Today, my wife’s surprise for me arrived. I had NO idea what it was … she kept telling me that I’d love it and that it was something that we had spoken about previously.
Turns out, she was dead right … I love it!
My surprise was a USB Digital Microscope (50x optical 200x digital magnification).
My eyesight has been getting poorer over the last couple of years and I’ve been getting more and more into wanting to solder SMD … in fact general soldering was only happening because of my 20x desk lamp/mag. It seems that, as my interest/need for closer and finer work has increased, my eyesight has degraded correspondingly, ah the joys of getting older.
The stand that comes with the device is nice, but not that practical. The first thing that I did was take the magnifying glass off one of my “Third Hand” tools and mount the microscope on that.
That lifts the scope end of the device up by about 10 cm, giving me enough room under the scope to actually work.
Next, I played with the software that comes with the scope. It’s pretty simple to use, but it has enough functionality to make it very useful.
Now I can …
look at components on an Arduino clone and identify them.
look at my SMD components in their packaging (and identify them)
some NE555 SMD
0805 2N2222 transistors
0805 Super bright White LED
Identify Diodes
IN4148
See the colours of resistors … although, I’m still colour-blind. I’m still taking it on faith that these are 10Ω resistors
One day, I’ll write some software to identify the resistor by colour … ‘till then, I’ll use my multimeter for that.
Look at some of my soldering work and identify the IC type
As well as inspect my soldering and printed circuit boards
Overall, I am very happy with my present … now I need to set it up on the laptop on my electronics workbench. I probably also need to make a better stand for it. I’ve got a mini camera tripod, maybe I can make an adaptor for the attachment … hmmm … gears are whirring in my head.
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