All right, this is a um this is the Mantis Vision Elite stereo viewing head. um so thank you uh Vision Engineering. They uh kindly uh donated this for my use and for a review as well. Apparently it's got the three uh magnification heads in it time 4, * 8 and * 10 according to the invoice.

Pretty darn expensive and this head once again, don't quote me on price. but I think it's like 1,500 bucks or something just for the head. And then there's the mechanical arm as well which is in a separate box. So um, here we go.

We're going to open this sucker up. so these are not cheap. but these are the rollsroyce of uh of stereo microscopes because they do something that the regular stereo that the the regular stereo microscopes don't. They allow you to view um the like like you don't have to have.

hang on oh no I can't can't get down. but but you don't have to have your eyes like right up to the eyepiece like this which is really straining and if you're uh, doing that for you know, hours on end, you just you get a bad back. you get bad eyes, terrible. These things just allow you just to peer in with good posture and all that sort of stuff.

Just peer directly into it and they're fantastic. And I've spent many hundreds of hours. Oh look at this. hang on.

Oh yeah, that is pornographic Precision Optic smell if there ever was one. Fantastic. Now this is great. Everyone could see this.

Yeah, not all L Lenses fit all man modules Mike Yeah Mike's got one if you look at Mike's videos. Um, here it is and they've got some. Hey, this is quite nice. They've actually got little plastic Clips in here which hold this plastic molded case.

This is really quite nice. They' yeah, there's like these clips in here this molded case and they got finger things here which I think lifts it out in one hit that's really quite nicely packaged. I assume it's not going to drop cuz these things are very fragile. That's why they've got um, you know, handle like glass, you know, really.

uh, fragile thing. So yeah, they've got these black black plastic straps here which, uh, hold the two pieces in place so that's really quite neat. I Like that. that's uh.

that's really quite novel and because these apparently have I was told do not open this, do not do a tear down ruins the calibration all the critically aligned B Beam splitting Optics they're all patented and all that sort of stuff calibrated hand calibrated at the factory in It's a UK company but they make them in um estate in the US sorry I uh should read my email from the manufacturer I will do for the review I Plan on doing a review of this thing. um but uh, here you go. Where're uh, this is really a this is awesome. here we go Tada There is a mantis stereo Mantis video head and these are the absolute rollsroyce of video um of stereo microscopes.

Trust me. If you're doing any El Elonics work, get one and you got a budget at work. Get one of these puppies cuz they're just great. You can solder under them all day and uh, and they comes from Hawker Richardson here in Australia they're the distri, they're the Australian they're the sole Australian Distributors the official Distributors they're the ones who sent me this so thank you very much Hawker Richardson and uh, they sell and service these and they're magic.

There it is the Mantis Elite and um I've got another box over there which comes with the mechanical arm and stuff but I don't know if I'll bother. uh opening that and there's there's the bottom. there's the you can see the leads. the the old ones I I used to use actually had a um uh they actually had a lamp and it was a fairly expensive lamp and it did wear out occasionally.

but um these new ones have the LED and these you can spin. you can spin that around and so you can have two different eye pieces in there and you can spin the different eyepiece in place so you can. you know chop between say times I I Used to love using that time 4 and time 8. so I would uh have a Time 4 and time 8 lens in there.

You know time 4 for General work and then You flip it around x 8 when you want to sold her a little 0402 or smaller part or something like that. But there you go. That is the Uh mantis. Elite uh.

microscope Serial number: 25,000 25 Beautiful version: Two: it's got written there so that's really quite neat. And there's a mirror down in there and uh, whole lot of uh, patented Precision Optics in this thing. Really quite neat I Love it. That's awesome.

actually. it's surprisingly light like I thought they were actually heavier than that, but that's you know, it's not bad at all. There's no way I'm taking this AP part. Yeah, these things are not cheap.

These things are expensive I Think you know I Don't quote me on price, but I don't think you can get one under two grand with the with decent lenses on it. Um, so they're You know they're definitely the Rolls-Royce Hang on. All right, let's have a look. This is the Mechanical arm.

It should be the lenses. There's no lenses in there. so I'm assuming that uh, I'm assuming that the mechanic that the lenses will be on here cuz according to the invoice, um, I have three lenses. So all right, let's have a look.

Here's the Mechanical Arm and so the main disadvantage of these mantis lamps is that they're um, is that they are fixed. You can't like just move them from one bench to another or around on your bench. You've actually got to drill them. Don't think there's anything in there.

You've actually got to drill them into uh, your bench. So there's a don't want to lose that So that would be the uh power cord for the light of course. So there's the end of it. It's got a really nice that's that's where the head attaches on this rubber.

uh, on this rubber thing here. so it swivels. Um, so hopefully it's got enough swivel range that uh, you can do that. But there we go here.

We got, uh, broke it already? There you go. So Hawker Richardson Local suppliers thank you very much and vision engineer in that's the Uh. And there's the for the Uh lamp in there, the plug pack. it's got a light switch on it and uh, apart from that, yeah, it tilts.

you know, so you mount so you screw this into the into your bench down here and then it tilts down this way and it swivels and uh so. and I've had one of these at um, every. um I think pretty much every lab I've worked at because I've either spec them myself and bought one for the lab or uh, or somebody else has cuz they're the duck's guts for uh SMD soldering so they're really quite nice. and uh, you can buy different mechanical arms.

There's like this is the most popular one. um, but I think you can buy different arms for them apparently. So there you go. that's uh, it's going to be fantastic.

So I'm going to do a review of that and I'll store it and uh, here we go. Mantis Time 4 time 8 and times 10 uh lenses. and yeah these are not cheap like you pay like um you know you pay like 4 $500 I think for one of these lenses but let's have a look at the time 10 lens cuz these are really Precision Optics I mean this is the highest, you know, the highest grade Optics you get and uh oh by the way, these this mantis is designed for low um uh low magnification stuff like time 15 Max or something. So like Time 4 to time 15 for specifically for electronics um type work.

but uh, they do make the company do make other models for uh um, you know like a proper stereo microscopes that you know go to times 200 and 500 and all that sort of thing. So but yeah there's some really nice Precision Glass on that and uh yeah they cost a lot of money and these things these things are not cheap for a reason. So that's a Time 10 lens. And unfortunately the other disadvantage of these things which you no doubt talk about in the review is that you can't uh uh, you can't actually record.

You know you can't hook a video camera up to it or a Ste camera. They do have one model. a new model um which hooks up a webcam to it. um but it doesn't even do video.

it only does Stills and yeah, it's not that great so that's one of the main disadvantages of uh of these things. Better not lose that. that's the plug pack and oh, what else do I get that looks like a big cover? That's right. You get a big plastic um cover so you can put over it so so you don't get dust all over your nice Precision microscope so that looks like yeah I think that's it.

think that's it in the box. So there you go. That's the Mantis cuz it looks like a pre mantis. I guess it's they're very cool.

They're awesome So thank you very much Vision Engineering for uh, getting me one of these puppies. I've always wanted one. That's one of the things I've hated about having my home lab here and not having access to a work lab anymore. is that I didn't have access to one of these puppies so they're very cool.

Oh look, there's two screws on the top that's tempting. That's tempting should I I don't know Oh I was I was told not to I was told not to take this apart I would regret it um by the manufacturer So uh, not good. So there you go Tada unboxing of a mantis scope? Yeah, um yeah. Mike I'm going to try and I haven't try like I've I've taken photographs through the lens of this before like just with my little compact camera and I've been able to do it.

Um, but I've never put a video camera through it so it's going to be interesting to see um, how the video camera works and whether or not I can get the 3D sort of. you know movement and whether not, there's a sweet spot on there I'm going to have to try it. No, no. 3D but Zoom works well.

Okay, cool. thanks. Mike Definitely yeah because you've got one. Have you got the old model? Mike because this is apparently the new some Mark 2 model or something? I don't know and.