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Microscope Mounts

Conrad Hoffman

Diamond
Joined
May 10, 2009
Location
Canandaigua, NY, USA
We sometimes have to make stupidly small parts. We found a few spare minutes in the shop, so our head machinist Joe (OK, our only machinist), made these up. Most people would use bolts, but we seemed to have a surplus of studs and nuts. We found cheap stereo microscopes online, the one for the mill having an unusually long working distance. We use high power LED flashlights for extra illumination. Note that each one follows the cut, fixed on the mill and moving on the lathe. With the various rods and joints, they can be positioned almost anywhere needed.
uScope_mill.jpguScope_lathe.jpg
 
We bought that Bridgeport almost ten years ago. It was rebuilt by machine-builders and has been making parts 5 days a week ever since. The trick is it's been used by one single machinist who cares about keeping things in good shape. The HLV is a bit more worn- you can feel the ridges in the spindle where the collet slots sit, but it's still remarkably accurate.
 
Nice set-ups. Where did you find the stereo microscope with the very long working distance and what magnification is it? Something like that might well resurrect an "improved widget" request thats on the back burner until I can locate suitable components.

Clive
 
Nice setup. I use an old American Optical scope (several, in fact) mounted on "the beast" which is a very heavy cast iron base, but it's not mounted on my lathe.

You may want to consider using adjustable handles on your mill setup. The kind where you use the handle to tighten or loosen the bolt, but can adjust the handle position by pulling up. The kind that look like the pic below. One setup I've seen uses pneumatic springs to counteract the weight of the scope, so adjustment is easy.

06614-10501X10.jpg
 
Those seem amazingly cheap (inexpensive) how is the image quality?

Every time I go to the eye doctor I lust after his microscope that he looks in my eye with. I had not seen any that were affordable though.
 
Problem with long focal length is there will be a shorter depth of field and narrower field of view. Maybe the tradeoffs aren't big enough to matter? i haven't tried a long focal length microscope.

I haven't tried a $300 microscope. I'm skeptical of the image quality. Professional microscopes are about $3k to 5, 6 7k and up.
 
We have a range of scopes here, from the cheap Asian ones, to Leitz and a couple of those expensive view screen ones Quality stereo inspection microscope | Lynx Dynascope™ about $10k. The cheap ones are, well, cheap. I wouldn't want to use one all day long. Image quality can be good, but its alignment that gets you- a strain free stereo view is tough to maintain. Horses for courses. The ones in the shop can get dowsed with coolant or otherwise meet their demise, so cheap is good. The ones in production are another matter, though we have a few cheap ones there too.

What's always struck me as funny is you get the highest optical quality with a simple tube scope, just an eyepiece and objective, yet people want scopes with all sorts of crap stuck in the beam path- camera pickoffs, angled heads, relay lenses, magnifiers, reducers and you name it. Cost goes up, but not basic optical quality.
 
Interestingly there is a fairly high percentage of people unable to "fuse" stereo images, and therefore cannot use stereo-microscopes.

I'm one of them, to use a pair of binocular field glasses I have to close one eye - kind defeats the object.

FWIW, a old guy I knew, now long gone may you RIP George, did the most amazing close up small machine work using a scrap 35mm camera and macro lens - a sorta 50cent fleamarket job.
 
Another thing to look for, on the cheap, are used surgical and medical stereo microscopes. I have a "JKH Hoppl" colposcope with nearly a 12" working distance and a 1" field of view around 5x magnification. The built-in fiber optic illumination combines with excellent optics to give a sharp and clear stereo view. With a change of oculars the power goes up to just under 15x; which is too much for most of what I do.
 
We built a fixture for Motorola many years ago and it used on of these microscopes held with a 1 inch rifle scope ring and the linkage of a magnetic indicator holder. It has a working distance of about 1 1/2 inches a metric scale and crosshairs which would be useful on a machine. I bought another for mounting on the lathe and mill. Thanks for the inspiration Conrad, maybe I will finish mine soon.
microscope.jpg
 
About 10 years ago I bought an AO "fourty" student dissecting microscope on ebay for $100 or so. I don't know a whole lot about this stuff but this has a real nice image. I recently bought a cheap usb scope and it is really crap - celestron I think. But still it is pretty useful. I had the idea to mount it on my optical comparator but have not gotten to that. I'd like to have a nice boom scope.
 
The instrument you are looking for is a colposcope: focal range of 25 cm or so and with stereo vision. They usually have their own multi jointed frame on castors......be prepared for weird looks if you start asking around for one from the medical suppliers.

Medical-Equipment-Supply-Gynecological-Colposcope.jpg


Nice set-ups. Where did you find the stereo microscope with the very long working distance and what magnification is it? Something like that might well resurrect an "improved widget" request thats on the back burner until I can locate suitable components.

Clive
 








 
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