Cusom Toolmakers Microscope

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, please move if needed

I work for a company that have been looking for a custom Toolmakers Microscope for nearly a year. I reached out to this forum last year with questions on our current microscope, but now we're ready to build some new ones.
I have had countless meetings with Keyence Laser company that has a profilometer laser that will work perfect for our application. The big hurdle is finding/making a fixture for it. The engineering company that they use wants to automate this laser but it is not feasible for our company. We literally have 1000's of parts in our inventory and only run small batches, so having the operator manual check the parts is our best best.

What I want is a retrofitted toolmakers microscope with this Keyence Laser head on it, with a monitor above it. Does anyone have any recommendations or knowledge in this field? I have emailed a few microscope companies with little to no feedback.

Thanks!



Here's a link to the forum discussing what we currently use
https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...90-degree-image-352115/?highlight=leitz+scope

It's not that I want the microscope aspect with the Keyence laser, I want the Toolmakers Stand part.

My company has struggled finding something to duplicate the Leitz microscope that we currently have. We have met with Leica (who now owns Leitz) and they have never seen our microscopes, nor can they duplicate it.
We have found that the Keyence laser can get us the accuracy that we desire (microns) and the pixels that are needed (we have angles and radii in the tenths) to measure most of our measurements.
I would like to use the laser to project the thread form (we make complex flat thread dies so a simple comparator won't work) and then use micrometers to measure everything. The programming aspect of the Keyence laser isn't realistic for us because we have really small orders with thousands of unique parts, so if we could combine the accuracy of the Keyence and the manual aspect, it should work perfectly.

A picture of your current microscope would go a long way in getting us to understand what you need.

Since the sensor seems to do what you want why won't just about any toolmaker scope with the new head mounted on it work?
Some integration, some very picking mounting and alignment but seems straightforward.
I'd have to question of a laser style vs the white light stripe that you have but I don't know what Keyance equipment you are looking at, depth and field of views, tolerances and acceptable error band.
This doesn't seem like a really, really hard to solve problem so I'm surprised that microscope or machine vision guys have not helped you more.
Do people run away because the budget is too small or do they just not seem to understand how to do it?
Your application and user needs are indeed intriguing.
Bob

Keyence has software for their high power optical microscopes (VHX series) which will do exactly as car2 suggested: give you an image, let you measure on it, save images for quality assurance, etc. I routinely used one to measure optical fibers and the aluminum parts they were packaged in to similar tolerances to what you're looking for. They can do also do fun things like sweep Z and generate a 3D model of the image and automatically take, stitch images along a line, some image recognition stuff as well. Very simple to use and the automation that makes the operator's job easier on a day-to-day basis is built right in (there are tons of ways to add software automation as well, which it sounds like you don't want).

I don't know how that compares to the laser system or whether the control from the VHX system could be hooked up to the laser, but I think it's worthwhile to ask Keyence.