Packaging

It was shipped from China in the usual ultra thin plastic bag loosely covering a cardboard box with a travel plug sellotaped to the outside.

The power brick supplied has a standard European 2 pin plug fitment, hence the travel plug to adapt it to the UK 3 pin sockets.

The travel adapter went straight into the bin as I have had these before and I consider them unsafe.

1. They are not fused

2. The internal connectors are made of cheap metal and rely on pressure fitting onto the supply pin screws

3. The internals just do not make a solid contact with the supply reliably, resulting in frequent loss of power.

Fortunately I had a high quality mains adapter in stock.

The actual cardboard packaging of the microscope was more than solid enough to protect it during shipment. I did panic at first as the external packaging did not indicate that the optional extra LED lamps were included, but they were inside the box.

My version of the Manual

So here is my version of an Operating Manual :

Building the Microscope

Construction is fairly trivial, but you will need a spanner ! The Microscope is delivered in the following pieces

1. The USB Power Supply

2. One or Two USB-A to Micro USB cables

3. The base of the microscope - is a light metal stage with a very reflective surface. If you have order the extra LED light options these will already be mounted to the rear. There is a bracket and swivel at the rear to support the upright.

4. The Microscope upright - a Linear Rack with a black alloy securing ring nut at the lower end.

5. Camera/Display Mount

To assemble:

1. Screw the linear rack into the rear of the base plate until it can go in no further, back this off until the rack is at the front and then hand tighten the black securing ring nut to hold the rack squarely in place.

2. Align the rack vertically and carefully use an M8 spanner to tighten the M8 bolt that clamps the tilt action. Do not over-tighten, you want this such that it will move but will not flop over.

3. Loosen the small lock screw at the rear of the Camera Mount so that the screw does not protrude into the rack hole. Then place the Camera Mount at the top of the rack and lower it using the two large knobs (what would be the coarse focus on a real microscope). Then carefully tighten the lock screw by hand such that the mount can move up and down, on demand, but will not just run freely down the rack.

4. Fully lower the Camera/Display unit into the Camera mount until it can go no further. Then align the display square and tighten the two lock screws by hand so that the Camera/display will not move.

5. Connect the USB Power lead to the USB Power Supply and away you go....

The Optional LED Spot Lights

If you have purchased the optional LED Spot Lights then you will find their control block already mounted to the rear of the base/stage.

This has:

1. A Micro-USB Power Socket for Power in, connect this to the Power Supply

2. A USB-A Power out Socket to provide power to the Microscope

3. LED Spot Light rotary brilliance control

The Menu System

The (D) button cycles between the 3 display modes: Video Mode => Camera Mode => Playback Mode : Each has its own Icon display in the top right hand corner of the display : A Video Camera => A Photographic Camera => Mountain Scene : On power up the default is Video Mode.

1. In Video Mode use the (OK) button to start/stop recording

2. In Camera Mode use the (OK) button to take a photograph

3. In Playback Mode use the (OK) button to playback the most recent Photograph or Video recording. You can use the (Up) and (Down) buttons to cycle through previous Photographs and Video recordings.

The (M) button cycles between: Normal Operation => Optical Setup => Hardware Setup : Use this to select the setup menus.

Note: The Optical Setup menu is context sensitive i.e. you have to have selected Video Mode or Camera Mode first in order to get to the right Optical Setup menu!

In all cases the menus use the (Up) and (Down) buttons to highlight an option, the (OK) button to select it and the (M) or (D) buttons to exit it.
Note: there is only space on the display for 7 menu items, so you may need to keep scrolling down to show any extra items.

The Video Mode - Optical Setup Menu is :

1. Resolution cycles between : 1080FHD => 720P => VGA : Note the first two are 16:9 but VGA is 640x480 4:3 aspect ratio, a hangover from a previous incarnation.

2. Cyclic Record cycles between : Off => 3 Minutes => 5 Minutes => 10 Minutes : I assume this is recording time

3. High Dynamic Range cycles between : Off => On : No visible effect in normal operation

4. Exposure cycles between : +3 => +2 => +1 => 0 => -1 => -2 => -3 :

5. Date Stamp cycles between : Off => On : I assume that this adds a date stamp to recorded images

The Camera Mode - Optical Setup Menu is :

1. Capture cycles between : Single Shot => 2s Delay => 5s Delay => 10s Delay : This adds a delay between pushing the (OK) button and the first photograph being taken. This is useful at high resolutions to allow any vibrations from pushing the button to to die down.

2. Resolution cycles between : 1.2M => 2M => 3M => 5M => 8M => 10M => 12M : Note: 12MP is off the bottom of the screen so keep scrolling down!

3. Continuous Shooting cycles between : Off => On : When "On" this will (after any configured Capture delay) take 3 consecutive photographs. The spacing between photographs seems fairly random with the gaps, according to the XIF data, between first and second being roughly 2 seconds and between second and third less than a second.

4. Quality cycles between : Fine => Normal => Economy : This seems to alter the jpg compression ratio between extreme and even more extreme. There is no option to save raw image files

5. Sharpness cycles between : Strong => Normal => Soft :

6. Color cycles between : Normal => Black & White => Sepia : Why ? This must be a left over from an earlier camera's incarnation of the software.

7. Iso cycles between : Auto => 100 => 200 => 400 :

8. Exposure cycles between : +3 => +2 => +1 => 0 => -1 => -2 => -3 :

9. Anti Shaking cycles between : Off => On :

10. Date Stamp cycles between : Off => On : I assume that this adds a visible date stamp to recorded images, as the XIF data always carries a timestamp.

The Hardware Setup Menu

1. LCD Brightness cycles between : Off => 30 Seconds => 1 Minutes => 2 Minutes : Turns off the display after the selected time delay use the (OK) key to wake it up again.

2. Auto Power Off cycles between : Off => 3 Minutes => 5 Minutes => 10 Minutes : As its says it turns off the microscope after the selected time delay.

3. Frequency cycles between: 50Hz => 60 Hz : Use this to set your local mains frequency to avoid intensity beating problems when recording.

4. Auxiliary to the line cycles between : Off => On : No idea what this means or does

5. Language cycles between 16 different languages, including English, French and German.

6. Date/Time sets the date and time. the date format is fixed yyyy/mm/dd. (OK ) button moves to the next field, the (Up) button counts down and the (Down) button counts up ! When complete use (M) to save and exit. But don't waste your time as lost between power cycles, probably because there is no Real Time Clock hardware.

7. Format cycles between : Format => Delete all data : Use this to empty or format the SDCard, use (M) to exit without loosing data.

8. Default Setting will display Restore Default and cycle between : Cancel => OK : This is used to Factory Reset the device, use (M) to exit without loosing data..

9. Version will display the Software Version in my case H69G-V1.0-20200927 - I can find no more recent firmware or any documentation on how to update it.

Power Supply

The power supply is a ubiquitous USB switched mode power supply. Input is the universal 100 to 240Volts 50 or 60Hertz with an output stated as 5 Volts at 2 Amps. However it was certainly not capable of running at 2 Amps as when tested it dropped out after a few tens of seconds.

In operation, standalone the Microscope typically draws 0.64 Amps and when the optional twin LED sidelights are added the total draw is 0.9 Amps.

So as the actual draw is less than half the rating of the supply it is probably good enough. Voltage regulation is slightly on the high side at 5.2V but with the cheap (read thin) USB cables supplied this will counter the cable losses.

Resolution

At a push, and at your own risk, it is possible to raise the camera/display unit so that it is only partially within the mounting ring to gain another 20mm of height, increasing the field of view to roughly 32mm by 18mm. If you were to continue this and somehow extend the upright there is still enough adjustment to focus the image with the the bottom of the ring light at 400mm or 16" from the base/stage but by then the image is at 1:1 and and we no longer have a microscope but a camera.

Digital Magnification is totally confusing as

• On Screen there are actually 5 different levels of magnification as you push the up or down buttons but only 4 labels.

• They are labelled x1 to x4. But x1 is used twice on the way up and x4 twice on the way down.

• The Magnification factor displayed on screen is based on the total Pixel count.

  • So that x4 magnification is actually x2 linear magnification in each of X and Y.

• The claimed 1 to 1200X is based in Pixel count and is equivalent to 1:34.6 linear magnification.

  • However the best I could achieve was 13xOptical and 2xDigital or 26X Linear or 676X Pixels

LCD Display

The microscope is sold as having an HD display. However using an eyeglass on the display reveals this to be at best a 1024x720P panel, but other web reviews show this to actually be less than a 720P HD. With an actual resolution of 1024x600 and not quite the true 16:9 aspect ratio expected.

Photographs and Videos

The microscope is sold as having a 12MegaPixel sensor, and it can be set to capture photographs at up to 4032x3024 pixels.

However there is no option for raw data files and the compression ratios seem to be quite extreme even when set to a fine quality image. Some examples file sizes are shown here :

• 1.3MP, Fine quality, file is between 80 and 190KB

• 5MP, Normal quality, file is roughly 265KB

• 5MP, Fine quality, file is roughly 350KB

• 8MP, Fine quality, file is roughly 530KB

• 12MP, Fine quality, file is roughly 735KB

In comparison my mobile phone produces file sizes roughly 10 times larger than these.

Whilst the display shows good XY scaling, a box is a box and not a rectangle, only the 1.3M (1280x960) and 2M (1920x1080) are actually square. All other resolutions (including VGA)s produce a pronounce rectangular image.

At 5MP and above there is some quite noticeable banding and some other strange artefacts that make me wonder is this image being re-scaled or the compression algorithm is just not coping with it very well.

When imported into the ViewNX-i Nikon app the XIF information is very basic as an example here is that information stored in a low resolution image:

1. Filename - typically IMG_001.JPG

2. Date Created - typically 2020/01/0118:19:26 - but as the date/time is reset on power on this will always be the 1st January 2020 !

3. Date Modified - typically 2020/01/0118:19:26 -

4. File Size - typically between 80 and 190KB for 1.2MP image

5. Image Size - 1280 x 720

6. Device - AC54

Rather perplexingly all 3 short videos that I shot, from 1 to 7 seconds long, produced identical length 550MB files, yes Megabytes of data..

Bonus Functions or maybe not....

Use of the Microscope directly connected to a PC is not actually documented. But if your PC/Laptop USB sockets can source the 650mA power required then you can connect the Microscope.

Plugging it into the PC/Laptop will pop up a new boot-up menu

This cycles between : Mass Storage => PC Camera => REC_mode :

1. Mass Storage should enable the SDCard to be mounted on your PC as a removable disk, this worked first time with MacOs Catalina, and also with my Windows 10 Desktop. But it did not work properly with my Windows 10 Laptop. The removable drive showed up in Explorer but it was not accessible. Just to check that it was not a power limitation I added a powered USB hub between the microscope and the laptop with no change.

2. PC Camera sets the Microscope up as a 1.3MP Webcam and will identify itself as a "USB PHY 2.0" webcam device. This sort of worked on MacOS, but with a slow refresh rate of around 1 second and gave images of 1080x720.
   The Windows 10 Desktop and Laptop both produced an unsynchronised flickering video image, with photographs exhibiting partial blocks of successive images overlaying each other. Totally unusable....

3. REC_mode (Recording mode?) seems to be normal microscope operation as booted from the power brick. So this is just the option to ignore the PC and just start up as usual using PC power. This would seem to be the best method of operation if you could just power off and then restart into Mass Storage mode to transfer the photo files without moving seats. However powering off when PC connected often required unplugging from the PC.

Observations and areas for improvement

1. The buttons look cheap (not surprisingly) and are set flush with the control panel to avoid them being pressed when rotating the focus knob. That said they exhibit a good positive action from the switch beneath.

2. Dodgy macro ring light brilliance control - probably a dirty wiper on the potentiometer but the ring light flickers badly when near on full.

3. The macro ring light consists of 8 bare LEDs set back from the optics. Whilst there is a surrounding "diffuser" this does not cover the LEDs hence a lot of the problems with glare. You really do need diffuse light to use a microscope.

4. The SDCard socket is badly placed and set in so that the card is flush once fully inserted, making it really difficult to insert and even more so to remove. As its' sole purpose is to transfer images to your PC this is not really satisfactory. As a workaround I ordered a 30cm SD Card extension cable from eBay, which works well.

5. There is no SDCard safe release (eject) option in the menus, and removing it whilst powered on risks corrupting the card. This means you have to power down, then remove the SDCard and reboot once you have put it back in. Not a big issue just annoying.

6. The display has good visibility horizontally (>120 degrees each way), but the vertical visibility is limited to about 10 degrees each way before it gets darker viewed from below and whites out from above. The screen has a fixed tilt of roughly 12 Degrees, but I have found that I need to tilt the entire microscope backwards another 12 Degrees to make it usable .

7. The colour/hue and contrast on the 7" display is not adjustable either in the software or by physical controls, leaving a lot to be desired.

8. Whilst the configuration settings are saved between power cycles annoyingly the Date and Time are not preserved, there is no Real Time lock module, so they need to be set every time you power on with the intention of taking a photo or video.

9. However the 2M (1920x1080) photographs taken are acceptable and seem to have good colour rendition when viewed on my Apple Mac's screen. A lot better than the microscope's LCD display's more limited colour gamut.

10. The marketing blurb says "built in ultra lithium battery" but this is an error - it was a feature installed in the earlier G700 model's base plate and my G1200 certainly does not work unplugged ! Opening up the case does reveal a connector on the circuit board for a battery so this may well be an option.

11. I have not had to use the reset switch, so I wonder if it's purpose may really be for firmware installation via the SDCard as there is no programming connector/header.

Microscope Internals

Dismantling the Microscope is fairly easy, there are 9 simply self tapping screws to the rear and no internal clips. The covers simply splits apart into the front and rear halves. The screen and button covers are held in place by locating tabs the cover moulding so will fall out on disassembly. You will need to carefully pull the front cover away to disengage the focus knob's rear gear from the focus rack. The circuit board is held in place by 3 small self tappers and then pulls out easily to reveal that it has components on both sides. There is only one chip of significance and that is the only processor AC21AP2X382-1A4 manufactured by "JL" whoever they may be...

Conclusion

Yes it works as a simple microscope, and takes good clear photographs, but only at 1280x720 resolution. The picture compression at all resolutions seems excessive, and all higher resolution images have far too many picture artefacts.

Does it work for PCB assembly and rework ?

Hmm, sort of. You can see the workpiece to place components and get the soldering iron into place but, the single biggest problem is glare. This causes saturation of the displayed LCD image, making solder joints very difficult to see. Without being able to adjust the brilliance and contrast of the displayed image you can not adjust the picture to reduce the effect of the glare.

If you use the built-in ring light then the glare off a PCB and the solder pad's is far too much so that you can not see if a solder joint is good or not. If you tilt the microscope backwards this reduces the glare. If you turn off the ring light and use indirect light from the optional 2 LED lights, then that further reduces the glare. The stage is also highly reflective, so light bounces off of that and then off of the surroundings and also the operator.

The display has good visibility horizontally, but the vertical visibility is limited to about 10 degrees each way before it gets darker viewed from below and greys out from above. The display angle is not separately adjustable so you do need to lean the entire microscope away from the work piece in order to see the display and also access the workpiece comfortably.

At £68 it seems, to me, to be fair value for the money but with the usual limitations that you would expect to come with that low price point and country of origin. I would love to get my hands on the source code for the microscope and fix some of the issues for myself. At some point I might even get around to 3D printing a new set of covers with double (or adjustable) screen tilt.