Some things go together, like chocolate and peanut butter. Others are more odd pairings, like bananas and bacon. We aren’t sure which category to put [IMSAI Guy]’s latest find in. He has a microscope with a built-in digital multimeter. You can see the video of the device in operation below.
The microscope itself is one of those unremarkable ten-inch LCD screens with some lights and a USB camera. But it also has jacks for test probes, and the display shows up in the corner of the screen. It is a normal enough digital meter except for the fact that its display is on the screen.
If you had to document test results, this might be just the ticket. If you are probing tiny little SMD parts under the scope, you may find it useful, too, so you don’t have to look away from what you are working on when you want to take a measurement. Although for that, you could probably just have a normal display in the bezel, and it would be just as useful.
At about $180 USD, it’s not exactly an impulse buy. We wonder if we’ll someday see an oscilloscope microscope. That might be something. These cheap microscopes are often just webcams with additional optics. You can do the same thing with your phone. If you don’t need the microscope, but you like the idea, can we interest you in a heads-up meter?
This opens an entire area of possibilities. I’m thinking you can create some type of AR to detect pin 1 of an IC and project the pin numbers on it. Or go crazy and use OCR to detect the IC type and also add the pin names.
I would like augmented reality in the lab too.
Take it further, have our board designs recognized and be able to see layout, schematics, refdes’s, net names etc, floating over the board. And the scope screen too (with an option to screenshot the trace and save against the net,) One day….
That might actually be more feasible. Add a QR code on your PCB and have the computer detect the orientation using the fiducials.
That exists: https://www.inspectar.com/product
even better
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/03/oscilloscope-and-microscope-augmented-with-ghosts/
Like this?
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/18/augmented-reality-workbench-helps-you-to-debug-your-boards/
Bananas and bacon and maple syrup!
Plus, you can use the banana for scale.
So it’s a $20 digital microscope with a $10 multimeter and a $150 markup. Oof.
That said I’m surprised the combination hadn’t been tried before, it’s a good idea.
My guess it’s about EUR50 for the LCD alone. EUR30 too for the camera with lens. EUR35 for a decent stand and EUR15 for the DMM. All put together in a neat package.
The price also seems on par with other microscopes with integrated LCD.
I quite like the idea. I had a similar idea myself, but I don’t really know yet how to put a DMM display in my Amscope stereo microscope.
But overall, I’d probably rather make something similar from separate parts. A camera with C-mount and the lens you like, combined with a small linux computer with TFT, or a tablet that can also be used for other purposes.
When it’s a generic pc, you can also use it for looking up schematics, datasheets and other info while working on your electronics project.
I’m also a bit relieved I’m not the only one fiddling with probe contacts. Starting from 03:45 he needs 17 seconds to measure 5Volts. This sometimes happens. Anyone else have similar experiences? Maybe it’s oxidized probe tips, the flux residues, or just unfamiliarity with the gadget or LCD latency, just to make a few guesses.
I like cheap multimeters precisely because they beep fast when they find continuity, where my fluke takes a second because it’s so much more thorough in what it’s doing. But if I’m dragging a probe tip across a bunch of pins to see which one’s shorted to ground, it’s sure nice to only have a hundred millisecond delay for that beep. I generally use cheap probes but when there are issues with contact, those needle sharp probe tips seem to fix the problem in a hurry. Just don’t drop them on your leg. Or leave them sticking out off the edge of a table.
And yeah, I’d far prefer this to have an ohmmeter over a voltmeter as its display, although maybe that’s an option. Either way, this would be quite useful.
Continuity testers must be quick, and this has nothing to do with the price of a DMM.
I don’t know about that fluke brand, why would anyone ever buy a fluke?
My 30 year old dynatek has maybe a milli second or less response time, and I’d also expect that of any decent meter. The main goal is to quickly drag a probe over a whole row of pins from an IC, and then know if any of the pins have continuity. When there is no continuity, move on to the next IC, when there is continuity, then spend some more time to figure out which pin of the whole row it was.
My next DMM is going to be a Brymen. Probably the EUR200 “top” model.
It’s very similar (both in price and accuracy / reliability) to a fluke, but at half to a third of the price.
I also saw a project on the EEVblog forum for a DMM continuity response time tester. It has an uC for the timing and an analog switch or FET for making the actual connection, so contact issues due to “probe issues” are eliminated.
Quite useful. I am tempted to build the microscope myself.
teardown inside?
chipsets,Insulation….
Just use an overlay generator and port your own info to the screen…
Overlay is easy with CVBS. With digital video, it is a another game…
BEcause I’ve watched a few youtubes with microscope images I already thought about this subject and I looked at the availability of HDMI switches with PIP, and they are actually widely available but the cheap ones are limited in functionality and you get a fixed size window.
Still though, both HDMI switches and monitors (and TV’s) are available to insert a second signal, which would allow any kind of instrument to be displayed when viewed with a HDMI-output camera; or sometimes the measuring device actually has a video output.
10″ isn’t that big but it’s still moving your eyes, if you’re going from one corner of the screen to the other. it’s not really any less than if you had your voltmeter mounted beside a monitor, or if it was stacked on top of your oscilloscope. the whole AR thing would be more of an improvement, if the information would show up over the component that it describes.
but you really can get a lot of benefit out of properly mounting your test equipment. “duct tape a multimeter to the side of a monitor” sounds pretty underwhelming but it can be a huge improvement. personally, i built a little wooden pocket to hold my multimeter vertically right beside my oscilloscope and it is great! i used to always have to try to find a good spot where i could set it down, see it, and not have the probes tangled up…this 100% solves about two and a half of those problems :)
At about $180 USD, it’s not exactly an impulse buy. We wonder if we’ll someday see an oscilloscope microscope. That might be something. These cheap microscopes are often just webcams with additional optics. You can do the same thing with your phone. If you don’t need the microscope, but you like the idea, can we interest you in a heads-up meter?
No need to wonder
you featured one already
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/03/oscilloscope-and-microscope-augmented-with-ghosts/