Features:

  • Professional stereo microscope with boom arm has long working distance to enables users to perform work or manipulate large items, including circuit boards and dental appliances
  • Binocular viewing head with interchangeable pairs of 10x and 20x widefield eyepieces, adjustable interpupillary distance, and fixed 30-degree vertical inclination to reduce eye and neck strain
  • 1x objective provides low magnification and longer focal length for inspecting large-scale specimens
  • Adjustable gooseneck LED light enables users to direct the light where needed
  • 9" vertical working distance and adjustable 12" boom arm enables users to adjust the microscope on the X- and Y-axes
Works well for SMD soldering work

For $200, this is a fantastic deal. I'm using it for hot air SMD board assembly; and post assembly inspection. The 10X is good enough to see a 402 discrete and 112 LQFP. I also soldered a 200 pin, 1/2 mm pitch header. The 20X is really too much for assembly, unless you are doing some very small parts (maybe a 201 package), but is good for very close up inspection work. I personally would have preferred the 5X loops over the 20X. A 5X would offer a wider field of view yet have enough magnification to do most SMD assembly (the higher the magnification, the less of the board you'll see in the eyepieces). With the 10X I can only see about 1/2 of the 112 LQFP package in the eyepieces. As noted, the base is not the most sturdy I've worked with, but it does appear to be adequate (just don't try to use the head at a right angle to the base or spin the base around backwards so that the length is pointing away from the head). You want the length of the base aligned with the arm where the microscope head mounts. The only real complaint I have about the microscope is the height of the stand. It is about 1" too short for me to place my PCB pre-heater under the head (an Aoyue model 853A) and still have adequate height to focus the image. I had to sit the microscope on a 1" board to get the extra height needed. The optics are good, the lighting is adequate, and the controls are easy enough to use. I've had no issue with the image bouncing around while soldering components. The manual is pretty minimal but, as noted by others, really isn't needed. As an engineer I've spent 25 years designing custom electronics. At my day job I have a higher end AmScope and, after 5 years of use, I have no complaints. My work scope has too short of a focus to use for assembly but is great for inspection. Given the price of my scope at work, I was beyond shocked at the $200 price tag on this one. For my home use I had purchased a digital microscope for inspection, not knowing that a better option was available. By the way, I don't advise the $100 digital microscopes for any PCB work. The focus is literally less than 1" from the end of the microscope, making it pretty much useless for assembly / inspection work. Prior to purchasing the this AmScope, I used a stationary magnifier and reading glasses for my assembly work (at home). You can get adequate magnification, but it will cause sever eye strain after about 30 minutes. As with any wearable magnifiers, when the distance between your head and the work shifts the image will loose focus. For small variations, your eyes can compensate, but it does make them very tired in short order. I know this because I have a pair of surgeon's glasses I use at work for PCB inspection and (limited) assembly. These $1500 glasses are specially fitted and typically have a 5X to 7X magnification. The magnification is good enough for most assembly but barely adequate for inspection. The problem is going with a higher magnification will amplify any head movements and make it much more difficult to maintain focus on an object. Even guys who do assembly for a living have told me 2 hrs with surgeon's glasses is about the best you can do before taking a break. Beyond magnifiers, surgeons glasses, and inspection microscopes, the only other tool I know of is the Mantis Elite. This is a very high dollar microscope ($3K) that has a viewing screen instead of eyepieces; but at $3K this is way beyond the price of most hobbyists. One final note, if you get a camera with this, don't attempt to use the camera image for assembly. You have no depth information from a 2D camera image and will most likely either not heat the part or crash the soldering iron into the part. For the money, this AmScope is one of the best investments I've made for PCB work. At some point in the near future I will most likely purchase the 5X loops to go with this setup.

Perfect for microsoldering

This is working perfectly for me for soldering surface mount components to a circuit board. There should be assembly instructions in the box. Instead, there are instructions to download the manual, but that requires a password which is not provided. I emailed a fairly snarky customer service request suggesting that it was freakin stupid to password protect the manual and received a pretty hilarious response, plus the manual, so customer service gets an A+ Photo is 10x.

Great microscope for PCB work for its price

Great microscope for PCB work for its price, feels very solid, stays steady, good work space between lens and surface. Very happy. In the picture below small PCB component is a schottky diode 1mm long, installed it without any issues. Update: Working with 0201 components is also easy and actually fun, I even tried to install two 01005 (some dust particles larger than that package) components recently just to sake of challenge and it was easy too, all of that at 10x magnification. In the third photo you can see a board where at the top are two 01005 components, in the middle is 0201 and bottom/right is 0402.

Buyer's remorse...

I'm having a weird form of buyer's remorse - that I didn't buy this years ago! * UPDATE * Don't bother buying extra 5x eyepieces - they suck! The field of view shrinks leaving you with the same FOV as the 10x! I do electronics work and have long used magnifying visors (which remain absolutely indispensable for their wide field of view, convenience & portability) and have always meant to get around to buying a binocular microscope. I was to spend about $500 on a slightly fancier Amscope (still a great deal; friends have spent thousands on theirs) but noticed this very inexpensive puppy - with its huge working distance - and the reviews convinced me to give it a shot. Just unpacked it and WOW it's terrific value for money; doesn't feel cheap in the slightest; nice heavy base, the gooseneck LED light is bright and works well (a decent cost compromise compared to a more expensive ring light), the eyepiece comfort and image quality is excellent. Can't see myself ever using the 20x optics; 10x appears ample for SMD work; solder joints on 0402s and QFPs are very clearly visible. Most of all, the working distance is excellent; there's a ton of room for hot air / soldering iron. The relatively narrow field of view you get with microscopes means I'll probably still do a fair amount of soldering with my beloved magnifying visors but this scope looks to be extremely well suited for electronics work and ridiculously good value for less than $200. Highly recommended. Maybe I'll treat myself to a Metcal now :-)

Nice microscope for the price paid

Nice microscope for the price paid, 148-dollars on 16JAN2017, in the deal of the day. Outstanding tool to assist taking out splinters, determining the extent of damage to small parts, determining why small connectors fail, rekeying locks, reading text manufactures obviously purposefully make so small that they must assume no one is able to read it and similar tasks, especially for those over age 50. The 10x meets my needs, but I am keeping the 20x eye-piece standing by, if needed. My only complaint is that it does NOT come with Instructions, as is listed under "What's in the Box?" in Amazon's posting. AmScope wants to know when customers receive the microscopes, so force a registration, using a five-digit password printed outside of the box, in order to obtain the PDF of the owner's manual. I was thinking of taking off a star for forcing me to waste my time and printer to obtain a manual, but decided to just rate it on the value of the unit. It was cheap, heavy-duty and works well, so I am giving it five stars. Wish there was a cheap, reliable camera for this scope, but due to other reviews, I now have zero interest with purchasing an AmScope camera for this scope.

Very nice and well built tool! Perfect for electronics work

This microscope is very solid and well-built. I knew what the other reviewers had said, but even so, I was surprised at just how heavy the box was when it was delivered. It's very solid -- no "toy" feel whatsoever. No worries about it tipping over or anything. However, I almost dinged them a star on their goofy instruction manual download procedure. Instead of having a printed manual included, they had a pamphlet with instructions to go to their website and enter a password printed on a sticker that's on the outside of the shipping box. And then when you do all of that, you find that the manual doesn't say anything that you couldn't already figure out anyway. I can maybe see not including a printed manual with it, as so many people never bother with reading them anyway so why print it when people can just download it? Plus, you can more easily provide updates and additional data. But why the goofy password? It's not like anything in the manual is secret or proprietary or would be a benefit to anyone who didn't own the microscope. They should just post them all online available for free download with no passwords. I bought this scope to do electronics work -- specifically for tiny surface mount parts. However, if you plan to do electronics, you'll want to get the WF5X eyepieces too -- perhaps you should look at the version of this microscope with the 5X and 10X eyepieces to begin with. The one I bought came with 10X and 20X eyepieces and so I had to buy the 5X eyepieces separate. For moderate size parts, the 5X eyepieces are perfect and for tiny (0201 scale) parts the 10X are perfect. I don't know if I'll ever really use the 20X eyepieces. When I bought my WF5X eyepieces, however, I found a strange discrepancy in the reviews and AmScope product specs for the AmScope WF5X eyepieces. Their spec listed the 5X as having only a 11mm field-of-view, which is ridiculous seeing the 10X has a 20mm field-of-view, though another source listed it as being 18mm. The comments from reviewers were mixed -- some seemed to indicate the AmScope 5X and 10X eyepieces were both about the same field-of-view and another reviewer described a much smaller field-of-view, consistent with a 20mm to 11mm reduction. So with all of the mix of data, I opted instead to purchase OMAX WF5X eyepieces (part CS-X2AEX205C) which are spec'd as having a 20mm field-of-view. They work just fine on this scope (as both are standard 30.5mm diameter eyepieces) and I can confirm the OMAX WF5X eyepieces (that I received) have the indicated 20mm field-of-view. The working range for this scope is great -- no worries of crashing your soldering iron or tools into the scope. And the lighting with the single gooseneck LED light is good. However, I opted to also get their 6W LED dual gooseneck adjustable brightness light to use with it and be able to light things from both directions (to eliminate shadows). I do wish that the base of that dual gooseneck light was about 1/2" (~13mm) shorter than it is. If it were, it could be placed lengthwise on the base of this microscope as the perfect "add-on" without consuming more tabletop space. At least it will fit sideways on the scope's base without falling off. The only change I would really make to the scope is in the arm adjustment. Due to the height of my table and chair, using the scope as it was designed puts it a bit too high for me. So, I flipped the adjustment arm upside down so that I could adjust it at a slight downward angle and make it more comfortable. But if you do that, you have to be careful of not accidentally releasing the lever and crashing the head of the scope into your work. It would have been better if they had designed the arm adjustment slightly differently to where the lock position would already be at a slight downward angle (perhaps 20 degrees from parallel instead of the near 0 degrees that it is?). That would extend the control range significantly and still not risk crashing the scope's head. Maybe I should ding it one star for that? Though once you have it configured to your liking, it doesn't matter much. Prior to this scope, I was using a lighted magnifier in conjunction with reading glasses. But this is such a huge improvement. For the price, it was well worth it to upgrade. I have no regrets over this purchase.

Great microscope for soldering and other small work

This is a great microscope for soldering and other tasks that require working with small parts. It has plenty of working room underneath along the goose neck LED light that can be set to get light wherever you need it. I haven't had any issues with the base, everything is nicely weighted and it has plenty of room to move the telescope head up, down, left and right to get just the right angle for what you're working on. I have seen some reviews about the lenses coming misaligned but mine was packaged nicely and everything is aligned properly. The only con that I've found are the mainly the 20x lenses and their narrow field of view . It makes them almost useless for doing anything other than inspections of fine details. That said the 10x lenses are perfect for pretty much everything I do so to me the 20x lenses are just a bonus in case I really need to look at fine detail. To sum up, this tool is one that I wish I had a long time ago. I really can't see myself working without it and honestly if it broke tomorrow, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat. I've already recommend this microscope to many of my friends that do fine soldering work and they love it as much as I do. If you're in searching for a good microscope that won't cost you a fortune I suggest giving this one a try!!

Very Nice StereoScope for Surface Mount Soldering

The scope is of very good quality. Nice Styrofoam packing for safe shipping . It has a adjutable LED light for lighting circuit boards or other items under scope. I purchased the scope to use it for soldering circuit boards with very small parts. The scope comes with 10x and 20x lenses. The 10x lens brought the circuit board in too close for my taste. So I ordered .5x lenses from Amazon and dropped them into the scope and they do give you are larger viewing area of your work which in my case is circuit boards. The 10x and 20x lenses are great for up close inspection after soldering. The .5x lenses just works better for me to solder under. Your preferences may vary. The stand is of very good quality. The height adjustments are nice and smooth. One thing that is there appears to be a hole for mounting a camera in front of the fine height adjustment. The price for this type of scope is on target. It gives you a large working distance from the scope to your work piece which was another thing I was looking for since my main use was to be able to get a soldering iron under the scope and work comfortably. I use a air purifier with charcoal filter to draw the fumes away from the scope lens. With a .5x lens I get 8 inches of working area from the lens to the circuit board I am working on. Heavily made steel base, arms etc. Not a cheap plastic toy. Highly Recommend.

I have seen the light

Literally... I use this microscope almost daily, and when I'm not on it - my daughter explores her rock collection :) I use this primarily for hobby electronics and PCB work. Specifically for hand soldering or inspection of reflow or hot air rework attempts. Using just the 1x objective and standard eyepiece, you can actually see the solder balls in solder paste - it's that powerful. The most important feature of this microscope though is the working distance - almost a full 9 inches...just enough to get a hot air gun in place, but plenty of room for a soldering iron. The depth of field is excellent too...slight nudges won't knock your piece out of focus for instance. I have the model with the goose neck lamp and I have to say, after considering putting a ring light on - I'm going to stick with the goose neck for one important reason. Some times lighting straight on washes the features out, but being able to take a light source and aim it from the side - you can then see the markings on the chips or be able to resolve texture. The base is heavy enough to hold the microscope in place, but don't place too much faith in it. It will tip over with a nudge in the right place. Other than that - I have nothing bad to say about this model - it does what it said it would, and it's a fantastic tool for what I do. One thing I wish it had was a usb camera mount in the collector. You can stick one in one of the tubes, but then you lose 1 of your 2 view ports. Not a big deal but that would been a nice to have for recording soldering sessions.

incredible.

This is my first stereo scope for electronics and it's incredible. I had no idea what i was missing and feel very confident about using it for micro repairs I would never have attempted before. I was really hoping to buy one with a camera add-on but the price difference helped me settle on this one and I couldn't be happier. The working distance it gives is perfect for using a hot air rework tool, iron, scalpel, etc. For the price, the fluidity of the mounting movement is absolutely fine, although I can imagine with a higher end, more expensive unit, fluidity of adjustment would be better. If you're on the fence about this, just get it. You'll feel like you have a new set of eyes.

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