Just finished: tricked out cycloptic gemscope
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Just finished: tricked out cycloptic gemscope
Here's a project I've been meaning to finish for a while. I got a vi tage 'jewelscope', an apparently japanese copy of the GIA gemolite (the original, not the later Gemolite V). It might be virtually unknown today, but the jewelscope is extremely well built and has all the features you want in a gem microscope, with switchable brightfield/darkfield illumination with an iris, a tilt mechanism and a gem clip for holding stones. But the head on it, while functional and producing a good image, was really uncomfortable to use. I think it was an old Kyowa? But it was just marked made in japan. Each eye was perfectly parfocal with the same field of view, so I assume alignment was fine, the images just felt so far apart horizontally that converging them was a bit straining.
All that to say, I figured I found the perfect home for one of my cycloptics. The colors don't quite match but it is close. This one has a trinoc port, 15x ultra widefield eyepieces and a swing-in 2x auxiliary lens. It took some time to take it apart and clean it thanks to somewhat glue-like grease but otherwise it was a pleasure to work on. After that I jst had to drill two new holes in the gem base to mount it.
I probably won't keep it long-term, as my collection of gemscopes has gotten unmanageable, but I thought people here might enjoy it. Now I just need to get a camera adapted, which should be straightforward--the trinoc port is just an eyepiece tube so either afocal or an eyepiece adapter should be good options.
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Re: Just finished: tricked out cycloptic gemscope
I have found that those B & L 15X U.W.F. eyepieces turn an economical Cycloptic into a stereo, much beyond it's presumed capability. There is a small amount of loss at the bottom end due to the 15X multiplier, which can be somewhat overcome by using a fractional objective. If a Chinese stereo existed with that kind of field and equivalent resolution it would be $2000.00 or more.
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Re: Just finished: tricked out cycloptic gemscope
Absolutely. I did have to assemble it from a couple working ones (one broken head, two broken click-stop spring mechanisms) but it is clearly very well-built and the optics are nice. I'm still working on hooking up a camera--since the standard 2x Chinese dslr adapter seemed to work well on the B&L stereozoom I tried it on I'll probably try that first. I think it will produce surprisingly good images.
Re: Just finished: tricked out cycloptic gemscope
Thanks for posting! I am interested to see pics from the new system.