As your builds get smaller and your eyes get older, you might appreciate a little optical assistance around the shop. Stereo microscopes and inspection cameras are great additions to your bench, but often command a steep price. So this DIY PCB inspection microscope might be just the thing if you’re looking to roll your own and save a few bucks.
It’s not fancy, and it’s not particularly complex, but [Saulius]’ build does the job, mainly because he thought the requirements through before starting the build. MDF is used for the stand because it’s dimensionally stable, easy to work, and heavy, which tends to stabilize motion and dampen vibration. The camera itself is an off-the-shelf USB unit with a CS mount that allows a wide range of lenses to be fitted. A $20 eBay macro slider allows for fine positioning, and a ring light stolen from a stereo microscope provides shadow-free lighting.
We’d say the most obvious area for improvement would be a linkage on the arm to keep the plane of the lens parallel to the bench, but even as it is this looks like a solid build with a lot of utility – especially for hackers looking to age in place at the bench.
It’s funny, I just finished making an inspection “scope” today to get a better view of those tiny resistors on the MacBook Air motherboard waiting on my bench. I used stuff that was around and a couple of 3d printed parts to put all that together.
pictures here > http://imgur.com/a/1uW1U
That turned out really nicely! Well done!
I think a diffuser over those LEDs might help.
I’ll try either putting some tracing paper or replacing the clear plastic cover that came with the flashiight by some diffusing acrylic.
Melka’s solution looks interesting and is probably much cheaper than one presented here. OK, picture quality is also different but for workshop I would got to Melak idea.
It’s not fancy but “stuff what you just whack together to do other important stuff with” speaks to me a bit.
Gotta get round to rigging something for the Intel QX3 I picked up the other week at a yard sale. Might get lazy and lash it to an old anglepoise lamp arm. Macro slider would be nice though… might cobble it up from a 5.25 disk drive head mechanism.
Wonder if you could do a 100:1 reduction waldo so you can solder down a SM resistor like you were mortaring a brick in place.
Three-joint articulating vesa monitor arms that bolt to the table edge are also great for holding microscopes. Gives you a free table to work on because it doesn’t need the stand. I use a Hama one attached to my stereo microscope almost every day.
Good idea! I’m always a fan of repurposing off the shelf consumer stuff – low prices, finished look, saves fabrication time.
Does anyone know whether a telecentric lens ( http://www.edmundoptics.com/resources/application-notes/imaging/advantages-of-telecentricity/ ) would be good for PCB microscope? They are used in automatic optical inspection, as they eliminate parallax error in the image and provide good lighting. But I’m not sure if it would be a good fit for manual use.
While telecentric lens a nice piece of engineering, it is not quite suitable for manual PCB inspection. It’s expensive. It has no zoom. It has small aperture (dark).
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Saulius
How about this Telecentric lens 1/2 “4-12 mm C mount for US$40 ( https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Machine-vision-telecentric-lens-1-2-4-12-mm-C-industrial-camera-zoom-lens-focal-length/1463193_32857033737.html?spm=2114.12010615.0.0.71ad6dfcfCqhu5 ) is this deliver same result compared to expensive telecentric lens?
I asked the seller. She doesn’t know anything other than copy n paste specifications to whoever asked.
I have used one of the super cheap endoscope from Aliexpress with a helping hand. Works okay since I can change angles to look under ICs to check for loose solder balls. It’s also small enough that I can leave it in place while I solder. The bad part is it overheats after a couple of minutes if you set the builtin lights at full intensity.
Great Post about inspection camera. I really like it. I also bought inspection camera for android some days ago from http://trendyandroid.com/best-endoscope-borescope-inspection-camera-for-android/ . Really it’s amazing and has great features. And it can easily manage by android. After reading this post, I planning to make DIY inspection camera. Thanks for sharing an informative post.
Real exam of using in production with inox PIPE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfA0SBy__6M