I met a jeweler 25+ years ago and told me that he wasn’t perfect it was that his mistakes were too small to see - he worked under a microscope
4 Likes
Microscopes will change your life.
There are many cheap microscopes on the market. My personal experience is, don’t waste your money.
Good optics are exactly that. good optics. The Meiji EMZ-5 Microscope with Acrobat stand has been the standard for the industry for a long time. These are crisp to the edge of the viewing area and will make your life easier. Zoom ranges from about 7X -22X with the objective lens and you have plenty of room to work under the scope. Higher magnification gives you a very short depth of field. Meaning if you focus on one prong, that is what is in focus. To see the rest of the ring or prongs near by, you have to re-focus.
is
The Leica® A60 Microscope Kit with Acrobat™ Versa Stand has brighter clearer optics and a greater depth of field. This means that when you are focused on say, one prong. The entire ring or most of it is in focus. This saves time and the depth of field is incredible. For the money, this is a jewelers dream scope! The depth of field and a wider viewing area makes stone setting and engraving much easier. The extra expense will be made up for in time savings in a very short period of time.
I found that Optivisors were not doing the trick for me any longer and got a scope. I wished I had done it years ago.
Phillip Scott G.G. GIA
Graduate Gemologist
Technical Support Specialist
Rio Grande, A Berkshire Hathaway Company
1.800.545.6566
4 Likes
musashi1
May 9
I met a jeweler 25+ years ago and told me that he wasn’t perfect it was that his mistakes were too small to see - he worked under a microscope
Very well put!
1 Like
Thank you, Gerry. You are a great friend to me and the jewelry industry.
Get one but it doesn’t have to be that pricey. You will love it. If you got
the money just falling out off your pockets get that medji otherwise I love
this one and I accidentally bitten the knobs and beat it around pretty
good. Focal distance is what’s important. This one is $300 ish.
Shannon
2 Likes
That was supposed to be burned the knobs. That’s pretty funny. The
predictive text on here from my phone is always the worst.
Thank you scavengergr for your post!
As I wrote before, I have an Amscope which is much cheaper then a Meji, Zeis or whatever.
It does what it has to do en that is enlarging without disturbing my view.
I understand the luxury you need to have if you work many hours day in and day out with your microscope.
I also understand that my scope may not be the best choice for everyone.
That, however, doesn’t mean that a scope is bad just because it’s not expensive enough.
For what I do, I get a nice sharp and crisp non disturbed view setting stones a small as 1mm.
I can position myself in a very relaxed manner to do what I have to do.
Yes I know, I don’t have a support for my head or for my eye distance.
If you’ve the money and need the best, please go ahead and buy the best you can spending 1000 of dollars…
But don’t say that cheaper microscopes are crap just because they are cheap.
If they’ve so poor quality, people stopped buying them.
Something must be good to my opinion and not only the price.
Anyway, go for what you need and can effort.
1 Like
Thanks for the info Phillip! Shopping for microscopes really confuses me.
Julie
1 Like
Is this for sale? Why is it posted?
I will add my 2 cents to the discussion of how much to spend on a bench microscope.
While a scope like the Mejii is more costly than some other options available out there, the optics of the scope are magnificent, and makes working under the scope a pleasure.
When I bought a tool to allow me to see my work in greater detail, I figured optics is exactly what I was purchasing, and if I needed to see better, why then not spend enough to really see better?!
I have never once regretted purchasing the Mejii and the Acrobat stand almost 10 years ago.
I hope this post is received as neither heresy nor off topic. Two sections background then questions
BACKGROUND
As stated in other posts I’m a hobbyist and novice and 74 years old. Got involved with jewelry about 2001 and primarily work with silver gold and pewter. And my work is focused on taking my designs and replications from concept through original wax, master, mold, new waxes, investment, casting finishing, and usually giving as gifts. I can relate to many who have vision challenges. In the detail work although I have not yet engaged in using gravers or stone setting.
I would like to have a scope for three primary reasons:
- Spot Inspection through the the process.
- Work inspection on fine detail
- Photos or video while doing SOME work
I’m seriously thinking about setting up a camera that will connect to one of my computers and display a magnified image on a monitor in front of me during the work. Cameras are relatively inexpensive that can magnify.
QUESTIONS
a) Anybody have any experience doing something similar
b) What is a good focal length in order to be able to work in the space between
c) Anybody ever done this from a DIY perspective
Let me conclude by saying this is not condemning or criticizing you professionals who I appreciate and admire and for choosing the highest quality that can be afforded. Our needs are different.
regards RLW
Sorry the description did not get into the post. No it is not for sale. It is my set up and i promised a foew others to post it a few weeks ago and never got around to it.
There is a small digital camera on a flexible gooseneck marketed as Dino Lite that some use. It has a USB connection. I think it’s $200-$300, probably less somewhere. It doesn’t have fantastic resolution but I think it would probably do what you want. Worth investigating anyway.
Mark
@mpandfamily THANKS all I can say is WOW https://youtu.be/xI–gZyl0rI since I’m a …alohic fill in the prefix with toy, tool, etc this is exactly what I was thinking of.
Regards RLW
We recently got a Dino Lite camera like Mark described for doing appraisals. The resolution is really pretty good. The accompanying photos are of a customer’s antique diamond rings she brought to us for appraisals. Before getting the Dino Lite, we were using my Meiji 8TR scope with a video camera, but it was pretty awkward as it is an older coaxial style, meaning we had to wire it to a PC using a video coax cable into a DVR board installed in the PC. Then using a DVR program, record a video and then take single frames. With the USB version of the Dino Lite and the software it comes with, we can view the image in real time on the PC monitor, snap a picture, edit it by adding arrows and text and then copy it directly into the appraisal. It also can display and record videos.
The only minor complaint I have is that at very high magnification it’s a little fussy to get the image centered. When the focusing ring is in a position that makes it accessible, the image is reversed so when you move the piece to the left, the image moves right. The magnification level is determined by the distance from the camera to the piece and then focused, so the closer the camera is to the work, the higher the magnification and the higher the PITA factor.
It works very nicely for our purposes and may be exactly what you’re looking for Ron, but I think it would prove to be pretty worthless as a true bench scope. I’ll try to post a photo or two of my bench mounted 8TR video system for you. I think that it’s more what you’re looking for, but unfortunately it’s not inexpensive by any measure.
Just for what it’s worth, when I competed in the Smart Show Bench Challenge series several years ago, Stuller had provided big screen monitors above each of our benches connected to Dino Lite cameras aimed at our engraving blocks. While we used the Meiji scopes at the benches for our actual work, the peanut gallery could see exactly what we were doing via the monitors in real time. Worked pretty well.
The first photo was taken specifically to show the abraded facet junctions on the crown. It is also possible to set the focal length so internal inclusions are visible. The second photo shows how tight it can get. The third photo shows more of an inspection type of picture, like I think you’re referring to Ron. We are into the whole setup for about $400.
Dave
.
Note From Ganoksin Staff:
Looking for a microscope for your jewelry projects? We recommend:
- Reading our guide to the best microscopes for jewelry work here
- Searching for more discussions about microscope here on the Orchid forum
1 Like