What this head will not do
I keep a Jiusion 1600X USB microscope for marks my eyes miss. It is a close viewer, and I have stopped asking it to behave like a bench instrument. The sensor is a VGA chip, 640 by 480, and the moving picture stays around thirty frames in a second. A saved frame leaves as a BMP file or a JPEG file. That is the whole of what I expect from it.
The ruler packed with it helps me line a subject up. I do not treat a reading off that ruler as something I would put my name under.
When the lamps flood the metal
There are eight lamps in a ring at the lens. A coin rewards that light: an edge, a date, a mint mark. A solder pad and a charging socket do the opposite. The metal flares white. I ease the lamp dial on the lead down and I leave the subject alone until the flare drops. Chasing focus while the board is still creeping only makes a second blurred frame.
The chrome stand has to be clipped on before I push the magnification up. Without it, a circuit trace or a coin rim simply leaves the picture. My fingers are not a substitute for that stand.
A phone that stays on a black screen
A computer takes the plain USB-A plug. The machines named for that plug run from the current Windows 10 release through 8 and 7 and back to XP, and a Mac is on the same list. On those machines I open the camera program already installed, or the measurement program that sits on the included disc.
A handset is another job. OTG has to be enabled first. Then I fit the plug that actually matches the socket, whether that is Type-C or the older Micro USB piece, and I open a camera app that can see a USB camera. OTG View is one. CameraFi is another. AN98 is the third I have actually tried. If the app shows nothing, I pull the little plug off and seat it again before I decide the microscope is at fault. Apple phones and tablets never appear, so I leave them out of this setup.
Where the loose pieces live
After a session the disc, the paper booklet, both phone plugs and the ruler go back into the one box. I will not remember a Type-C piece that has wandered into a desk drawer. The head itself stays on the stand, lens pointing up, so dust is not sitting on the glass next time.
The page I open when I forget a fit
When I cannot remember which machine this lead accepts, I open jiusionec.co.uk and read that list again. I do not keep a second copy in a note on my phone.
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