Interesting piece of kit on ebay - strange microscope

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lauriek
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Interesting piece of kit on ebay - strange microscope

Post by lauriek »

This looks like an interesting thingy!!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... :IT&ih=002

If I wasn't so broke I'd certainly have a bid on this!!

Not necessarily for photographic purposes, as I'm not sure it would be any good for this - I'm currently looking for a nice (but cheap) stereo scope for specimen preparation, I reckon this would be excellent for this purpose, just a bit pricey for me...

God I could spend /so/ much money on eBay, evil site!!

Graham Stabler
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Post by Graham Stabler »

I have one of these though a slightly older one. It has a disk made of tiny glass balls that is spun by a motor, the image is projected on to this so it provides the equivalent of a ground glass viewing screen but with high throughput of light and it is a stereo image you are looking at.

It really is very ergonomic and nice to use, especially if you normally wear glasses.

Mine has a fibre optic ring light and a rotating mirror assembly too so you can view objects from all the way around.

It is possible to add a camera but I have never seen the attachments on ebay (but have not looked carefully). There is large port on the righ handside you remove, then you pull a lever to pull a lens into the light path of one of the objectives to divert it out of the port, probably just needs a lens to image on to to a camera.

Graham

lauriek
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Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:57 am
Location: South East UK
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Post by lauriek »

Purely out of interest, what's the reliability been like on that - sounds like a lot to go wrong, compared to a 'normal' eyepiece based scope. Fast moving parts etc. Have you ever had any horrendous servicing bills on it?

Cheers for the info, sounds like a cool device - I just with I had a few more quid spare but having just splashed out on a new lens and some high precision linear stages my photographic budget is caned for the next month or two!! ;)

g4lab
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Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

I saw a booth from this company(Vision Engineering , UK) at a medical manufacturing show in 1991. I fell in love with the equipment.

These scopes appear, as you have seen, from time to time, on ebay. I thought, it would be wonderful for gemology, for showing things to clients.

The actual instrument, when I got my hands on one, was a great disappointment to me. I sold it to someone who is using it for its original intended purpose. The model I had, and the model in the auction you pointed to, is intended for circuit board examination. It is excellent for that. The guy I sold it to is using it for that and is very happy with it.

But you will notice in the auction photograph that there is a piece of smoked glass colored plexiglass in your eye line looking down at the specimen table.

This is to prevent you from being dazzled by the lightsource. The one in the auction has a 270 watt metal halide high intensity discharge lamp feeding a fiber optic to a ringlight or oblique light. Mine had four 75 watt quartz halogen illuminators. Two feeding lenses and two feeding a ringlight.

The reason these things need so much light is that they make themselves easy to use by projecting huge exit pupils into the viewing area. The lenticular glass bead spinning disks sweep the image in the exit pupil all over the viewing area so that if you are anywhere close you see the images. There are two, this particular one being an actual stereo scope. Some adjustment was required for my buyer to get the unit matched to his eyes. I myself had experienced no eyestrain using it the way it came to me. There are little screw adjustments to help align the two images which I suppose are factory set for 64mm ipd. They are very wasteful of light.

I hate to sound like a grumpus but mostly I would think you won't want to keep one of these if you get one.

I have a second one that I got along with the one I just described. It is a metallurgical incident light scope which also has transmitted light. It has Nikon Mplan objectives. It is not a stereoscope but a compound. It is similar to the Zeiss Glarex or similar units. But the lenticular spinning disk patented by Vision Engineering makes it work better than any frosted screen viewers I have ever seen. If that intrigues anyone I could be persuaded to part with it for what I have in it which is in the neighborhood of $700. I actually do like the compound better than the stereo. I think it wastes less light.

And unable to let go of my infatuation with their concept I took the opportunity to snag a set of their ISIS oculars which will fit on any 30mm ocular ,, binocular scope head. They have smaller disks one in each eyepiece and don't make the exit pupil as big as the Dynascopes do. I haven't tried them yet. I will report when I do.

Their products are aimed at the industrial inspection market and are built like tanks. Especially the older ones which this auction one is.

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