Homebrew PCBs

Has anybody used a camera for PCB drilling, soldering and inspection?
I heard about that microsoft gizzmo but fro what I read it did not 
provide enough viewing area. Any suggestions?

Mike

mikezcnc wrote:
> Has anybody used a camera for PCB drilling, soldering and inspection?
> I heard about that microsoft gizzmo but fro what I read it did not 
> provide enough viewing area. Any suggestions?
> 
> Mike

   Just get the cheap Ezonics USB webcam that was free after rebates all 
the time.  May have to get it on Ebay now, not sure if it's still made. 
  Break the stop for focusing and you can easily inspect PCBs etc. 
Thought about it for drilling, but it's really hardly worth the effort. 
  Design your boards well, bring the vias out a bit from the chips, and 
you really shouldn't have much of anything that's beyond a even a crude 
CNC's capabilities.  I do small stuff yet still haven't seen any real 
useful NEED for super accuracy for the drilling.

Alan

Hi,

If you want to do something extra ordinary PCB drilling with camera 
do it like this.
1. Z-axis under the table with camera centered on drillbit.
   This requires very sharp drillbits as you dont have any sacrifing 
layer to drill into.
2. foot to hold down pcb material, solenoid driven
3. switch on the floor to control Z-axis

This is easy drilling with high precision = high magnification needed.

Soldering with the aid of a camera = LOT OF PRACTICE and a good 
distance from lens to PCB. Inspection = OK if high magnification.

my 0.02$
Bengt

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BMC2150-PB

for solder inspection?

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, Alan King <alan@n...> wrote:
> mikezcnc wrote:
> > Has anybody used a camera for PCB drilling, soldering and 
inspection?
> > I heard about that microsoft gizzmo but fro what I read it did 
not 
> > provide enough viewing area. Any suggestions?
> > 
> > Mike
> 
>    Just get the cheap Ezonics USB webcam that was free after 
rebates all 
> the time.  May have to get it on Ebay now, not sure if it's still 
made. 
>   Break the stop for focusing and you can easily inspect PCBs etc. 
> Thought about it for drilling, but it's really hardly worth the 
effort. 
>   Design your boards well, bring the vias out a bit from the chips, 
and 
> you really shouldn't have much of anything that's beyond a even a 
crude 
> CNC's capabilities.  I do small stuff yet still haven't seen any 
real 
> useful NEED for super accuracy for the drilling.
> 
> Alan


I use a large high magnification magnyfing glass.  It has a circular 
floursecent light in it and a second, higher magnyfing lense for 
tighter work. 

the Intel QX3 microscope 
http://store.yahoo.com/compuvisor/digbluqx3usb.html
Seems like a great deal if the problem is seeing things that small.

My SONY digital camera is really bad at macros's and I have not 
figured out if it can be used as a web cam.

Dave

I already wrote that aiming cheap cameras (like webcams)
through microscopes works, but you would need a microscope first ;-).

I see enough without magnification when there is good light.

and i also wrote that the stereo scopes are worth their money.
even if i don't use it much for pcb work.

hope you find someting useful...

ST

>
> I use a large high magnification magnyfing glass.  It has a circular 
> floursecent light in it and a second, higher magnyfing lense for tighter 
> work.
>
> the Intel QX3 microscope 
> http://store.yahoo.com/compuvisor/digbluqx3usb.html
> Seems like a great deal if the problem is seeing things that small.
>
> My SONY digital camera is really bad at macros's and I have not figured 
> out if it can be used as a web cam.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
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>

Just this morning I taped one of those Intel USB microscopes
(QB+whatever) to my Taig mill to try and measure how far off my epson
injet printer was (about 1.3% too big in X axis).  The 200X setting
was all but useless.  Real hard to foccus, and a 0.035" dia pad would
more than completly fill the screen (0.035" x 200 is 7").

The below might be fun to play with.  Price isn't too bad, but it's
what I paid for my microscope, new, on ebay.  I ended up using the 10X
setting.

- Steven Ciciora

--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "wheedal99" <wheedal@h...> wrote:

> http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BMC2150-PB
> 
> for solder inspection?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3450296522&category=3666

   That is the type I have.  Break the stop for adjusting the lens, and 
it can focus in quite a bit.  Good for general inspection and reading 
faint TSOP parts that are just too small etc, but not sure of the total 
power of magnification.

   Still hard to argue with the prices.

Alan

On Mon, 05 Jan 2004 20:58:29 -0500, Alan King <alan@...> wrote:

> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3450296522&category=3666
>
> That is the type I have.  Break the stop for adjusting the lens, and it 
> can focus in quite a bit.  Good for general inspection and reading faint 
> TSOP parts that are just too small etc, but not sure of the total power 
> of magnification.
>
> Still hard to argue with the prices.
>
> Alan
>
if you remove the focus stop you can also use it through microscopes or 
field glasses.
ideal too for making scope shots if you only have analog storage like mine.

my webcam has a bad quality, many pixel-error like color distortions, you 
may look to get
a good one.. (the one in the link is different from mine, mine is labeled 
d-link)

st