William Grill needed a better view of his work surface for project prototyping. Using an inexpensive color video camera, he was able to create a simple display system that shows his work at 12x on his PC monitor. “It’s amazing what detail you can see when you view your solder surface mounted parts at 7-, 10- or even 15-times,” he writes.
Gadget Freak Case #135: Magnify Your Workbench
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Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.
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I really like this idea, would probably work better than standard magnifying glasses. However, the video is really terrible. Doesn’t show how it works until almost a minute in.
Yeah, I agree — to the point where I almost didn’t post it, but a) it’s a good idea and you can pretty much get the gist of it from the video, the doc, parts list, and b) it’s slim-pickin’s out there for content! Finding decent stuff is taking longer than normal. Slow coupla days in DIY…