I feel vindicated! David In a message dated 8/4/00 4:34:26 PM EST, [log in to unmask] writes: << I would check out the Intel QX3 Computer Microscope, in fact I am surprised that I have not seen more of them at different shops. They cost around $70 to $75 and are a snap to hook up via USB. Using a 15 inch monitor you can get 200x magnification. The pictures that I have seen it capture (video too) are really great and at that price what can you loose? Check out http://www.intelplay.com/home.htm David >> Hi David! A guy at work here got one of the microscopes...I must admit it's pretty cool, but not very practical in a electronics application. It's mostly for microscopic slides. You run into throat depth problems when you have something bigger than a slide. Yeah, they say that you can remove it from the stage, and hand hold it for images, but if you try and hold it in focus at 200X power to capture a image, your heartbeat through your fingers will be a problem when trying to stay in focus for a image capture. Also, from playing with the one that a fellow worker brought here, anything higher than 100X it becomes very "pixel-lated" in the image...that is; not very clear. Not to say that isn't a cool toy, but not something that I would recommend as a tool to create high-magnification digital images of printed circuit assembly issues... Maybe someone can come up with some way to use this thing, but as it's sold, it's not a good tool...just my worthless opinion. But at $70.00 there ain't much to lose. -Steve Gregory- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------