Digital Cameras Ratings: 40x-2000x Trinocular Biological Compound Microscope Review

Average Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars

(More customer reviews)Well, first of all, the label on the bottom of the base of this microscope says " Made In China " so that seems to answer the ' Private Label ' question.

When I received the shipping box, the eyepieces and objective lenses were all rattling inside as I moved the box side-to-side. When I opened the box, while those items were each in their own plastic tube, there was no paper or other packing inside those lens tubes to protect them. But, each was screwed into a threaded holder under each cap.

I have owned a microscope before, but could not install every item, because it was not described in the ' Operation Manual, ' which by the way did not say it was a manual for a ' Variscope Series 8621 Trinocular,' but rather for an ' XS-80 ' microscope. This manual also showed the microscope has a maximum magnification of ' 1600X.'

Personally, I found the workmanship of the microscope a little shoddy, with steel or iron stray ' filings ' in several places. It reminds me of when we used to be able to buy Soviet items soon after that country opened up to trade, and they worked fine but looked like they were shoddily manufactured.

What really bothered me, is that nowhere on the manual does it give you a company name, telephone number to call, or Email address to send them a question. Very oddly, any attempt to do so routes you back to Amazon.Com and you have to leave an EMAIL question through Amazon. I felt like I was dealing with Tony Soprano (of the television series). The Email confirmation I received from the company also did not give me either a telephone number or Email address to use to ask any questions directly.

In fairness, I did find a way to contact the supplier directly, and was told this was an Amazon.Com requirement to not give the customer direct access. I communicated with the supplier twice, by Email, and both times they supplied me with rapid, accurate and friendly customer support.

Since I no longer have the eyes of a 14 year old, I will not know if (and possibly how much) the sharpness of the lenses might have been affected by (in my opinion) inadequate protection.

The price for this item, however, is an absolute bargain. Doing some research, I could not find any comparable item that came close to this price. I appreciated that the supplier included two extra bulbs for the lamp, as well as two color disks to slide between the elements. And everything does work perfectly.

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Product Description:
This is a brand new, factory sealed, Variscope Series 8621 microscope.The Variscope microscope family of optical instruments is made by one of the largest "private label" optical component fabricators in the world.Included with the quadruple nosepiece are four achromatic multi-coated objective lenses that display a true-color image. You get 4x, 10x, spring loaded 40x, and spring loaded oil immersion 100x objectives included with this microscope. For viewing, we provide two sets of eyepieces: a pair of premium grade wide-field 10x (18mm) eyepieces and a second set of 20x eyepieces. This allows for magnification ranges of 40x, 80x, 100x, 200x, 400x, 800x, 1000x, and 2000x.Ergonomic features include an advanced Seidentopf-type microscope head to provide maximum comfort in adjusting interpuplillary distance.The microscope head swivels 360 degrees and sits at a 30 degree incline. The eyepieces have diopter focusing adjustments. Unlike most cheaper models on the market that have simple slide clips, this microscope has a 115mm x 125mm stage with a fully mechanical X-Y axis slide holder.With this functionality, you can easily move the slide around on the stage with fine precision, no fumbling the slide under the clips. This model includes a trinocular imaging port to allow for the attachment of a film camera, digital camera, or CCD camera. A 23.2mm ocular adapter and a C-mount (CCD) adapter are included with the microscope. T-mount (T-ring) photo adapters are available.This microscope has a built-in 20 watt halogen bulb, with adjustable intensity light controls. Cheaper models use a tungsten bulb or have a simple on/off switch with no brightness controls. The microscope has a built-in spiral-type N.A. 1.25 Abbe condenser under the stage with an iris diaphragm for precise control over the amount and focal length of light aimed at your specimen. A swing-out filter holder with blue and green filters is included.