compare them- Verify the resolution and frame rate, check there is no frame doubling (probably ideally with hdmi not usb2? not sure though).Can get more complicated than that:

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 04:37:42 am
content: Quote from: shabaz on December 13, 2024, 10:22:31 pmGood point, but typically when you try to return stuff they ask, why? And my answer should be, it's not genuine or defective, which I'm typically able to prove.Quote from: shabaz on December 13, 2024, 10:22:31 pmThere are two problems with this, but let's take the easy one first.I have a low power headset that a doctor recommended. It works, but not for identifying the really small chips. I also have a pair of 10x magnification goggles. They do a great job, but it's still difficult sometimes to read chip numbering because I have to get within 1cm for things to come into focus. A lot of the time that's just not possible.Thus, I figured that a nice microscope would solve two problems, soldering and chip identifying, with one tool.EDIT: Here's an example of what the microscope can do for SMD parts. This is at about 8cm away.

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 04:41:53 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on December 13, 2024, 11:30:32 pmThe salt is attached to double sided tape which is placed directly on the lens of my headlamp. I did a measurement earlier, it's some 400mW of power going through that lamp and into the microscope's optics in that photo.EDIT: Turning up the gamma just washes the image out. I turned the brightness up to full for all my shots.Quote from: thm_w on December 13, 2024, 11:30:32 pmThanks!

author: ballsystemlord
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 04:45:30 am
content: I looked up oseecam. They have a US phone number on the front page of their site so I called it. The number is out of service.

author: shabaz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 05:56:44 am
content: That looks SOT-23 or maybe SC70 sized.It actually does not sound like a good reason, but it's your money. You could have saved $400. Anyway, this comment is more for those still deciding.This is coming from a person who has a decent microscope, camera, and lens.I rarely use them; the Optivisor works from a distance of several inches it's not like a normal loupe that is used up-close.I don't use a microscope for soldering down to 0.4 mm pitch parts; it's just not required, nor for inspection. For inspection, Carson has literally toy-magnifier-priced products that will allow examination at angles to see if every connection is good and to read the print on 0603, SOT-23, SC70, and so on.Now, if I was soldering day-in, day-out (and as a student, nor as a uni grad, you would not be expected to do that), I'd bother to allocate permanent space on the bench for the microscope + camera.

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 07:58:59 pm
content: Get yourself a calibration slide to 0.1mm.It will be a flat microscope slide with the pattern etched on it. They are about $10US and have many different patterns.It will be great to see if you have the proper resolution for the optics and sensor.Got mine on eBay.Also do a search on youtube and eevblog forum as I remember a few posts showing how to determine the type of sensor you have by reading the boot sequence with the jtag.Many are lower quality or cheaper sensors than advertised unfortunately.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2024, 10:47:54 pm
content: Quote from: ballsystemlord on December 14, 2024, 04:41:53 amTurned up the brightness of what, the lighting itself or on the camera?You should not need to turn the brightness on the camera itself up at all, that would indicate again that lighting is not powerful enough.And if you want to do chip identification then multiple lights or polarized lighting and filters can be useful.

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 08:23:06 am
content: Open it up, connect the camera to TTL and see boot messages. Another option is to see printed silk screen on the image sensor board.You have though problems with lighting, which MCU will conpensate, which will give you crappy pix. My setup and pricing:Trinak $220Cam $120Lenzes and stuff $60Light $60And I've cheated, I used the stand it came with, but otherwise a proper stand cost $100 to $200But as you can see, light is a good chunk of the cost. You could get a cheap plastic 144 LED aliexpress light and over drive it with current, right around 0.8 amps and 17 volts, anything over and it will melt. That's a good starting point. But you still need auxilary lights. That picture with SMD should be bright, yours is dark, and that's a problem.