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The easy way to view small objects Scopeman large screen video microscope One of the most intriguing instruments we have come across for a while is the Scopeman. It is a medium power microscope which is not viewed directly but via a conventional colour TV receiver. It makes viewing small objects at high magnification as easy as pie. By LEO SIMPSON Getting a close look at an object is not easy, when you think about it. Sure, we have had magnifying glasses and microscopes for several hundred years but these are not necessarily the easiest to use. Say you want to closely inspect a finely tracked printed circuit board for the quality of its platedthrough holes or the solder joints for surface mount components. You really need the magnification of a medium power microscope but putting a large printed circuit board at the focus of a microscope and lighting it properly is not easy at all. Even when you are able to set up a microscope to view a board, only one person at a time can look at the image, squinting through the eyepiece. Wouldn't it be so much The Scopeman is dead easy to use. Just place the camera handpiece directly on the object to be viewed and it comes up in glorious colour on the screen. Note the light from the camera which is via optical fibres. 16 SILICON CHIP easier if you could just bring a miniature video camera right to the object and then view the image on a colour television monitor? Wouldn't it, indeed? That's just what the Scopeman does. Just place its camera head right on the object to be viewed and its image appears at large magnification on the colour screen. For example, take the camera head and place it over a standard metal film resistor which may only be 3.5mm long, with five colour bands which are very hard to decipher. The result is a huge image of a resistor, 17 5 long, with brilliant colour bands which are easy to read. No camera shake You don't have to worry about camera shake or bringing the object into careful focus or the lighting. It's all just so easy. As long as you can place the camera head directly on or over the object to be viewed, it will always be in clear focus, even at the highest magnification. Having tried the Scopeman at our Collaroy, Sydney premises, we were fascinated. We then had no trouble coming up with a long list of applications both within the electronics industry and outside. In fact, while it has obvious applications in the electronics industry, there are many, many more outside it. For example, in the electronics industry, the Scopeman is ideal for printed circuit board inspection, at all stages of manufacture. It can examine the various stages of etching, cleaning, plating through of holes, centring of holes and quality of plating on edge connectors. This shows how dramatic the Scopeman can he. Jean Reynert holds the camera handpiece directly over two resistors on a disc drive. The resistor bodies are actually 3mm long. Magnification on the screen is 50 times. Other lenses give magnifications of 100, 200, 400. On a good quality computer board, the edge connector electrodes look like substantial slabs of gold! In the record pressing industry, the Scopeman can easily examine the surface quality of metal stampers and pressings. It can also examine video heads and drums for wear, as well as capstans, tape guides and the rest of the complex mechanism of a video recorder. Many applications Those are just a few applications in the electronics industry but when you look outside the industry the list gets a great deal longer. For example, in medicine, the Scopeman is a handy tool for diagnosing skin conditions. It has obvious application in pathology, in police forensic work, examining fingerprints, the rifling on bullets, paint damage on vehicles and so on. In horticulture, the Scopeman is a wonderful tool for examining plants and leaves, in detecting plant disease and looking at leaf structure. In geology, the unit is excellent for looking at minerals, fossils, shells and corals. It also has application as a crack detection tool in the automotive and engineering fields, for close examination of antiques, paintings and jewellery and in the fields of printing, entomology (studying insects) and textile manufacture. In fact, it can be used for virtually any application which requires a medium power microscope. Technical details In essence, the Scopeman is not a microscope at all but is a handheld colour video camera with its own internal light source and fitted with a close-up lens. The unit we examined was the Scopeman MS-503 which is a desktop unit about the size of a personal computer. It measures 350mm wide by 120mm high by 350mm deep. On the black front panel it has two knobs which control the light intensity and the selection of optical filters. In between these two selector knobs is a large multipin socket which is a camera ea ble connector. The camera unit is quite small, about 150mm long and with a diameter of 25mm. It has a number of interchangeable lenses which simply screw on and off to change the magnification. The inbuilt light source is a 100 watt halogen lamp with a dichroic SEPTEMBER 1989 17 selected to optimise the image. Besides red, sky blue, blue and green filters, there is one for infrared and one neutral density filter. Automatic or manual white balance is also provided. The internal light source is 3200°K. Magnification factors This untidy mess is actually Leo Simpson's hair, magnified 50 times on the screen. It looks just like monofilament fishing line. mirror. The light from the lamp is passed to the camera head via optical fibres. In this way, the light is aimed exactly at the image which is therefore always amply lit, regardless of the ambient lighting. The camera itself is a ½-inch CCD (charge coupled device) image sensor with approximately 270,000 picture elements. In conjunction with the MS-503 desktop unit, it produces a standard composite PAL video signal which can be displayed on any colour monitor. The recommended monitor size is 34cm. Larger sizes would be good for classroom applications but the 34cm size is best for viewing by the user of the camera head. The camera has an automatic iris which adjusts to give best picture contrast within a second or so of a recognisable image appearing on the screen. Once that has happened, the user can then adjust the brightness of the light source to bring out the wanted highlights in the image. Various filters can then be This is "closed cell" grey foam rubber at 50 times up. On the screen it looks multicoloured, like soap bubbles. 18 SILICON CHIP Four lenses are available giving effective magnifications, assuming a 34cm video screen, of x50, xl00, xZ00 and x400. Interestingly, the lenses themselves do not provide the high magnification; most of it is the natural enlargement between the ½-inch CCD image sensor and the video screen. The four lenses have actual magnifications of xl, xZ, x4 and x8. Each lens has a transparent plastic cap over it and when this is placed directly on the object to be viewed, the image will automatically be in focus . Because the lenses have such low magnifications they also have quite reasonable depth of field, ranging from ± 0.4mm for the x50 magnification to ± .05mm for x400 magnification. It is because of this depth of field and the low lens magnification factors that the Scopeman is such an easy instrument to use - much easier than a conventional microscope. As an additional capability, the Scopeman can be linked to a video recorder so that images ca n be stored for later reference. There is also an optional video still recorder All Japanese watches have a serial number on the dial but you need a Scopeman to read it (50 times mag.). LOOK AT THESE BARGAIN PRICED KITS OUR LATEST UHF REMOTE CONTROL (EA JAN 89 and APRIL 89) • • • High Security , Low Power Consumption . Switch and Indicator Relays. Up to 50 metre range. COMPLETE KITS TRANSMITTER & RECEIVER ONLY $49.90 Extra Transmitter Kits $17.00 ea PASSIVE INFRARED MOVEMENT DETECTOR (EA MAY 89) • • Uses Special Dual Element Pyroelectric Detector. Kit includes two Lenses. SPECIAL BARGAIN PRICE $34.95 Interface Components $7 .95 extra. 16 CHANNEL UHF REMOTE CONTROL (EA NOV 88 and MARCH 89) This is closeweave polyester fabric at 50 times up. 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OATLEY ELECTRONICS A ballpoint pen under high magnification is fascinating; you can see the ink flowing back round the ball after the pen has been used. using floppy discs which could be very useful when the Scopeman is used in production or analytical laboratories. The cost of this instrument? W ell, as with any specialised optical or electronic instrument it's not cheap but it is still quite MAIL: PO Box 89, Oatley, NSW 2223 SHOP: 5 Lansdowne Pde, Oatley West. PHONE: (02) 579 4985. reasonably priced for its capabilities at around $15,000 plus tax, excluding the cost of the monitor . For further information, contact the distributors, Clarke & Severn Electronics, PO Box 129 , St Leonards, NSW 2065. Phone (02) 437 4199. ~ You can also buy some of our Kits at the following Distributors. Slightly higher prices may apply. NEWCASTLE - NOVOCASTRIAN (049) 62 1358 MELBOURNE - ELECTRONICS WORLD (03) 723 3860 WOLLONGONG - ITEC (042) 26 4044 SEPTEMBER1989 19