Microscopes are really useful!

[willbewill]

These are the best pictures i have ever seen:

http://new-hifi-classic.de/forum/index.php?topic=1918.msg56910#msg56910

A bit out of my league - can't afford a quarter of a million for a reasonable electron microscope.

[wer]

Even the cheap ones are out of our league 

What i found fascinating is to finally SEE what a used stylus looks like - not a shadowgraph or a reflection, but the actual wear pattern.

[richard]

System just ate my post, and I'm out of time.

Breifly:

I'd really like to see some shadow pictures from you guys. That Micro Acoustics tip is probably one of their own proprietary designs. A few shadow shots of it at different angles may be revealing. For the shadow pictures, you have to  illuminate the tip from behind so that it blocks out the light.

I'm very impressed by the linked photos by the guy who used an extra lens on his ordinary camera. He got better shots this way that we have obtained with our "microscopes," and he apologized for the optical distortion! I wonder if we've been driving ourselves crazy for nothing!

I've seen SEM photos before, from Stanton who had the money and inclination to invest in it. They needed to see what they were making because like Micro Acoustics, they actually ground their own diamonds themselves.

[Wil de Vrede]

Denon DL-160 Needle Tip, all 4 pictures seem to have a different needle...



New Grado G-1+ Needle Tip, 'Feathers' came from brush...



New Micromel D5107 - Stanton 500 Replacement Needle Tip

Definitely gonna try the trick with the double SLR lens, must be better than this...

[richard]

Your #2 shot is the most useful type. It's got the best contrast.
Now, if you can get the same shot, but from the front, you can best see the needle's wear.

[DeccaSG]

Here's a couple of shots of the new paratracer on my Decca Super Gold. 400x magnification. Not the best quality but you can make out the profile to some extent.



This is a pic I took a while ago. IIRC it's the standard stylus on a Decca Export.

[JayM481]

I got a 400x scope from Maplin, but I can't figure out how to get it to magnify that much - the zoom and focus are locked together, so I can either have focus or magnification. I must be missing something.

[willbewill]

It's a bit fiddly and frustrating but doable. The scope seems to have 2 points of usable magnification. 10x and near 400x. 
You turn the dial to just before the stop to get max magnification.
Lock the scope as rigid as poss in the stand and tape it down if necessary.
I blutacked the cart body (so it could be adjusted) to a flat surface and moved it around gently until the image became clear. It was then a matter of finding the diamond but thats the fiddly bit. Took a while as every tiny adjustment seems to shift the focus point eratically at 400x.
It's best to use your keyboard to take the shot as the button on the scope knocks the focus out. I think it's either F11 or F12.

Persevere and you'll be rewarded.

http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=3796.msg79393#msg79393

[richard]

Jay,

It might be useful if you post a picture of your microscope becuase there may be information about it under a different name.
Your control problem may have been caused by awful software. In my own case, the software provided under two different brand names is close to the most offensive programming that I've ever tried. It won't allow manual control, and adds a lot of video noise as it performs automatic compensation that I don't want because it interferes with looking at needles! Un-documented, I found that the microscope connects to the computer via its built-in standard TWAIN interface. I cen see the images in the free Windows program Irfanview, and best of all, use the microscope's interface directly, controlling it manually. In Irfanview, I can trim the picture, adjust contrast, brightness, color balance, etc., and save the image in a variety of formats. This has improved the results dramatically and changed the microscope from an entertaining toy into a useful tool. You may be able to do the same thing.

Malcom, I guess that you were answering DeccaSG.
The Veho microscope in your link looks like a good candidate for modifying. I can envision this one mounted onto the stand of an old better-grade childrens' microscope, becoming nicely usable for looking at needles.

[JayM481]

My scope may well be the same thing, as it has Veho software, and looks like the Veho ones I've seen on EBay. On another site it was suggested to remove the plastic shroud from the fornt so it can get closer to the stylus. Another suggestion is to go with 200x as it's easier to get things in focus, but I'm not sure if that's enough magnification to analyze wear. However, my main interest is to try to use it for SRA adjustment.

Richard, I'll give Irfanview a shot and see if it makes a difference.

[Wil de Vrede]

The first thing I needed to do was removing the transparent cap in front. That gives way to the needle tip. You can bring it up close if you have to. Mine goes to 200X, only when I lost it completely I zoom out again. Still have to try the big lenses, because I have not found the right combination yet. Your pictures are pretty good! I use Photoshop for improving the pictures, IrfanView is a free alternative, easy to use too...

[richard]

My microscope was last seen in the USA (maybe still) under the name "Blue Coral." It is huge! That's a problem, becuase due to its size, it's going to be very difficult to make it fit onto better microscope stands (the worst of which will be better than the garbage stand that came with it). I expect that I'm going to have to saw off the lamp housing shape that's on the scope itself in order to add a "booster" lens.

I want to stress that I think that this microscope, itself, is quite good. It's the other crap that comes with it that spoils the stylus fun. The microscope is independent of the base. It carries its computer connection directly, and actualy transfers USB power through a connector to the lightbulb that's in the otherwise almost worthless base.

If you installed offensive software because that's what the instructions said to do, it may be useful to uninstall that software. Then connect the microscope to the computer. I believe that on a Windows system, the computer will then report "Found new hardware," and then it will (hopefully) get to know the TWAIN interface that's built into the microscope.

[willbewill]

Richard is this yours?

[richard]

Yes, Malcolm, that's it. What's the name on this one?

Mine was marketed as some sort of joint venture between Intel and the toy company, Mattel. Later, by Blue Coral, with the same horrible software, with the lightbulbs changed to LEDs. I think that I've seen a photo of the same thing in France, under a different name, colored gray.

In the picture, you can see the huge size of the microscope itself. It slips into the base from above and can be removed in a second. There's a "shutter release" button on the microscope, so you don't have to take the picture with a software click. It can be hand-held, but that's out of the question in a high-magnification mode. I think that the optics are high-quality plastic, protected by a glass slab.

[Wil de Vrede]

First a few unedited microscope 200X pictures of my newest Micro-Acoustics 2002e cantilever tip taken from front end, needle is unsharp underneath:
Solid Beryllium is shining like a diamond 



And the needle tip:


Dirty needle tip       Clean needle tip


Backlight left        Backlight right


See through diamond    Frontal Facet


A zoomed out microscope picture of the Mission Solitaire cartridge. The next time around some more pics of the new Mission Solitaire with the bonded tip, not a solid diamond. (Might order the Jico SAS, shhhttt ):