Looking for microscope pics of needles..

I have a old gilbert microscope , and i thought i might use it to check my needle condition. I was wondering if anyone hqad pics of a good needle and a bad needle, because i am not exactly 100% sure what i am supposed to be looking at.

Hi Jerry,

Here's a pretty good article with some microscopic views about 1/2 way down the article...

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/cartridgehistory.htm

The way a microscope is used to look at the stylus is with a light on each side of the needle, illuminating the 'wear' spots, or record contact points. On a new stylus the reflection of these spots will be just that, points of light off a shiny rounded surface, with the apex of the needle well separated from these spots. As the wear increases these spots get bigger and provide less distinct dots of light. If the stylus is extremely worn the spots will nearly merge together. That all using a microscope designed to view sytli.

Alternate methods would include varying angle views to see what the wear spots look like. This will need illumination in different directions to see correctly.

What you are looking for is deformation from an original, new rounded tip for most styli, be it elliptical or spherical. I can't speak to the special shapes such as shibata.

There is an article at the vinylengine that gives some idea of what you are looking for:

http://www.vinylengine.com/stylus.shtml

Here is another giving good info on microscopy and stylus wear and great pictures:

http://micrographia.com/projec/projapps/viny/viny0300.htm

The whole article is worth the read

jerryjg said:

I have a old gilbert microscope , and i thought i might use it to check my needle condition. I was wondering if anyone hqad pics of a good needle and a bad needle, because i am not exactly 100% sure what i am supposed to be looking at.

Click to expand...

A regular microscope is usually designed to use slides. This requires that your specimen be sliced thin so light can illuminte from underneath THROUGH the specimen. The focus point is usually very close to the slide, and may not have room for a 3-d object. The type of microscope needed is a stereo (two eyepieces) that is designed to view solid 3 dimensional items. A strong light illuminates the object, and usually the focus is some distance from the specimen, while most slide microscopes are so close at the focus point you would smash the stylus. You need about 80 to 100 power. Next best is a small hand held pen scop of 50 power. Any stronger and it is hard to keep the thing steady enough to examine. 50 power isnt really enough to detect "polishing" on the stylus sides, but enough to see trouble some globs of crap that 10 and 20 power loops simply do not reveal. Hope this helps. If yours is a "slide" viewing type scope, switch it to around 100 power, place a small non valuable object under it ( apiece of cotton ball) and slowly adjust until focus and see if there is enough space for your stylus to fit under it. If so, maybe a very bright light would illuminate it enough to work, but I doubt it. Plus, you need enough room to be able to manuver the stylus around to view both sides, etc. check ebay for a stereo type for the pupose of viewing solid objects.

Russellc

Have to disagree Russellc.

I started with a reasonable quality child's kit turret microscope and it worked fine though it was difficult to centre the stylus in the field of view.

Found this little unit in another childs kit, non-adjustable 100x magnification capability but very easy to get the stylus centred. A bit of bluetack or equivalent on a slide holds the stylus body in place and allows easy movement. I use a small bendable-arm desk light to illuminate and the only thing I have to fight with to see is a nonremoveable MC stylus.

The attached is an Empire stylus on the microscope and at that distance the diamond is in perfect focus

Macro lens and extension tubes

Hi, I decided to take a pic of my oldest cartridge stylus which came with the PL12D I am tweaking. ( See other thread ). This is the stylus end of a Shure M75 ED II. Pic was taken using an Olympus 50mm macro lens with three extensions tubes on a Canon EOS 10D body via an adapter. The stylus is well overdue for replacing !!! Notice the asymmetrical shape of the tip, known as "the chisel" or "record killer mark 1"

:sigh:

??

Well that didn't work.... trying again

:yes:

absolon said:

Have to disagree Russellc.

I started with a reasonable quality child's kit turret microscope and it worked fine though it was difficult to centre the stylus in the field of view.

Found this little unit in another childs kit, non-adjustable 100x magnification capability but very easy to get the stylus centred. A bit of bluetack or equivalent on a slide holds the stylus body in place and allows easy movement. I use a small bendable-arm desk light to illuminate and the only thing I have to fight with to see is a nonremoveable MC stylus.

The attached is an Empire stylus on the microscope and at that distance the diamond is in perfect focus

Click to expand...

Nice scope, mine is a sans and sherriff or something like that, has 4 different oculars and max of 1200x....no where near enough room in there for cartidges to fit. Was that scope made for slides? Or was it designed for solid objects?

Russellc

The scope appears to be made for slides; the large disc under the table is a mirror. Focus is by rotating the barrel. It is all plastic, but high grade, rigid and well constructed. I'm really not sure of it's origins or intended use but it is emminently suited to my purposes.

The scope I originally used was similar to what you described with four lenses on a turret and magnification to about that range. To make it work I had to remove the stop which prevented the focus from being backed off too far. It worked but this one is far easier to use and 100x is sufficent magnification.