Circuit Board Model with Trinocular Camera Port and 144 LED Ring Light

AmScope Model SM-4TX-144A Circuit Board Boom Stereo Microscope

One of the perks that you lose when abandoning the corporate engineering environment is the access to high-end test equipment to use or borrow for your own projects, and one of the things that I missed the most was having a good quality stereo microscope within reach. Working with microwave ICs and picosecond-range pulse circuits required spending a good portion of the work day staring through microscopes while assembling die-level circuitry and performing wirebonding. Microscopes were so common in the workplace that I never really understood how pricey they were until I had to purchase a Leica scope & wirebonder and the ocular-less Mantis for general assembly work in my development lab.

I have always had some of my own basic gear at home – oscilloscopes, a logic analyzer, and other basic equipment – but no network or spectrum analyzers, and no microscope. Surplus name-brand scopes in decent condition can still command high prices, and I was recently looking for a nice used Nikon or Leica when this AmScope stereo boom microscope happened to arrive courtesy of Santa Claus. A few years earlier I had come very close to purchasing a different AmScope model based on a high percentage of favorable reviews.… Read the rest