Micro Soldering Microscopes

They don't list it, but a critical feature of their microscope is the stereo or binocular eyepieces, which allow you to see depth. Single-eyepiece lab microscopes do not let you see how high or low the soldering iron tip is from the board!

A TL;DR:

1. Binocular microscope to see depth.

2. 4" or greater working distance, achieved with a Barlow lens, not <1" as on other microscopes.

3. The best and brightest ring light you can afford.

4. Stable mount.

Also, with regards to #3, I found their recommendation of LED ring lights odd:

> At $30/each and requiring us to keep a few in stock in case one blew, we found that although halogen lights made it easier and clearer when examining motherboards, the reliability, flexibility, and low operating cost of LED lights prevailed in the end.

Surely $30 every 3-4 months is a tiny fraction of what their work is worth. I pay that without hesitation, because the light is just better. Also, the 200W heat of the halogen bulb is far away, at the end of a fiber optic cable, while the 40W of LED lights is right under my eyes and near my hands, and I have a gentle fan to move soldering fumes away so only the latter is bothersome.

I was a solder monkey for a summer, and did a fair bit of soldering at university. I also have pretty marginal vision and can't even read out of my left eye without correction.

I found that with practice, you don't actually need magnification for SMT soldering. I can solder down to 0603 without magnification. I have also never used fine point irons, since I was taught how to solder SMT using a medium point. Trying to solder individual connections is a waste of time, use flux to direct the flow of solder, and desoldering braid to clean up the excess. Good lighting was my most important tool for good soldering.

On the occasions I did use magnification, I found the best tool was the big stand mounted magnifying glasses with a light ring. We had a really fancy one at university that gave you really good stereo vision using some magic.

I've recently moved to an eyepieceless microscope, and it's really quite an improvement over traditional stereo eyepiece microscopes. They are made for SMD work and part inspection, and generally max out at 20x (which is plenty of magnification for SMD work).

To see into the microscope, you look straight ahead into a viewing window. There's a huge margin of error for head position; you can move your head around quite a bit and still keep the image visible. Additionally, it's much less strain on your back, as you're not hunched over. Your focus distance when looking into the microscope is the same as when you glance down at the work, significantly reducing eye strain. These microscopes can also be used with glasses. (Quick summary video here[1])

One of the coolest parts of this setup is that you can actually change your 3D view of the object simply by moving your head around. You can actually "look around" the magnified object. It's hard to describe how impressive this is -- experiencing it in real life is quite astonishing.

As far as I know, there's only one eyepieceless microscope on the market: the Mantis. Buying these new[2] is very expensive ($3000, plus $500 per objective lens), due to the massive optics inside the unit. However, you can find the older models on eBay for $500, sometimes even including some objective lenses.

I recently got a cheap one from eBay that needed a bit of repair, and now have it mounted to my bench for general inspection and SMD work. If you end up going this route, I recommend replacing the MR11 halogen bulbs with LED bulbs.

Dave Jones (of EEVblog) is a big fan of this, and has a good video describing it[3].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpN83dv0f7Q

[2] http://www.visioneng.us/products/stereo-microscopes/mantis-e...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3o0EWHEH08

For hobbyists that don't use the microscope every day and don't need stereo optics, I can warmly recommend the Andonstar ADSM201 (around 160$ from China). Look on Youtube for reviews, the image quality is great and it can be connected directly to a HDMI screen!

Edit: There's also a guy on Ebay selling polarized lenses for it to get rid of reflections.

Reminded me of this recent marco reps video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EfMRKujWAY

Of which, great youtube channel to subscribe to.

To solder SMD, I use a 'reading aid' from Tieman.

Example : http://www.dlf-data.org.uk/product.php?product_id=0033982

I have an AmScope stereo microscope. It certainly gets the job done for me. For the amount of time I spend using it, I am very happy with it and glad I didn't buy anything more expensive.

One of the PCB assembly houses I use has purchased some AmScope stereo microscopes. They use them as "backups" for their higher-quality microscopes and have them sprinkled through the plant so they'res always a microscope near by and you don't have to walk far.

I have that same Amscope setup, but without the camera monocular. Working distance is key for an inspection/soldering scope; the more the better.

The ring LED is not strong enough. Go with the fiber light, though the potentiometer crapped out on mine and I had to replace it. It’s not UL listed either.

Can take decent pictures just holding a camera up to the eyepiece, through lose about 1/2 the field of view.

You can get fiber LED, but those are $1500 themselves.