Vision Engineering Dynascope Stereoscope

[Smokedaddy]

I scored a couple of nice stereoscopes local to me the other day at a smoking price. A VE Dynascope TS-3 and a TS-4. The TS-3 came with the optional motorized oblique accessory. I completely disassembled both scopes, cleaned all seven mirrors and vacuumed off all of the optics. I even pulled the motor, cleaned it off and centered it. The motor spins a prismatic mirror (about 2500 RPM) giving you alternating left and right images for each eye at a high "refresh rate". Everything is in excellent condition now. I need to do some minor rewiring. I think the stereo views are very nice and the oblique accessory is interesting (probably more of a novelty to me). Sure is a lot nicer than looking through a binocular stereoscope, at least for me. I'm definitely happy with the purchases.

A link to a few pics of the VE stereoscopes are below if you're not familiar with them.

https://pbase.com/smokedaddy/vision_engineering

Here's a short video with it in operation. None of the internal mirrors had been cleaned when this video was made. Only the oblique mirrors were cleaned. The oblique viewing starts at around 1:30 for those impatient types.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmP_DPUW0pI

I took a few specimen pics with my smartphone pointed at the screen. It was super difficult getting the smartphone positioned correctly. The pics below don't do justice to what I actually see. The specimens are; magnetic core memory, meteorite thin section, mineral thin section, fossil and an old raspberry pi.

[nanometer]

Wow--magnetic core memory--awesome!

[Luminoso-NL]

Hi from Holland,

I bought myself an Vision Engineering VS-7 ( TS-3). But found out that the rotating mirror reflecting material is delaminatingfrom the sides.
Contacted VE, but no clue.
Does any one know a place where this mirror could be obtained?

Thanks for your reply.

Cesar

[rjlittlefield]

The TS-3 came with the optional motorized oblique accessory.

That oblique accessory is very cool! First time I've seen that trick.

It took me a bit of searching to find how the Dynascope works. Google search found too many links to old units on eBay!

I finally got to good stuff at https://www.visioneng.us/innovation/dynascope/ .

--Rik

[g4lab]

VE scopes work by making a ginormous exit pupil . As such they are exceedingly wasteful of light and require very high intensity illumination of the subject.

I had one of their stereoscopes which I sold to a guy who wanted them to inspect circuit boards. It had four 180 watt metal halide arc lamps feeding fiber optic lens barrels about two inches in diameter.

You need a black shroud between your eyes and the subject in order to use them.

They were designed and intended to allow inspectors to examine things without having to teach them how to use microscopes at all , such as adjusting interpupillary distance and individual eyetube focus adjustment. But on the stereoscopic versions there is actually a screwdriver IPD adjustment. There is no dioptric adjustment because the eyes are supposed to be focused at infinity.

If anybody wants to play with one I have a non stereoscopic monocular that uses compound microscope objectives and can do incident or transmitted light that I would sell very reasonably.

I found out about them in the late eighties at a medical manufacturing show and thought it was a great idea until I managed to obtain and play with them especially the stereo version.

I think the guy that bought the stereo from me still likes it.

They also had a pair of 30 mm oculars with spinning discs that enlarge the exit pupil that could be put onto other brands of stereo scopes. I have a pair of those somewhere. They have a wall wart power supply to spin the discs Since these don't enlarge the exit pupil as much they don't need so much light and don't waste so much. When using the big ones there is a big disc of light projected onto your face.

There are probably some very specific use cases where these things are helpful but mostly I think they are wasted money.

[iconoclastica]

There are probably some very specific use cases where these things are helpful but mostly I think they are wasted money.

Ah, but they look great!

[Scarodactyl]

Not to mention the endorsement from Dr Robotnik

[Smokedaddy]

I bought it for a small price but had to completely disassemble and clean it. The mirror was dislodged, but since it wasn't broken, it was an easy fix.

[PeteM]

One advantage of the head with its rotating mirrors and expanded view is that folks with "floaters" in their eyes find it nearly eliminates the annoyance of having them obscure the view through a microscope. Vision Engineering made a set of ISIS eyepieces (inaptly named in retrospect) that many floater-affected users found useful.