Safely getting the electrical length of a connected antenna feedline
Hi Steve:
If you are going to be soldering then you NEED stereo vision, a monitor screen will not work at all. You need depth
perception as well as magnification. Think of the microscope as part of a feedback loop that includes your eyes and
muscles. With a stereo microscope you can make much smaller hand movements which are required when working with small
pitch ICs.
--
Have Fun,
Brooke Clarke
http://www.PRC68.com
http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html
The lesser of evils is still evil.
-------- Original Message --------
Can anyone compare the stereo microscope to a camera/monitor for use with SMT? I have a cheap stereo microscope that I
would like to replace with either a much better stereo microscope or a camera/monitor. Is there a marked advantage(s)
of one versus the other? I have no "floaters" to contend with.
Steve, K8JQ
On 8/11/2016 4:06 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
Lots of good suggestions have already been made, but for
me, a boom style stereo microscope, with a distance between
the objective, and the focal point of at least 3 inches works
fairly well...
One other thing that may force your decision, if you are
older, your eyes will likely have lots of "floaters", which
are debris that floats around in your eyeballs. This debris
floats in and out of the center of your field of view, and
looks like a bunch of translucent worms, or shadows.
Your brain, the magnificent organ that it is, tries to compensate
for your eye's degradation, and as long as your eyes can move
about in your field of view, it effectively removes the floaters
from the scenes you are viewing.
However, if you use a stereo microscope, your eye position
is fixed by the very limited amounts of off axis motion
that will allow a through optical channel. This lack of off
axis motion will emphasize your floaters in a great way, and you
will see every single one, clearly, as if it were something
you really wanted to view. Some times, the floaters will cover
the exact thing you need to see clearly, and you will have to
move it off axis by moving it on the microscope stage.
The only answer to this problem, is to either have perfect eyes,
or to use a microscope where you are looking at a screen, rather
than through a pair of oculars. This way, your eyes can dart
around, and inspect what they need to see clearly, and the
floaters will be ignored by your brain.
As far as I know, there is only one optical microscope built this
way, and it is the very expensive Mantis.
Because of the great expense of flat screen optical microscopes,
most modern SMD viewing equipment is going to the trivially cheap
method of using a CCD/CMOS color video camera and an LCD screen.
You can do a lot with a cheap USB camera mounted to a boom, a fiber
optic light source, or a ring light, and a laptop computer to
display the image.
-Chuck Harris
Bob Albert via time-nuts wrote:
What are the important parameters regarding purchase of a stereo microscope? I
see some on ebay for around $50; are those good? Bob
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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and follow the instructions there.
A fairly large part of the population gets along just
fine with mono vision. Many choose it specifically
by getting contact lenses where one lens is near, and
one is far, or getting laser eye surgery to affect that
condition.
That said, I do very well with stereo vision, but can
work satisfactorily well with a mono vision camera.
The brain is adapted to use both stereo vision, and
perspective for determining distance.
-Chuck Harris
Brooke Clarke wrote:
Hi Steve:
If you are going to be soldering then you NEED stereo vision, a monitor screen will
not work at all. You need depth perception as well as magnification. Think of the
microscope as part of a feedback loop that includes your eyes and muscles. With a
stereo microscope you can make much smaller hand movements which are required when
working with small pitch ICs.
I appreciate the advantage of stereo, which gives information as to how close the tools are to the work. That could be important. However, it's not necessary once you adapt to your tools.
Bob
On Friday, August 12, 2016 10:04 PM, Chuck Harris <cfharris@erols.com> wrote:
A fairly large part of the population gets along just
fine with mono vision. Many choose it specifically
by getting contact lenses where one lens is near, and
one is far, or getting laser eye surgery to affect that
condition.
That said, I do very well with stereo vision, but can
work satisfactorily well with a mono vision camera.
The brain is adapted to use both stereo vision, and
perspective for determining distance.
-Chuck Harris
Brooke Clarke wrote:
Hi Steve:
If you are going to be soldering then you NEED stereo vision, a monitor screen will
not work at all. You need depth perception as well as magnification. Think of the
microscope as part of a feedback loop that includes your eyes and muscles. With a
stereo microscope you can make much smaller hand movements which are required when
working with small pitch ICs.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
With all this discussion about PCB s/w I'm surprised no one's mentioned
DipTrace.
It has Gerber, DXF, OrCad and other export forms, + it has 3D library's
for popular components so you can see what your device is going to look
like before you build it.
It works well.
regards
Tim
--
VK2XAX :: QF56if :: WIA :: AMSAT-VK
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Brooke Clarke brooke@pacific.net wrote:
Hi Chris:
ExpressPCB has very easy to use free software for schematic capture (later
used to check the board wiring) and software for board layout including
making custom components if their library of stock components does not have
what you need. The output file format is proprietary, which makes it
interesting that Far Circuits can read it.
I just have not wanted to go through learning curve for Gerber files and
all the associated stuff (maybe drilling, silk screen, solder mask) which
is very easy to do with ExpressPCB.
I did my first 'CAD' PCB with EasyTrax... a DOS program. Must have been
about 1998 as that's the copyright date I put on the board.
Believe me, getting any of the current programs to produce gerber files is
trivial compared to using EasyTrax and making it produce gerber files. In
fact, I usually us itead.cc for small boards and they provide the script to
produce gerber files from Eagle, which is what I currently use. I've also
used OSH Park and you can simply send an Eagle board file to them; just as
easy as using ExpressPCB without the expensive tie-in.
I must admit ExpressPCB leaves me with a sour taste - many published
projects seem to use them as I suppose the author liked the free
software. But then everyone that uses the ExpressPCB files that the author
supplies pays the ExpressPCB premium. $300 in one case and the boards
weren't even flat!
Orin.
On 08/13/2016 12:39 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:
A fairly large part of the population gets along just
fine with mono vision. Many choose it specifically
by getting contact lenses where one lens is near, and
one is far, or getting laser eye surgery to affect that
condition.
That said, I do very well with stereo vision, but can
work satisfactorily well with a mono vision camera.
The brain is adapted to use both stereo vision, and
perspective for determining distance.
Chuck, you hit the nail on the head.
My sister, 11 months younger than I am, she was born in December 1956,
had and still has a strange path with her vision. When she was 4,
the eye surgeons "corrected" her turned in eye, what we called a squint.
She is still going through life with whatever this is. When she was 32,
she had a baby son. Later, when my nephew was 12, he was scared of the
optical machine that the doctor was proposing to use for testing his
eyes. She volunteered and looked into it herself.
What she told the doctor was astonishing.
She had no 3D vision in the sense of what most people think it is.
For over 50 years, her brain has been constructing her 3D world, as she
walks, as she looks around, and as she drives her car. Her 3D vision
is based on parallax of movement. Is that inferior, as good as, or
better than two eyes that form the 3D norm? Is your color green the
same as mine?
Soldering SMD parts, I use my OptiVISOR x10,
a bit close but I can hold my breath.
Ian, G4ICV,AB2GR
I use a beautiful Wild M3Z that I got at a good price from a British
Aerospace auction. It does have the disadvantage that there's a very exact
spot to place your eyes, but the image is superb. I typically start at the
bottom end (6.5 x 10 x 0.5) but often use the other zoom levels (up to 40 x
10 x 0.5). It has a Volpi fibre optic ring light but LEDs may be a better
solution nowadays.
I also have an illuminated magnifying lamp - I like the ones made by Lux.
I've considered a video microscope for the times when a large screen would
be desirable but computer and tablet ones are said to have a bit of lag
that make precise movements difficult. Direct video without a computer is
probably better.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Bob Camp kb8tq@n1k.org wrote:
Hi
You can get a pretty good microscope new for about $1,000. Getting them
used is a hit or
miss process. A lot of this stuff actually works very well when in good
condition with all the
parts (The Mantis is one example). Without all the parts they don’t work
or work poorly.
For most of what you do, there is no need for anything fancy. There is a
Mantis in full working
condition at work. It never gets used. Magnifier lights get used a lot.
Low magnification
microscopes with really good halogen / fiber optic ring lights seem to be
the most
popular option.
Bob
On Aug 11, 2016, at 8:06 PM, Steve steve65@suddenlink.net wrote:
Can anyone compare the stereo microscope to a camera/monitor for use
with SMT? I have a cheap stereo microscope that I would like to replace
with either a much better stereo microscope or a camera/monitor. Is there a
marked advantage(s) of one versus the other? I have no "floaters" to
contend with.
Steve, K8JQ
On 8/11/2016 4:06 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
Lots of good suggestions have already been made, but for
me, a boom style stereo microscope, with a distance between
the objective, and the focal point of at least 3 inches works
fairly well...
One other thing that may force your decision, if you are
older, your eyes will likely have lots of "floaters", which
are debris that floats around in your eyeballs. This debris
floats in and out of the center of your field of view, and
looks like a bunch of translucent worms, or shadows.
Your brain, the magnificent organ that it is, tries to compensate
for your eye's degradation, and as long as your eyes can move
about in your field of view, it effectively removes the floaters
from the scenes you are viewing.
However, if you use a stereo microscope, your eye position
is fixed by the very limited amounts of off axis motion
that will allow a through optical channel. This lack of off
axis motion will emphasize your floaters in a great way, and you
will see every single one, clearly, as if it were something
you really wanted to view. Some times, the floaters will cover
the exact thing you need to see clearly, and you will have to
move it off axis by moving it on the microscope stage.
The only answer to this problem, is to either have perfect eyes,
or to use a microscope where you are looking at a screen, rather
than through a pair of oculars. This way, your eyes can dart
around, and inspect what they need to see clearly, and the
floaters will be ignored by your brain.
As far as I know, there is only one optical microscope built this
way, and it is the very expensive Mantis.
Because of the great expense of flat screen optical microscopes,
most modern SMD viewing equipment is going to the trivially cheap
method of using a CCD/CMOS color video camera and an LCD screen.
You can do a lot with a cheap USB camera mounted to a boom, a fiber
optic light source, or a ring light, and a laptop computer to
display the image.
-Chuck Harris
Bob Albert via time-nuts wrote:
What are the important parameters regarding purchase of a stereo
microscope? I
see some on ebay for around $50; are those good? Bob
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
For me, the ideal solution is an eyeglass-mounted surgical loupe such as
this: http://www.surgitel.com/loupes/prismpro-line. There are several
manufacturers. Long working distance, superbly corrected optics, no bino
microscope or Mantis monstrosity cluttering up the bench. Not cheap but a
lifetime investment.
On Saturday, August 13, 2016, Adrian Godwin artgodwin@gmail.com wrote:
I use a beautiful Wild M3Z that I got at a good price from a British
Aerospace auction. It does have the disadvantage that there's a very exact
spot to place your eyes, but the image is superb. I typically start at the
bottom end (6.5 x 10 x 0.5) but often use the other zoom levels (up to 40 x
10 x 0.5). It has a Volpi fibre optic ring light but LEDs may be a better
solution nowadays.
I also have an illuminated magnifying lamp - I like the ones made by Lux.
I've considered a video microscope for the times when a large screen would
be desirable but computer and tablet ones are said to have a bit of lag
that make precise movements difficult. Direct video without a computer is
probably better.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Bob Camp <kb8tq@n1k.org javascript:;>
wrote:
Hi
You can get a pretty good microscope new for about $1,000. Getting them
used is a hit or
miss process. A lot of this stuff actually works very well when in good
condition with all the
parts (The Mantis is one example). Without all the parts they don’t work
or work poorly.
For most of what you do, there is no need for anything fancy. There is a
Mantis in full working
condition at work. It never gets used. Magnifier lights get used a lot.
Low magnification
microscopes with really good halogen / fiber optic ring lights seem to be
the most
popular option.
Bob
On Aug 11, 2016, at 8:06 PM, Steve <steve65@suddenlink.net
javascript:;> wrote:
Can anyone compare the stereo microscope to a camera/monitor for use
with SMT? I have a cheap stereo microscope that I would like to replace
with either a much better stereo microscope or a camera/monitor. Is
there a
marked advantage(s) of one versus the other? I have no "floaters" to
contend with.
Steve, K8JQ
On 8/11/2016 4:06 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
Lots of good suggestions have already been made, but for
me, a boom style stereo microscope, with a distance between
the objective, and the focal point of at least 3 inches works
fairly well...
One other thing that may force your decision, if you are
older, your eyes will likely have lots of "floaters", which
are debris that floats around in your eyeballs. This debris
floats in and out of the center of your field of view, and
looks like a bunch of translucent worms, or shadows.
Your brain, the magnificent organ that it is, tries to compensate
for your eye's degradation, and as long as your eyes can move
about in your field of view, it effectively removes the floaters
from the scenes you are viewing.
However, if you use a stereo microscope, your eye position
is fixed by the very limited amounts of off axis motion
that will allow a through optical channel. This lack of off
axis motion will emphasize your floaters in a great way, and you
will see every single one, clearly, as if it were something
you really wanted to view. Some times, the floaters will cover
the exact thing you need to see clearly, and you will have to
move it off axis by moving it on the microscope stage.
The only answer to this problem, is to either have perfect eyes,
or to use a microscope where you are looking at a screen, rather
than through a pair of oculars. This way, your eyes can dart
around, and inspect what they need to see clearly, and the
floaters will be ignored by your brain.
As far as I know, there is only one optical microscope built this
way, and it is the very expensive Mantis.
Because of the great expense of flat screen optical microscopes,
most modern SMD viewing equipment is going to the trivially cheap
method of using a CCD/CMOS color video camera and an LCD screen.
You can do a lot with a cheap USB camera mounted to a boom, a fiber
optic light source, or a ring light, and a laptop computer to
display the image.
-Chuck Harris
Bob Albert via time-nuts wrote:
What are the important parameters regarding purchase of a stereo
microscope? I
see some on ebay for around $50; are those good? Bob
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com javascript:;
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
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To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
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--
If you gaze long enough into the abyss, your coffee will get cold.
I've been studying machine vision for years and now finally the prices are
such that I can build my own systems. There are lots of ways to construct
3D models of the environment and I think humans use many of these.
-
Using binocular vision. We humans have two eyes set some distance
apart, we all know how this works. But in humans and machines the limit,
the maximum distance is determined by visual acuity. What is the angular
resolution of the eye? Except in one tiny spot not very good Binocular
vision only work for close up. -
Motion through space, observation of parallax.
-
observation of perspective. Perspective is the ratio of apparent size
of for grand and background object, requires familiarity with these
objects. Try it close one eye and move your thumb first in front of your
eye then at arm's length. The size of the thumb changes but nothing else
does -
stereo vision by moving the head. It is easy for robot machine to take
a stereo pair of images using just one camera. It takes one then moves the
camera and tales another. Unlike the fixed human baseline the robot can
move the camera as far as it likes. Some birds do this to make up for
their short natural baseline. I think some humans try to do this too.
I'm sure there is more, especially with machines (like using more than two
cameras, sometimes a half dozen cameras or even active 3D scanners as in
LIDAR)
I think we humans might use all of the above techniques, all at once.
Notice that we can determine the 3D position of objects on the screen of a
TV set or movie screen or even in still photographs. Not as well as with a
live view but we do manage well enough to most not be confused.
On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 2:33 AM, Ian Stirling is@opus131.com wrote:
On 08/13/2016 12:39 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:
A fairly large part of the population gets along just
fine with mono vision. Many choose it specifically
by getting contact lenses where one lens is near, and
one is far, or getting laser eye surgery to affect that
condition.
That said, I do very well with stereo vision, but can
work satisfactorily well with a mono vision camera.
The brain is adapted to use both stereo vision, and
perspective for determining distance.
Chuck, you hit the nail on the head.
My sister, 11 months younger than I am, she was born in December 1956,
had and still has a strange path with her vision. When she was 4,
the eye surgeons "corrected" her turned in eye, what we called a squint.
She is still going through life with whatever this is. When she was 32,
she had a baby son. Later, when my nephew was 12, he was scared of the
optical machine that the doctor was proposing to use for testing his
eyes. She volunteered and looked into it herself.
What she told the doctor was astonishing.
She had no 3D vision in the sense of what most people think it is.
For over 50 years, her brain has been constructing her 3D world, as she
walks, as she looks around, and as she drives her car. Her 3D vision
is based on parallax of movement. Is that inferior, as good as, or
better than two eyes that form the 3D norm? Is your color green the
same as mine?
Soldering SMD parts, I use my OptiVISOR x10,
a bit close but I can hold my breath.
Ian, G4ICV,AB2GR
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
--
Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California
I'll throw Designs Park into the mix, it's a free program from RS
components and I think it generates gerber files.
I've used it for a couple of boards and got a grasp of it on a quiet
afternoon.
On 13 Aug 2016 16:05, "William H. Fite" omniryx@gmail.com wrote:
For me, the ideal solution is an eyeglass-mounted surgical loupe such as
this: http://www.surgitel.com/loupes/prismpro-line. There are several
manufacturers. Long working distance, superbly corrected optics, no bino
microscope or Mantis monstrosity cluttering up the bench. Not cheap but a
lifetime investment.
On Saturday, August 13, 2016, Adrian Godwin artgodwin@gmail.com wrote:
I use a beautiful Wild M3Z that I got at a good price from a British
Aerospace auction. It does have the disadvantage that there's a very
exact
spot to place your eyes, but the image is superb. I typically start at
the
bottom end (6.5 x 10 x 0.5) but often use the other zoom levels (up to
40 x
10 x 0.5). It has a Volpi fibre optic ring light but LEDs may be a better
solution nowadays.
I also have an illuminated magnifying lamp - I like the ones made by Lux.
I've considered a video microscope for the times when a large screen
would
be desirable but computer and tablet ones are said to have a bit of lag
that make precise movements difficult. Direct video without a computer is
probably better.
On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:14 PM, Bob Camp <kb8tq@n1k.org javascript:;>
wrote:
Hi
You can get a pretty good microscope new for about $1,000. Getting them
used is a hit or
miss process. A lot of this stuff actually works very well when in good
condition with all the
parts (The Mantis is one example). Without all the parts they don’t
work
or work poorly.
For most of what you do, there is no need for anything fancy. There is
a
Mantis in full working
condition at work. It never gets used. Magnifier lights get used a lot.
Low magnification
microscopes with really good halogen / fiber optic ring lights seem to
be
javascript:;> wrote:
Can anyone compare the stereo microscope to a camera/monitor for use
with SMT? I have a cheap stereo microscope that I would like to replace
with either a much better stereo microscope or a camera/monitor. Is
there a
marked advantage(s) of one versus the other? I have no "floaters" to
contend with.
Steve, K8JQ
On 8/11/2016 4:06 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
Lots of good suggestions have already been made, but for
me, a boom style stereo microscope, with a distance between
the objective, and the focal point of at least 3 inches works
fairly well...
One other thing that may force your decision, if you are
older, your eyes will likely have lots of "floaters", which
are debris that floats around in your eyeballs. This debris
floats in and out of the center of your field of view, and
looks like a bunch of translucent worms, or shadows.
Your brain, the magnificent organ that it is, tries to compensate
for your eye's degradation, and as long as your eyes can move
about in your field of view, it effectively removes the floaters
from the scenes you are viewing.
However, if you use a stereo microscope, your eye position
is fixed by the very limited amounts of off axis motion
that will allow a through optical channel. This lack of off
axis motion will emphasize your floaters in a great way, and you
will see every single one, clearly, as if it were something
you really wanted to view. Some times, the floaters will cover
the exact thing you need to see clearly, and you will have to
move it off axis by moving it on the microscope stage.
The only answer to this problem, is to either have perfect eyes,
or to use a microscope where you are looking at a screen, rather
than through a pair of oculars. This way, your eyes can dart
around, and inspect what they need to see clearly, and the
floaters will be ignored by your brain.
As far as I know, there is only one optical microscope built this
way, and it is the very expensive Mantis.
Because of the great expense of flat screen optical microscopes,
most modern SMD viewing equipment is going to the trivially cheap
method of using a CCD/CMOS color video camera and an LCD screen.
You can do a lot with a cheap USB camera mounted to a boom, a fiber
optic light source, or a ring light, and a laptop computer to
display the image.
-Chuck Harris
Bob Albert via time-nuts wrote:
What are the important parameters regarding purchase of a stereo
microscope? I
see some on ebay for around $50; are those good? Bob
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com javascript:;
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/
mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
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--
If you gaze long enough into the abyss, your coffee will get cold.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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