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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.

Staying with the DIY stylus microscope, yes I will move these posts to their own thread. When I first built it I cut down a plastic box to make the light frame and attached it to the microscope with two bright white LED's from Maplin (sniff!) wired into the upper LED socket of the microscope. The idea was to keep it self contained for ease of use and to stay inside the supplied microscope dust cover.

Whilst considering the benefits of a USB viewer as above I thought about making the LED mounting more versatile by using a mini-gooseneck for each LED. I enjoy reading books and have bought various LED reading lights, which have a single thin gooseneck... which could be cut in half lengthways... I then discovered that book reading lights are available in a two stemmed version for lighting music stands. So I have ordered one to try and probably cannibalise to fit to the microscope.

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.

If it works, why not. Do you know how much zoom that gives you and are you looking at the stylus head on?

I should point out that I have only just got the USB microscope viewer and found the optical microscope worked well on about 200x, enough to be looking at the tip of the stylus to see warning signs. Although I've seen some interesting merged images taken at higher magnifications I can see that depth of field becomes an issue and gets away from the approach in the Shure manual.

Ah you're using the microscope to look at the shank straight to set azimuth on as some do from the side to set the stylus rake angle. I'm examining the tip of the stylus for wear with the cartridge off the arm and using a higher magnification. Both good but different uses of a microscope

Sorry I haven't updated this blog. It has been a busy week at work including yesterdayand I plan to get out walking today to enjoy the daylight before the nights draw in and the clocks go back!

My next steps are to fit the gooseneck lighting and try the higher magnifications so I can post some photos. I have ordered a mechanical stage that should come later this month.

It's Freshers Week here but I have worked out how to fix the microscope stage to the stage lifting column in my microscope. Just drill and countersink one hole but need to temporarily remove the stage's XY knobs. I will also cut off and file back extrusions that are not needed. This will reduce the weight and more importantly make it fit the existing microscope. I will mask the various pinions and threads first for obvious reasons.

The mini-gooseneck LED's should fit easily to the lower part of the base and I will connect the wires to the lower light of the microscope. That allows me to use the microscope's internal batteries, switching and dimmer.

Experience has shown that that reviewing the plan and re-measuring before cutting saves a lot of grief so I will pick this up later.

Another week has gone by and I haven't had a chance to move this forwards. I will try to do so this weekend with apologies to anyone who is interested!