Hi. Now you might notice that the video and audio looks a bit different today. It's because I'm using my old blogging camera my Sano uh exacty Hd1010. And here's my regular blogging camera: the Canon HF G10 on my Manfroto Tripod.

It's a very nice bit of Kit and why am I not using it? It's a good question. It's because I'm going to turn this into a very usable, very nice little soldering microscope. Uh, one that not only gives you a live view update on the screen, but of course allows you to record it as well. Should be neat.

Let's give it a go. It's real easy too. Now, as you've seen in a previous video, I've got one of these very nice uh, very old uh Olympus SED series stereo microscopes and it's fantastic for SMD work. I've got one of these LED lights on it.

it's really quite nice. It uh goes from 0.7 times up to uh four times on here but it's got time 10 ey pieces which gives a range from uh s times to 40 times and so that's perfect for SMD Soom work. and I've also got a couple of Um objective uh lenses for it as well. one wide angle and one closer up.

So I can double the range I can either if I get a wide angle uh, objective lens on the bottom here I can double my working distance. if I get a uh x, two um Ive lens on it, then I lower my working distance but I double my magnification and uh you. if you've seen that previous videos you'll know I've tried to make a little adapter which goes on here that I can put my old blogging camera I'm using onto here I've been trying to make it with my MakerBot I've been having a few issues with that. it's a real Annoying and then you can't look through the microscope anyway cuz it's got not the uh Tri type with the separate Video Port So you know I want to sometimes uh, video and record my soldering and things like that.

So it's really quite annoying trying to get my camera in at various angles and stuff like that. And the lights not right? So I thought what if I could somehow replace this with my regular camera? it's got a Time 10 zoom on it. Wonder if it's possible? and I know there are people who are curious about the S Z Olympus SZ microscope. So I just show you up close here.

excuse the handhold. So there's the 0.7 times through to four times. I've got uh two * 10 uh, wide filled eyepieces and uh, I've got an objective uh lens on the bottom here. that's actually a half times objective lens so that doubles the working distance.

Um, of well it improves the working distance of the microscope and that's important cuz when you're getting your soldering iron under here, you don't want to have to come in at a real shallow angle like here, that's that's really bad news. and if you've seen some of my previous soldering tutorial videos, that's what I've had to do. It was very difficult and I wasn't actually using this I was using another magnifying glass in front of the camera and I had to come right in at a shallow angle like that and that's really annoying so you want a big working distance in there. So uh, and also here's the um, uh LED lead ring as well.

It's uh, got, It's just. you know it's a cheapy on eBay but it works very well. It's got a brightness adjustment on the side here and simple onof. and it is a lead ring.

so there's LEDs all the way around the bottom of that and I'll take that off and give you a squee at that. So there it is, and it's uh, it works really well and lights up. Um, your your board the object uh, you're working on or soldering really well and and that's an absolutely essential bit of kit for SMD soldering. So I got to start thinking about sort of, you know, custom mounts that use the existing base plate from my tripod and stuff like that.

or maybe even making a separate stand and things like that. But it was getting a bit, uh, convoluted. so I decided to take a look at my standard man froto uh mono I think it is uh model, uh tripod and it's a very, uh, basic one. Quite cheap, but it works really well and it does allow you to tilt the camera like that directly down.

so aha, look at that. it's already pointed down and there's a decent amount of working room there as well. And by the way, that's a uh, typical, uh, two times objective uh lens for my Olympus stereo microscope. So I just take off my 0.5 times uh Widefield one there and I can replace that with the two times anyway.

Um I can just take the hood off my Uh Canon HF uh G10 camera here. and I've got one of these nice little Um Opteka high definition X 10 macro lenses which fits directly into the 58 mm thread on my Canon camera. It just screws in here and you saw that in my previous uh, tear down video. I was using this um handheld and it works really well for up close stuff.

It's fantastic and as it turns out, it's got a very usable working distance. Now the only really major issue I have with this lens is that, um, it's got the big thick black surround around there and when you put it on, that actually blocks my um highspeed uh Focus uh window there, but it does still work cuz it uses the Uh Focus via the image itself, it's just not as fast. I've also got one of these real ELO eBay closeup x 10 lenses so it's the same thing time 10 but it gives a bigger viewable area. allows me to use the instant autofocus, but it's not as good of quality as the opteka uh one.

So I'm going to use the Opteka one here. So what happens if I actually do that? I put my camera on here and it's of course, um, quite high up. I can move this, uh, distances. but look at that working distance there.

It turns out that that is, actually, um, too far. I've got to get in much closer. So there's a trick you can do with this particular tripod. and uh, if you're a photography nut or something, you're probably already familiar with it.

If you knock out the little uh, rubber grommet at the end like this, this tripod, just it slides out like that and you can reinsert it under the bottom like that. if I release the catch and then go, you can turn it upside down like that. So we've now got it upside down and it's a closer range like this now. Um, the other good thing about this Manfroto Moto is that I can actually, um, adjust this and the legs can actually go all the way out flat and you can do other weird things so you can get it lower that way the right side up.

but I'm not going to bother with that I'm going to put it upside down like this and all I've got to do then is take off my well I just rotate around my tripod attachment and Bingo I'm set I can now insert this thing upside down and I can get much closer and adjust my range like that. It only goes up to that height, but as it turns out, that happens to be the past the maximum usable distance anyway. so I can go all the way down to, you know, just a couple of cenm an inch off the ground there. Perfect.

But of course of course this sort of rig isn't going to be any good unless I've got a decent light and it just so happens that this uh YK s48t um lead ring adapter if I wind out all the little thumb screws there It just fits over my opteka lens on there. Brilliant. so don't I just tighten those up. it fits with a couple of millimeters to spare Bingo look at that.

I got myself a beautiful little Um microscope adapter. closeup holds it perfectly. vertical. Brilliant! So now I've got my camera on its stand perfectly vertical.

I've got my LED lead ring I can adjust the light like this and uh, I haven't uh spent much at all cuz I already had this existing kit. Okay, this is a very expensive camera, but the tripod is cheap. It's only like uh, even. You know, $90 here in Australia or something.

The LED lead ring is about $30 and uh, it's and the Uh lens. that was a reasonably good lens. It's about $20 OD dollar or something. The cheaper ones are uh, you know, under 10 bucks.

They practically give them away. but this I can light it up and let's flip out the Uh screen here and let's give this thing a go and see if we can get it working now. I'm trying to focus in on a little uh 5 Pin sock 23 package down on that board there which I wanted to uh sold and as you can see it's um really uh, it's it's doesn't focus at all if I zoom right out I can get some Focus that uh red um thing you see in there is my uh peeking. it shows me where I'm actually in Focus so it highlights all the edges in Focus So I know those rings on the board are in Focus cuz they've turned red and when I go out, um it's just completely out of focus.

But we can fix that by simply adjusting the height on here because once you put these objective lenses on here, they will have a a fairly narrow working range based on the zoom. So um, you know if I adjust the zoom there, it's You know it's not bad for that sort of thing. but if I want to zoom in and use this as an actual microscope, I'm going to have to adjust it. So I'm going to put that to full time 10 magnification okay on my camera of course and uh, that's that's my internal one and if I adjust the the height of it here here, let's go down.

Bingo There we go. Bingo we got it. So look at that. that is spot on.

That is maximum Zoom that's times 10 uh Optical zoom on my uh Canon Hfg10 plus with the uh time 10 uh objective lens um on there as well but it's not going to be time 100 of course. but look at that. that is very nice. That's a five pin so 23.

And the good news there is the working distance is quite reasonable I Can get my soldering iron in there at better than 45 angle. The LED uh light gets in the way a little bit, but geez, that's pretty good and much better than what I've had before. Now you'll notice that my Uh screen text hasn't flipped so my image is actually upside down I Can actually fix that in the software but as it turns out, I don't have to because check it out. It just so happens to be the correct.

There's my look I move it up and it goes up I Don't have to invert everything I move it right. It goes right so that you don't have to flip anything. That screen is the perfect orientation. Brilliant! Now the only unfortunate thing about uh, this Opteka lens right at the extreme zoom on my Canon camera is it's only focused in the middle.

outside is has got uh, distortion there around the edges. Um, but that's not a big deal I can certainly see the object I'm working on perfectly. All right and now I'm actually recording on my Canon HF G10 under the microscope here and uh, people will uh I would people would get quite upset if I didn't actually do some soldering under this sucker? So I've got my pin here I'm going to want I've I got my real fat tip on my iron there my fat chisel but I can certainly tack that down there we go, that's tacked down ah, near enough and it will allow me to get should allow me to get into there and solder the other pins. Let's give it a go.

Beautiful! I was, uh, quite a shallow angle there so I got the other Pad but uh, not a big deal. Excellent. Well, I've got to admit, it's not quite as good as my nice stereo Olympus microscope or a nice proper uh mantis uh scope stereo microscope or something like that ones that are specifically designed for the job. But jeez, the working distance um is is quite usable.

That's the bulky part there I need to flip that to the other side there, but that is definitely a very usable working distance and you get a live update on the screen. And because this camera has a HDMI output as well, I could hook that on to a large Monitor and get uh a live output on that. That would be fantastic. And in case you're wondering, can I do this without the objective lens? uh on there.

can I just use the Times 10 zoom in the camera and the answer is unfortunately no because this camera like uh, most, uh video cameras like this, have a uh usable well. If you zoom right in the uh Focus distance needs to be like half a meter or something like that so it's got to be a long way away. so it basically doesn't work. you've got to have that extra objective.

You got to add that objective lens on there so you can get closer at uh, larger Zoom levels and get that macro capability. Now there's my SEO Xati HD 10 hen uh camera I've been using to uh, shoot this. That's my old bloging camera and well, is it possible to use that one and mount it on the tripod as well? Well, as it turns out, yes it is. It's real easy.

So what I'm going to do? But once again, you need that objective lens I'm going to take the Times two objective lens uh from my Olympus microscope. Once again, you can buy these fairly cheaply on eBay and I'm going to stick that on the front of there. it uh, doesn't screw in of course, but uh, nothing I can't fix with a a bit of electrical tape And here it is. Check it out, isn't it brilliant? I've uh got I've taped on my Times 2 uh objective lens onto there and uh the macro lens which is what is the key to this capability and I've screwed on with the Uh thumb screw clamps I've screwed on my LED ring onto there.

Doesn't it look great? Looks like a death ray and I can switch this sucker on. Look at this. I can record anything and I've got my LED light. Brilliant.

Love it. Let's give it a try to see if it actually um has a usable distance now because this one is actually the gun style uh camcorder. It does sit out much longer way from the tripod, but it sits on there very nicely. I like it.

uh and we get that's the maximum uh working distance based on my uh tripod there. but uh and you can see we haven't uh zoomed in but let's zoom in and then there we go. So I'm zooming in. Let's go up to maximum like we did with the cannon so that's times 10 optical zoom on there.

so I need to adjust the uh distance on this to get our absolute Focus there it is. It's a little bit uh, lower working distance than the cannon but check that out, it's that's with the Times 2 objective lens and that works. a treat. There's uh also some uh Distortion around the edges.

you know what? I guess you'd call that Barrel Distortion or something like that around the edges of the lens there at full Zoom but that's with a Times Two objective lens that works a treat and I can still get. you know there's still a good 45 angle in there where I can get my solder and iring and now I'm recording on my SEO Xati that's on the tripod there. I I'm touching it. It's wobbling around because I'm touching it.

So I'm operating the zoom. uh, you can see the Distortion around there like like that. It's not quite as good, but uh, you can definitely use this thing as a solder in microscope and it's the exact same deal with the rotation of the screen on this one as well. If I move my solder and I up, it goes up.

If I move it right, goes right. So there you go. There's a very simple do-it-yourself homemade soldering microscope using your existing camera. an objective lens a uh LED ring.

Lighting's essential. Trust me, you really need some decent uh LED lighting on there and one of these invertible uh tripods in this case the Man Froto Moto and that works an absolute treat. I can now record my um soldering uh stuff for the blog. Absolutely brilliant.

So if you've got an old Uh video camera, should pretty much work with any um old video camera with a decent optical zoom. It's worth a try. Not a direct cor replacement for a uh, you know, a good high-end stereo microscope, but not too bad at all. Give it a go and if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up.

And if you want to discuss this, go on over to the Eev blog. Forum Catch you next time.