> On Oct 22, 2020, at 7:26 AM, H. Carl Ott <[email protected]> wrote: > > I use surgical (dental}) loupes for 90% of my smd work. They are good if you > have the right working distance. I could not justify the money for some nice > zeiss loupes, so I bought some cheap Chinese ones. The optics are fine, but > the plastic on the frames was a bit cheap and cracked after a few months. I > frakensteined on some metal bits to fix the frames, and have been using them > for over five years.
Once again my strabismus hamstrings me. I can only get my eyes to fuse at very short distances. At my computer I sit 9" from the screen (when I'm gaming it's around 18"). At infinity I see double without a lot of extra prism in the prescription. Working on electronics is very frustrating because I constantly have to change distances without swapping glasses every time I pick up another resistor. It's a shame Medicare won't pay for a digital microscope <sarcasm>. I had a ViewMaster when I was about six years old and couldn't figure out what was so special about it. When I was around 13 I discovered that the images were supposed to be in 3D. It took some effort but I finally got my eyes to sync up. Binocular microscopes and the eye test machine at the DMV? Forget it. I once worked in retail optical. I was lucky enough to land in a full surfacing lab doing everything from grinding blanks to finishing lenses and putting them in frames. In five months I learned the whole business. I never got as far as doing optician work, i.e., bending frames to fit faces but I know where all the profit is—marking designer brand frames up over 1000%. A $250 pair of Liz Claibornes? We paid less than $25. This was in 1990 dollars. I will never work for corporate again. Dr. Stanley Pearle may have "cared about his customers" as stated in the TV commercials but he didn't give a damn about his employees. Terry Bowman, KA4HJH "The Mac Doctor" "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."—Roy Batty, Blade Runner -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/EA27E741-7F1A-49FC-8961-DF4DD52A7151%40gmail.com.
