Stylus microscope

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Really a trip to the bright side and not about MC cartridges per se but a couple of years ago I bought a 40-1000x microscope and modified it to work as a stylus microscope. There is material on VE about this but it is easier than you may think, the key is to have a couple of bright lights e.g. LED's on each side 20-30mm above the cartridge position so their reflection can be seen on the tracing facets of the stylus being viewed. I also inverted and lowered the viewing platform to give a level surface for the back of the cartridge to rest on. I could do without a XYZ platform and carefully move the cartridge with my fingers instead. I use 10x10 for initial position then 10x25 to fine tune and inspect.

So what is a stylus microscope? In my definition it is a darkfield (object lit from side not from behind/through) microscope that enables the user to inspect the stylus tip at 200x magnification or more in order to spot wear patterns.

I've mentioned my interest in this as a DIY project because I'd heard of the classic Shure SEK2 from the 1970's and I read of modern efforts to build a similar device on VE. My understanding was that light should be shown down on the stylus tip from both sides and the reflected light vewed to look for distinctive reflections like a normally curved conical or elliptical scattering the light having flat areas that were bright.