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.
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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.
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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.).
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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
