Hi now. Countless people have been asking almost every video where I'm in the head shot like this: what is this weird looking funky Contraption here? Well thought we'd take a look at it. It's the Mantis Elite microscope from Vision Engineering. It's a real sexy bit of Kit Trust me.

Yeah! now I've done an unboxing video of this thing where I was pretty Dar Excited to unbox it so if you haven't seen that, I'll link in down below. that's got a bit more info in it as well. But this thing unfortunately is going to be a bit hard to review because how do you review something like this? stereo 3D microscope that is stereo and 3D And really, you can only see how good this thing is if you actually look through it with your real eyes so well I'm going to do the best I can. Um, it's not easy to shoot video through this this thing.

I'm just going to have to go into details about the design and construction and how they're different to these more traditional stereo microscopes with the eye pieces like this that you're more familiar with. now. the Mantis Elite is designed by a UK company called Vision Engineering, but it's not made in the UK and no, it's not made in China it's made in Connecticut in the US OFA of all places. go figure.

So there you go: UK Company made in the US and this is the Mantis Elite model. probably their most popular and probably the industry standard 3D microscope in the electronics. Industry They are the Rolls-Royce of stereo microscopes for soldering and electronics. inspection work, although a lot of Uh people buy them for other uses as well dental medical stuff, things like that.

it's available as the Mantis compact model as well, which is a bit cheaper but doesn't have the Dual lenses on it and Uh has a smaller Uh view window and stuff like that. They also have the Mantis Elite cam which is more expensive again which has a USB camera built into it but not that great for video. Apparently it's more for you know, demonstration purposes cuz those USB cams have the lag on them and things like that. Very typical.

It's on the universal arm here. this is probably the most popular arm, but uh, it comes with different arm as well that can reach right across the bench. or you can get like a little stand version kind of like this. like a compact stand you're only going to be using say Time 4 and time 8 or time 10 at most on this thing.

If you want to go higher than x 10, you really need a more stable Mount than this one. and that's well. they've got better options available and Vision Engineering have higher end microscopes, so this thing is not designed for high magnification. It is designed for low fatigue, lowlevel magnification, designed for actually working under the thing for long periods of time.

And that is the beauty of this sucker compared to your traditional stereo microscope. And we've got a selection of lenses here Time 4 time 6, time 8, and time 10 and they are super high quality glass. and as such, yes, they are fairly expensive just for the lenses and you buy these uh, separately. but most, um, uh, work in the electronics field with these mantis microscopes myself included I prefer the times 4 and the times 8 or the times 4 and the time 10 Time 4 for just general uh, work under and uh, time 8 or time 10.

Flip that lens in when you need you know, uh, to get closer into the work. If you're doing a little 0402 uh, solder in 0402 resistor or something like that, or a very fine pitch uh package, you want to flip in one of these lenses and the head as I'll show you later, allows you to mount two of these lenses at once. And price-wise for these lenses, we're talking 185 bucks for the times four. then it jumps up to 400 uh, and $5 for the time Six 560 and $575 Now, when you've got a real expensive lens like this, you don't want to ruin it by soldering under the thing and getting solder splashes up it right on your lens.

Or you don't want to accidentally lower the thing onto a heat sink and crunch or you scratch your lens. Oh, that could ruin your day. So I highly recommend if you're going to get these. Get these, uh, glass protection caps which just go on the bottom.

They're not expensive at all. They'll probably even throw some in for you and they protect your lens. Expendable But they don't, um, affect the optical quality at all. And the reason for the price difference is the sheer amount of glass in this sucker here.

weighs. You know easily four times what this thing does, so you can see where the extra cost is going in this thing. Now if you have a look at the bottom of the head here, it's got this rotating mechanism here which allows you to just spin in a one of two preset lenses. Got these thumb screws so you just install your lens in there like that, do up the thumb screw and you can have two lenses.

As I said I typically have a times 4 and time 10 or a Time 4 and time 8 at any one time and Bingo we now can flip in. oh it's it's. not going to do it here because it's on its side and the weight. huge weight of this lens.

but uh, trust me, it's a really nice high quality mechanism here that allow like spring loaded that flips these lenses in and out and it's very easy to do that when you have the thing installed. It's beautiful. Now this is actually the version. Two Mantis the uh, older version.

one had a bulb based lamp in there that used to blow fairly, uh, frequently. but this one is Led based. You can see the jewel strip either side LEDs there and they light up this thing. Now that's there is one thing I don't like about uh, the Mantis Elite in that it's just on or off.

That's it. There is no brightness adjustment at all on this thing. Um, but they've done it really well. I mean it's almost the perfect amount of light.

It's Shadow free for almost any subject you want to use. It really is nice, but sometimes I just wish it was actually adjustable now. a nice little Touch under the uh bottom of the head. Here under this little rubber grommet is a replaceable desicant bag and that's designed to, um, absorb the moisture which would, otherwise, um, you know, fa up your lens so that's really neat so you got to replace that periodically.

Now as for the mounting of this thing, you can actually get a uh, traditional bench clamp. Or you can get one of these uh bases which you just screw into your uh bench there either bolted in or screw it in. uh, whatever you want to do. and um, you can get multiple ones of these so you can move.

You know you can have different locations around the benches, but that's probably one of the other disadvantages of this thing is that it's so big and bulky that you know, really, you have to, um, carefully plan where you're actually going to put this thing on your bench and that just sits in there like that, and then you can just move it around your bench freely. But um, you know, there is a limited range over which you can use this thing on your bench. So you really do have to strategically plan where you're going to put that thing in relation to all your soldering gear and everything else. So the adjustment range you've got on this thing.

It's a, uh, fully counterweight. um, arm. You buy this arm, uh, separately. As I said, this is the universal arm and uh, it.

It obviously goes in and out like, like that. but as you move it in and out, of course it goes up and down, so you can't just move it up and down within the fix location. If you want to do that, you need the uh stand, uh, base one to do that. But so once you've got it like that, you can rotate the head from side to side with the same distance from the bench so you can sweep across your board like that.

which is really quite handy. But really, yeah, the key to this thing is getting the right depth on your particular particular bench for your particular requirement. And yes, to adjust your focus, all you do is lift it up and down. That's why they've got these two little ears on the side to just uh, you know it.

It is fairly easy. Like you just touch that. There's a bit of weight in it, you know. But it's fairly easy to do with a finger like that.

Just move it up and down. and the counterbalance arm on this thing is really quite nice and holds it in location very nicely. Very well engineered bit of Kit I Love it. And there's actually a friction control on the side here which allows you to adjust the friction that's used in that counterbalance system as well.

So apart from the movement up and down like this, with the uh, friction adjust control, we've got our light onoff switch on there. There's the cord just coming up through here. Apart from that, it doesn't require any, um, other power. It's a purely passive microscope.

The only other adjustment on this thing. Oh, and Swinging the lens. In and out. of course, the two lenses.

The only other adjustment on this thing is the uh. eye distance set in here. so you adjust that based on how wide or narrow your eyes are and that can make a huge difference to the viewing. So every time you walk up to one of these things and you can't and it looks odd and blur, you know you can't see it properly.

You've just got to adjust your eye spacing on it. So why do you want one of these big hulking things on your bench compared to a traditional stereo micro microscope that you're familiar with? Well, there's a couple of good reasons. A This looks cooler. Come on, you got to admit, right, it's freaking awesome.

But the main thing is, it all has to do with operator fatigue. Now, if you're using one of these traditional stereo microscopes, you're used to them before you've seen them. Okay, you've got to peer into them like this. You got to get your eyes right up to them.

Just you know, there's very little head move M Range allowed like this to get a good thing. And the other thing you'll notice is look I'm hunched over right? I'm hunched over looking at this thing. And if you're using a stereo microscope like this to solder under, then you're going to get tied really quickly with one of these traditional stereo microscopes. Not only because you're all hunched over like this and your head has to be in the right position.

And imagine sitting here for 8 hours, 10 hours straight. which I've done many, many times. Soldering boards. These things.

Man, you're you're just ruined after an hour at most. But with one of these puppies, there's little to no fatigue at all. And there's several reasons for this: A It's up higher like this, so you got a straight, You can sit here with a straight back and well, you adjust your chair of course. Woohoo! Go down a little bit and you just sit here and You have a much bigger view range like this.

You can actually move your head around back and forth like this and you have a much bigger you know body movement range when you're operating this thing and it's hard to see. Like I said, it's You know you really have to look through this thing to go. Wow, look at that right and like the viewing window inside that thing is like that. Big.

like it's huge. it looks I sit here like this and it takes up. you know, this much of my viewing range. but I get in here and I've got a yeah this has a similar thing but I've got a to be right up to the lens like this and you can have, um, problem using these with glasses as well I don't wear glasses.

Um, but I am assured by people who do that these things no problem at all with glasses and that's what you expect. So you get zero fatigue with one of these things. and I've solded for many, many hundreds of hours. 8 10 hours straight sometimes under this mantis Elite microscope or the ones I've had at work.

No fatigue at all. They're brilliant and there's not only fatigue from physical positioning, being hunched over, or having your head and neck in the one position like this, that's not the only. Advantage You also, uh, your eyes don't get as strained as well because with one of these microscopes, when you look through like this, okay, it's got a different apparent focal length than when you take your eyes off it and then look down at your you know, like you're always chopping and changing like this. Oh you know, having a look at things and then go in here.

Your eyes have to continually Focus adjust every time you do that and that can lead to fatigue. Huge amount of eye fatigue when you're using these things for many hours. But the apparent focal length? I.E The total focal length of this thing through the lens is identical to what you'd get if you're looking down at the object down here. So you just glance into the lens like this and then glance down there.

your eyes don't change focus at all. No eye fatigue. bril. Brant Now as I mentioned, this thing is stereoscopic.

3D So although it only has one uh lens on the bottom, just like your regular um, stereo microscope down here, it does have the two paths exactly like this one the two Optical paths so they come out separate and although it's only effectively got one port which you look through because this thing doesn't have eyepieces, I Mean it's an Eye Pess. Design Essentially, so, you don't have your traditional eyepieces on here, so there's essentially just one big viewing window and if you move your head like this, I might be able to capture this on the camera later if I can't Apologies: You have to look through these things to go wow and see it for yourself. I Move my head around the object rotates and I'm actually looking around the object. You can get that stereoscopic 3d effect and it's brilliant now.

I'm going to attempt to record some video through this and as I said apologies if it doesn't really turn out all that well, because it is quite hard to capture video through this thing because as I said, you really need to use your own eyes, your own stereoscopic eyes to look through this thing and go. Wow. Look at that. You know it really does work fantastically, but I'm going to give it a go.

now. the second camera I've got here. You'll notice that it is directly in line with the vision head there, but the camera I'm actually looking through the lens with is offset to one side like this at and an angle because that is simulating one of the human eyes. One is over here.

and if I had a second camera over here, I would be able to get a stereoscopic effect. if I put this camera smack in the middle and look through that lens, it'll just vanish. Look, see, you can see it on the LCD It just vanishes because there are that shows that there are truly two Optical paths in this thing. So um, yeah, I don't think I'm going to I might be able to set up uh, two cameras later to try and look through, but in this case you can see now.

I'll try and move this thing around and we might be able to get a bit of that stereoscopic effect if you can just see it sort of. you can see that USB connector there tilting around. and of course, if you zoom in, let me put fliping mytimes 10 lens in there like that I hope that's still in Focus hope I've still got it and then we can sort of move our head around like that. and yeah, it's We're kind of getting the effect there, but it is much better in real life when you rotate your head around now.

Vision Engineering do have really, um, much higher end models that really get down. I've showed it in one of my um, um Electronics Show video so if you want to watch that, a really high-end one which really has a massive uh 3D Optical range and allows you to rotate right around the product. but that thing is, uh, you know, five digits instead of four digits price. So but as you can see, I mean it is really quite neat to be able to look through there.

And as I said, you can just flip in the other lens and as long as you've got it adjusted to the right height, you don't have to readjust the focus on that thing as all you can just flip the lens in and out. And of course, you can get in here with your soldering iron as well. and you can solder under this thing because there's no. there's no delay.

it's a true uh Optical microscope. Then soldering under these things is brilliant. As I said. I've worked under these things for you know, 10 or 12 hours straight.

Sometimes you know we're barely coming up for air when you're Racing for a deadline and the fatigue is is very minimal to nonexistent apart from physical fatigue. Oh bloody hell. too much soldering. Want to go home? All right? I've got my two cameras set up uh, one through each uh eye focal plane down in there and I won't know until I edit this thing.

whether or not, uh, you can actually see any angle differences in there I'm not sure. um, you know I'd have to shoot and uh, upload this as a uh proper 3D video and you'd need the 3D glasses and everything else to view it. but um, there you go. I am able to get the two cameras through the eyepiece and you should really be able to see the shallow depth of field there as I'm very gently coercing the head up and down to change the uh focal adjustment range on this thing.

You see the top of the USB connector there and then if we move it down, you sort of focus on the pins. blow it Hopefully this is turning up on camera, eh? And in terms of physical working distance under this thing? Uh, where for the Times four lens, we're looking at about 80 mm working distance which is pretty darn good. And for the Times 10, we're talking about around about 50 mm working distance. So the Times Four, you can really get your soldering iron down in there at, you know, a great at at least 45 angle.

probably more like 60 angle or something like that. So the time's four. that's why I prefer to work under that one for General soldering work. and the Times8 lens uh there as well.

That gives you about 60 to 65 mm working distance. so that's why I prefer the X 4 time 8. uh, combo. cu the X 8 does give you a bit more working distance over the times 10.

Now I know I'll get a bunch of complaints unless I actually attempt to do some soldering under this thing. but it's not easy. when you're doing it like I am through the viewfinder of a camera standing up. you're I'm like half a meter away with my arms extended right out.

You know I'm not sitting down I'm not comfortable and I'm trying to talk at the same time. but I'll get complaints. So here we go. Let me put some flux down here and what? I've got I'm using the Times lens at the moment and um I've got a 0.5 mm pain in the ass micro Max package Here we go.

So I'm going to attempt to give this a go. First go. let's see if we can, uh, get it. apologies if it doesn't work, but we shall give it a go, shall we? It's really hard to position this when your hands are half a meter extended out.

Ah, there we go. I did get it there. We go slightly off angle on the other side, but that's all right now. I Know this isn't the best because those pads extend all the way out so it looks messy on these Proto uh boards.

but uh, in any case, we can get in there I'll apply some more solder to my tip and uh, this. it really is quite. uh, quite nice, trust me. I spent many hundreds of hours under these uh mantis.

Elite So I can certainly vouch for them being absolutely fantastic. Not my best effort, but there you go. I sold it under it so no complaints. thank you And it is possible to get in there at an angle.

So I've got my board like at 45 de and if I lift my head up to try and get that in Focus There you go. You can actually uh, look at things on an angle and as I said before, if you move your head around, you can actually get a 3d effect on that thing. and uh, it really is quite nice. trust me.

And one of the big advantages of this, when you're soldering, you can just whip it out of the way like that piece of cake. but if you don't have your friction lock on, then you have just just moved it in that direction and you've lost your focus. But it's trivial to get it back I mean it takes you know, seconds, bang, and I'm back. So for me to go like that and then bang cuz I don't actually have to look into the eyepiece.

It's like so easy. so quick. I Love it. Compared to stereo microscope, it's just fixed.

Now there's quite a few people who like to work under these. Maggie lamps on these articulating arms here. Move them around, you can clamp them onto the bench. Similar sort of thing to the mantis.

really? Now, um, these are quite good because they offer the same apparent focal length like this as the Mantis Elite does. So um, it doesn't have that eyepiece issue with fatigue and things like that, so you know you can solder under these for hours and hours without any fatigue. But the issue with these things is that the magnification sucks. You know you're only going to get like time 2 or time three magnification under these things.

they're not that great, but they do have that advantage of the wide viewing angle with the nice you know seated position and the nice apparent focal length. So the Mantis Elite really is the best of both. and I know people are going to want me to do a tear down of this thing to see how this puppy ticks and what makes it work inside. but I have been reliably informed that if I do attempt it to strip it down and see how it works, it won't go back together too well.

these are very Advanced and very delicate. Optical Instruments: uh, this thing has um uh, lots of mirrors in there beam Splitters uh some other Advanced physics and black magic so I am told and it's all patented to yeah, whatever and um so sorry I'm not going to risk taking apart this puppy I love it too much. So the verdict on the Vision Engineering mantis Elite microscope. Well, awesome as you can tell.

I'm probably in love with this thing because I've used them at every company I've ever worked at I've ever spec them in myself because I don't want ruined eyes, ruined neck, ruined back. they just so brilliant to work under. So I highly recommend you get one if you can afford it. and uh, really? I don't think there's anything else on the market that can match these things I Certainly haven't seen anything myself, so they are pretty darn unique, but there in lies the rub.

They are quite expensive. This is not a cheap bit of Kit and it's not something that probably the average, uh, hobbyist or Enthusiast or midnight engineer can afford to buy brand new. That being said, um, there are some people have claimed they've picked some up on the second hand Market Really cheap. like just the head or something like that.

but if you're going to do that, just be careful. Not all of the lenses fit all of the models and the previous models and all that sort of stuff. So eh yeah, just be careful. if you can pick up one of these secondhand at an auction or something like that.

Do it. They're absolutely brilliant. This thing, um, as you see it with the universal arm with this mantis Elite head with the X 4 and the x 8 uh lenses which I recommend. It's about 3,300 us bucks, but it's worth every cent.

Oh sexy. M But of course it's not all roses either. There's a few issues with this thing. Yeah, you don't get the greatest uh movement uh, range with this Universal arm.

you're better off. get in the articulating arm if you have to reach long distances and things like that so you have to be careful where you set it up. But as I said, you can, uh, buy additional bases like that and then just move it around cuz it does just lift off like that. Don't drop it I D Doubt it will survive.

So the other thing is that, um, it the light on it is not adjustable I'd prefer that. Sometimes you can't read some markings and things like that and you have to change the angles. Sometimes it' be nice to have an adjustable brightness light on it. and uh, the other thing is uh, if you want to document stuff through this record, video or um uh, pictures, there is a cam version which is more expensive which has a built-in USB cam but you can take photos through this I have done it.

You've seen it on my videos I've done it at work for documentation purposes. video shooting through this thing as you've seen so you can do it. but it's not that great. So yeah, if you want a proper documenting microscope, especially at high magnification, you're better off going for your traditional uh Tri Port uh 3D stereo microscope or something like that.

but although it's expensive, it is worth every sent cuz it really is a high quality bit of Kit I Highly recommend it. and uh, this one was supplied by Hawker Richardson here in Australia so thanks Jim um they're the official. Australian Distributors um and go to the Vision Engineering s if you want to look up your local distributor because you this kind of thing is not something that you just go. oh I'll order one of those because really you have to see through it to believe it.

Trust me, it is superb. The first time you look through this thing you go Wow! You know if you're used to a regular uh Maggie lamp or a regular um stereo microscope, you look through this thing and it's just fantastic. Like it's Utopia You can practically see the OA Loompas in there. and the dealers who sell these things know that wow factor is what sells this.

So really, they will happily come out to your workplace or something and do a demo of these things. Most dealers will do that. So if you want to try before you buy which I highly recommend you do Um I think you'll be sold? Yeah, expensive but man I Love it. Catch you next time w.