about microscopes........

[subkontrabob]

Hi folks,

as I'm preparing for my cutting project, I realized that I would really like to have a microscope for checking cutting styli and so on. In the "basic disk mastering" book it says, that the scopes mounted on cutting lathes have magnification ratios of around 200. Does this mean I would need a higher ratio to examine a cutting stylus in detail? How do you pros do that?

Looking around on ebay I noticed there are a lot of tiny usb microscopes with magnification of up to 200x. Does anyone have experience with these small buggers? They seem so tiny you could put them anywhere, for instance on the arm of the cutting lathe for cheap DIY style video monitoring of the groove, if you don't already own a VMS82.

Any ideas??


cheers,

Bob

[markrob]

Hi,

I've been using a DCM130 USB microscope camera with good results. This fits in place of a standard microscope eyepiece, so you need the front end guts of a scope for a system of this type to work. The software that comes with it allows you to create overlays that can be used as a template for measuring. I've not had any experience with an all in one scope, but I suspect the optics are not so hot unless you spend money. Its easy to find a used scope with decent optics and interchangable objective lenses for almost any magnification. You can then adapt it to the lathe.

http://home.comcast.net/~markrob1066/pwpimages/Scope1.JPG

The one in my picture has two magnifications of 130 and 260 when viewed on my computer monitor at full resolution.

Mark

[andybee]

yes, nice!
normally, it is recommend, to use 2 microscopes, one for the
lathe, and one for mounting the styli.
it is very important, to place styli in correct angle, to get
a perfect groove (the facets polish the groove).

[cohearent]

I have a Neumann ZA 12/68B for sale. It is specifically for changing styli in the SX 68/74 heads and could be easily adapted for others. PM me.