USB Stylus Microscope???

[Etnier]

Anyone have a suggestion? Would like to be under $75.00 US.
I don't even know what magnifications are most useful.
FWIW I use a Mac.

[lini]

Would you want that thingy just for general stylus inspection or particularly for stylus wear judgement?

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

[Alec124c41]

I use one marked Celestron, that I got a couple of years ago. It works with Photo Booth.

Cheers,
Alec

[Etnier]

Would you want that thingy just for general stylus inspection or particularly for stylus wear judgement?

Stylus wear evaluation will be important.

Thanks, Alec- I see a couple Celestrons on Amazon....

[fscl]

Discussed a bit here with older (now obsolete ) hardware. Anyway, a start and venture into fleabay....

Good luck

Fred and believe it's all in the lighting.....

[Hanuman]

Would you want that thingy just for general stylus inspection or particularly for stylus wear judgement?

Stylus wear evaluation will be important.

Thanks, Alec- I see a couple Celestrons on Amazon....

I'd try to find some expert advice first on spotting and evaluating evidence of wear on a stylus - I sense that it's not trivial, really a "trained eye" pursuit. It seems a good idea for the purpose of getting the geometry right, though.

[jimbo1421]

I use one marked Celestron, that I got a couple of years ago. It works with Photo Booth.

Cheers,
Alec

Hi Alec,

Do you have any pics you could share that would show how good a USB scope needs to be to evaluate a stylus?

Jim

[ripblade]

I don't believe any USB scope would be sufficient to determine wear extent. I have both a USB scope which I use for VTA analysis and an optical scope with optional CCD head for stylus inspection. The only method that provides sufficient resolution is full optical, imo.

[jimbo1421]

Hi ripblade,

What is the make and model of your optical scope. I would like to learn how to read stylus wear since there does not seem to be anyone here in Albuquerque who can do it. Posting images here might be a good place to learn.

Jim

[ripblade]

It's a student biological scope marketed by Amscope. It's made in China but the build quality and optics are quite good.

http://store.amscope.com/m200-ms.html

Also ordered 2 other eyepieces at 5x and 20x to increase the magnification options.

The light has to be altered to position the sources on either side so it reflects upwards off the stylus. The stage had to be replaced with something thinner to use the 40x objective lens. This is not absolutely necessary as 200x (10 x 20) is adequate to view the wear patterns.

More details can be found in Sparky's thread at AK.

The CCD camera head is also very well made, but lacks the pixel resolution and fine colour definition that optical viewing brings. It is useful only for posting images on the web. There are much better ones available but it seems pointless to me to spend more on the head than the scope itself. Note that this is still substantially better than the standalone usb scopes being discussed here.

http://store.amscope.com/mu035.html

Benz Wood L2 - 200x - 50hrs.jpg (387.34 KiB) Viewed 751 times

Benz Wood L2 - 50x - 50hrs.jpg (367.77 KiB) Viewed 751 times

Benz Wood L2 - 20x - 50hrs.jpg (449.18 KiB) Viewed 751 times

Note that the magnifications mentioned above are only estimated. The camera head comes with a 0.5x reduction lens, but I find it difficult to quantify it's meaning against what I see with the optical eyepieces.

[jimbo1421]

Thanks, ripblade, for taking the time to post these pictures. I can see how it would be hard to tell if a stylus is worn or not.

The scope is on sale at Amscope for $108 plus $98 for the camera.
Jim

[ripblade]

No probs, jimbo.

Everytime I've looked the scopes were always on sale. For the money, they are a great deal.

By the time shipping and duties were included I paid closer to the list price, but for me it's worth it because I buy a number of used cartridges, an affordable way to explore the range of sound brought about by the different varieties.

[Etnier]

Very informative. Many thanks for this!