Adjustable Macro Camera Stand
Desktop Inspection Station
This would be the first part that the lathe produced that wasn't for the lathe itself.
I used a length of sprue from the scrap pile, and turned it down to a small 1 1/2 inch cylinder that is approx 1/2 inch in diameter.
As a side note, I made a new tool post that is welded to a heavy 1/4" plate and fastened with 3 bolts as shown here. This has made the most significant improvement in the lathe to date.
The castings are well documented on the LFMC4 page, the 3/16ths rod are from old printers, the elbow was made on the lathe, drilled and tapped.
I had a far more complex design in mind originally, but this will be functional for now and is a good starting point.
Here it is assembled, and looking like a metallic tinker toy.
The base is quite heavy to keep it from tipping forward. The camera mount will be replaced in the next few weeks but it is functional enough that I can use it for now.
Ultimately I would have wanted to have a jointed elbow, but again for simplicity and the fact that I wanted to use this for it's intended purpose, I settled for the fixed unit.
This is the replacement Camera that I ordered from supercircuits.com, it was a lot more money than I wanted to spend but the original colour cam was useless.
The unit measures approx 3/4" on the base and 1 1/2" in length. It displays approx 380lines of resolution in colour. It's primary purpose is for the VFA experiment, but due to cost will perform double duty on the Desktop display unit.
In essence I've made an electronic magnifying glass. If you look at the screen of the computer it is displaying the output of the camera. The image is easily zoomed in or out by adjusting the height of the cam over the subject.
In this application, I'm soldering a couple of circuit brds for another project, and checking for shorts on some of the tighter traces on the boards.
A magnifying glass would have worked, but I wanted to continue gaining skills in Video to PC interfacing, gain the ability to capture images and exercise what casting and machining skills I have in a practical way.
This image is nothing at all like what it looks like on the screen live. While the camera is running the image is very clear and covers the whole screen.
I think because when I snap a picture, I'm only getting 1 frame out of 30 that sent per second. There is a slight amount of optical distortion around the edges but I can live with that.
The only enhancement I would make to this set-up would be to save-up for a 17 or 19" monitor for the shop PC.
This image is marginally better as a still, but still isn't representative of the quality of a continuous video stream to the PC.
The other purpose of this apparatus is to aid in reading the fine print of circuit brds and parts. The ability to store and print the images for reference is pure bonus.
I've seen similar Visual Aids for blind and low vision applications being sold for well over $500.
In closing, I've gained some skills, have a useful piece of gear, and saved a pile of coin and all it took was some time & effort.
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