Enterprise versus "consumer" grade drives

You should be able to find Luxo lamps for way less than that. About $20
at the flea market and $50 with shipping from ebay.

Most people have gone to "3D" microscopes for board work. In fact, the
scope I got probably 20 years ago was $300 with the freaking heavy base.
(Bausch Lomb Stereo View 3). My recollection is the higher number B&L
scopes have plastic gears in them and don't hold up well. The B&L 3 goes
from "1 to 2.5" on the zoom, which is how you can identify one. I'd hate
to pay the freight on one of these, so local purchase is the way to go.
Craigslist perhaps, or electronics/ham swap meets.

Often universities sell off these stereo microscopes in their surplus
stores. Basically universities use imaging these days rather than
microscopes.

The stereo scopes for board work will have a long arm and a heavy
platform, or even come with floor stands. This is so that the scope can
be positioned over area of interest. It is not like a scope you used in
high school biology where all you looked at were things on slides.

If you go on ebay, item 321005021191 is a stereozoom 3 with long arm. It
doesn't have a heavy base, but for ebay, that is probably a good thing.
It looks like the base is designed to be mounted to a work bench.

Silicon Valley must of had tens of thousands of these old stereozooms
back in the day when we built stuff.

Item 261113646524 is an example of the heavy platform. It is a ball
buster, so I doubt the 30lb shipping weight. All my ring lights flicker.
I just use a high intensity light off the side of the scope. I need to
build a lED illuminator one of these days.

miso wrote:
You should be able to find Luxo lamps for way less than that. About
$20 at the flea market and $50 with shipping from ebay.

Or $50 from Staples. That place's price is so ridiculous I doubt I'd buy
anything from them.


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