Jewelers spectacle magnifiers

[Faceting Frank]

Finished cutting two of the total of six stones in this year’s OZ comp as well as other stones. It’s tough going for my right eye through the 10x loupe with the comp stones, meet point after meet point. I like to cut for an average of three hours a day and at 71 I’m finding that’s getting to long.
So, I decided to buy one of those spectacle type things with the two lenses, so I could share the load with both eyes. It came with four sets of lenses from 10x to 25x.
Something I never thought of at the time of purchase is you can’t see through both lenses, not like an Optivisor where the magnification is weak and the focal length is about 150mm. The focal length of a 10x loupe is about 25mm, so you’re looking through one lens or the other.
 Something else I discovered was you can’t use your left eye if you’re right-handed. Nothing seemed to work, couldn’t find the stone through the lens, the lighting seemed to be out, I was all awkward.
So, it’s back to the drawing board.

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[Faceting Frank]

Anyone used one of these for faceting?
https://okzoomerhd.com/collections/frontpage/products/ok-zoomer-hd-microscope-camera-for-android-and-iphone?fbclid=IwAR1Src8Vd5c-00GOp3DsBNhIdgM-Rsduo27g-7vapBN0AxAX74lrxmMXAN8

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[Prooz]

No but interested!

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[MakkyBrown]

I feel your pain, hand lens all day stuffs my eyes. I'm just using a 2.75x optivisor, genuine lens are heaps better than chineses one.Cameras, somewhere on the web a bloke is selling lens to fit to I think they might be microsoft hd webcams. They are using them for soldering. So there is really good focal length and magnification. I bought a webcam but that was as far as I got with it.Google 1080p soldering microscopes, but you'll also need a decent computer to run the 1080p video.I lot of usb microscopes are rubbish but there are good ones out there if you research.
Just had a look, there are links in the description of this youtube clip, they are using a hacked Microsoft Lifecam, they are a fairly good camera.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=HIWUFFlr2I4
MB
 

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[Faceting Frank]

Hi MakkyBrown thanks for the link. The link on microscopic cameras I put on here is from the US faceters guild Facebook page. It looks really good and the images they are showing very impressive, but I see the guy on your vid described them as rubbish, I will go along with that. I did try blue tacking a 10x loupe to a mobile phone camera, that worked really well as far as viewing things magnified was concerned. But the wide-angle lens on the phone (minus magnification) cancelled out most of the 10x and it was probably only 3x, useless for looking at meet points.

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[MakkyBrown]

I was looking at cameras to check the polish aswell as the meets. I will be very interested to see how you go.

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[pc bowe]

I've been using a digital microscope from jaycar for about 3 months. ($99.00)
It's very handy, particularly for cutting the girdle.
The internal light is useful for a second light source.
Plus it's great for taking photos.
I've got it mounted on an old flexible reading light frame that i repurposed.

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[Faceting Frank]

I’ve looked at some of the posts on YouTube regarding the digital microscope I posted a link to on my second post here. The main criticism seems to be the quality of the picture and not the magnification. I don’t have much of a problem with the polish, it’s the intensity of focus needed to get the meets right.
So, I’ve bought one of these contraptions, expect it Monday and will make some bracket up on the machine mast to fit it on and connect it to my laptop. Will let you all know how it works when I’ve finished it.

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[Prooz]

Be interesting to see what you have come up with Frank

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[Faceting Frank]

Got the Digital microscope working on my laptop after a mammoth effort to get it to work on windows 10. Will get it setup on the top of the mast and figure out how to take and post some pics.

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[Prooz]

Hi Frank, did you get the same one, that you posted the link on?

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[Faceting Frank]

Hi Prooz, yes I did. Had a play around with it looking at a transparent card that came with it. Had a grid on it with 0.1mm squares, lines of 0.03mm and circles down to 100um. No idea what a um was, but it sure was small. These things are useless for anything other than looking at meet points and then only at its weakest magnifications. But I just want to be able to look at a computer screen and see them clearly with both eyes.

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[Aussie Sapphire]

Had a grid on it with 0.1mm squares, lines of 0.03mm and circles down to 100um. No idea what a um was, but it sure was small.

um (or actually SI symbol: μm) is micron.  And yes - it is very small.
 1 micron is 0.001 mm.

cheers
Leah

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[Prooz]

Hi Prooz, yes I did. Had a play around with it looking at a transparent card that came with it. Had a grid on it with 0.1mm squares, lines of 0.03mm and circles down to 100um. No idea what a um was, but it sure was small. These things are useless for anything other than looking at meet points and then only at its weakest magnifications. But I just want to be able to look at a computer screen and see them clearly with both eyes.

Would it be any good at taking a photo of the gem stone?

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[Faceting Frank]

No it won’t be any good for taking pictures of whole stones.
This a photo of my laptop, with the view of the top of the stone looking with the scope. This is the same stone in the other picture. The colours are washed out but that’s not a problem, it’s a view of the meet points is what I’m after.

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