Vision engineering SX microscopes? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Barleyman
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 12, 2024, 05:52:17 pm
content: Vision Engineering is one company that sells their own microscopes, or at least it's not obviously yet another version of the Chinese microscope that Amscope and many others sell with different branding.They have got SX series that appears to be just the ticket for SMT rework, I was considering SX45 or SX45 trinocular for this. I didn't find any mention of these microscopes in this forum and in fact you have to kind of dig into it properly to come up with the company, instead of the bazillion SM-4/ZM-4 clones.. Has anyone actually used the SX45, are the optics in fact better or even worse? There's also SX80 and SX100 but eyeballing them the distance from your eyeballs to the end of the microscope is too long for easy rework.SX45 is not hugely more expensive than the ZM-4, yes, it does cost significantly more than e.g. eleshop.eu ZM-4 kit, but nothing crazy like Kern asking 1950€ for the SM-4 with a boom stand..And hey, it's a genuine British company you can visit in Woking if you feel so inclined.

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 12, 2024, 06:55:41 pm
content: Those look pretty decent. I haven't found the Chinese scopes to be as good as desired and stuff like Leitz and Wild is too expensive. There's a microscope made in Japan instead of China that's of excellent optical quality. Take a look at Meiji.https://microscopecentral.com/products/meiji-em-30-stereo-zoom-microscope-sereies-7x-35x?variant=876352577

author: Barleyman
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 13, 2024, 12:59:10 am
content: Quote from: Conrad Hoffman on December 12, 2024, 06:55:41 pmMeiji needs a boom arm to be good for SMT work, I've been saddled with most of my professional career with the awful fixed 20x/40x microscope that's the cheapest thing you could buy back in the day before Amscope et al came along and not once anyone coughed up the 10-20% extra to get the adjustable zoom option even.If your PCB is 10cm or more and the part you're trying to look at is in the middle of the board, you're going to hit the stand. Tilt to look at QFN pads? Nope.Looking at meijitechno, they're selling a UHM-D boom arm that's suspiciously similar to the Chinese Amscope boom arm.. Well, if it works, it works.

author: Barleyman
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 06:31:39 pm
content: I got official pricing from VE, the microscope head and eyepieces are reasonable, but man are they gouging on the boom stand. You can't tell me that it's reasonable that a non-articulated boom stand with some ball bearings costs as much as a nice microscope, bit under £900 as it is. I was thinking of using the Chinese boom stand for it, but then we're talking about if the VE stand adapter will actually fit the Amscope stand vertical bar.. VE microscope head is kind of a cone so it likely won't fit the Amscope microscope head holder nicely.Then again, it's not like there's a limit on how brazen people get. How about 1950€ for the Chinese microscope set .. which is not even using the ZM head!https://www.kern-sohn.com/shop/en/products/optical-instruments/stereomicroscope-sets/OZM-923UK/

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 14, 2024, 06:43:04 pm
content: Yes, when it comes to microscopes, you might or might not get what you pay for. I don't see a problem with finding a very cheap boom stand and putting a decent scope on it.

author: Barleyman
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 16, 2024, 01:52:16 am
content: Quote from: Conrad Hoffman on December 14, 2024, 06:43:04 pmOnly if they'll sell you the adaptor/holder piece separately and it actually fits the vertical bar on the generic boom arm.The microscope head is conical and I don't think the generic Amscope holder would fit it nicely. And yes, that's not the 900 quid dual boom arm, but the holder is the same.It also seems eyeballing it that the bar they've got is thicker than what amscope uses so you're out of luck that way too.