AmScope - 10X-20X Binocular Stereomicroscope with Arm Mount, Fixed Lens, Flexible LED Gooseneck Light - SE400-Z

This thing is fantastic! I’ve been mulling over which AmScope to buy for some time now, I was intending to purchase the more expensive version (over double the price) of this scope but decided to go for this one. Glad I did as this is extremely compact and portable, perfect for SMD electronics (reason I bought) but perfect for other hobbies too. Make no mistake, it’s simple in design, easy to maintain, easy to use but perfectly capable of being used in a professional environment. Build quality is better than expected, optical quality is superb for the price! Check out on YouTube, plenty of reviews on this particular scope.

Nicely made mechanical parts and super clear optics give an excellent image illuminated by the adjustable goose necked LED lamp, the switch for which is on the rear of the stand. The 20x eyepieces give the expected magnified view of the specimen, but the image area is halved. It doesn't come with a storage box, but the boom holding the actual microscope can be partially collapsed to reduce storage space. A protective hood is supplied to protect from dust. Delivery was stated as taking up to four weeks, but it was actually delivered in less than two.

I do not usually write rave reviews, but I will make an exception in this case. I love this microscope. I bought it for electronics work, re-entering the hobby after a 45-year absence. Since then components have got smaller and my eyesight has not improved! I first tried various magnifiers with mixed success; they get in the way of soldering and are not good enough for SMD work. I then considered getting a digital microscope, but the professional reviewers on YouTube always said things like “It’s great, but will never replace my stereoscopic microscope”. So, I looked at affordable stereo widefield microscopes with a boom arm. I just want it for soldering (10x magnification) and do not need to attach a camera. I do need a boom, but the simple one on this product suffices. The base is heavy, so it is very stable. The light on this model is limited, but I complement it with a cheap LED bendy-light from IKEA that I already had. The two lights together work fine. The whole unit fits well on my very small workbench (50 x 80 cm). Now I’m hooked, I use it for all my soldering, even THT on stripboard is much more reliable with this microscope. You can see the flux working and the joint ‘taking’. You know you have no dry joints, or stray solder causing shorts, or unintentionally broken strips because you can see them. It has an adjuster on the left eyepiece, so you don’t need perfectly matched eyes to use it with both eyes open! The 10x magnification is more than enough and I will probably never use the 20x. I would have preferred one with 5x second lenses but could not find one at this price. Maybe I will buy some separate 5x lenses when the piggy-bank is full again. The product is sturdily built and comes well packed. The enclosed instructions are no use, but one can download a better manual from the Amscope web site. One of the confusing instructions was the one to set the height you want first, then focus on the object. This is misleading. Height IS the focus on this product. There is no zoom facility. The focusing knobs on the side are just a fine adjustment to the coarser method of adjusting focus by sliding it up and down the pole. This suits me fine though. At 10x magnification, focus is achieved with the microscope boom near the top of the pole, so there is lots of space to work underneath it. With an adjustable chair, this gives me a comfortable working height for both viewing and soldering. The field of view is sufficient for soldering. It’s the first magnifier I have had that does not get in the way or require a third hand to hold it! OK, so it does not have the bells and whistles of a fancier microscope -- if you need a camera port, a boom arm that swings away, or a zoom facility, then you will have to pay more -- but this model is excellent value for money. I recommend it for hobbyists with a limited budget for closeup work on a bench of modest proportions.

A good microscope that I use for learning to repair laptop motherboards. The only problem I find is when I swing the boom over to the right or left the microscope base is not heavy enough and the scope falls over. Apart from that very clear and usable for an entry level electronics repair scope. If you have the budget spend more and get one with a zoom.

Bought this to work on smd electronics. This is brilliant value for money and has a quality feel. It works fantastically with crisp clear optic and long working distance. I was going to buy the more expensive microscope with the twin arms this was half the price and does all I need it for. I not the the kind of person that can normally be bothered to write reviews but this is one purchase I really value. Best regards Chris

Working with smd components as small as 0603 wearing 2 pairs of glasses and using a magnifying glass was difficult to say the least..! Now I have the AmScope 10x~20x Widefield Binocular Microscope it's easy..! Providing about 8 or 9 inches of height between the pcb and the scope gives plenty of room for a soldering iron.. tweezers.. and whatever else you might need to work with for soldering.. desoldering or reflowing smd devices with the hot air gun. The flexible l.e.d light source enables you to position the light to give the best image without glare. The 10x & 20x lenses are the correct choice for working and inspection and the weighted stand means the scope is not going to tip up. You can even use the scope to work on bigger circuit boards by doing what I did and turning the base through 180º and adding a heavy book or weight to re-balance the scope. Works great and enabled me to re-work a large Tektronix oscilloscope circuit board. I'm sure the AmScope will come in handy for all kinds of jobs in the future.....

Such an amazing experience purchasing this item. Stated that it would take 4 weeks to arrive but I received my order after just over a week. Easy to set up, strong and robust. Excellent device and a great investment towards my iPhone repair hobby.

Lenses do not align properly between left and right lenses.

Fast delivery from Am scope, Very nicely built smooth rack and pinion adjustment knob, got strong points and minor weak points, strong point the base is massive and heavy looks like you could drive a truck over it, weak points the adjusting knobs made of plastic , nice that they give a cover with it to keep it from the dust ,the ac cord is thick and strong looks like a PC ac cord easy to replace if need be if your into modern SMT electronic you really need this or stamp collection its also a blessing for older eyes reading printed font number 2 on prescription drugs etc..the focusing distance is perfect to hold your welding pencil ..

easy usage no problems

This microscope is very solid and well-built. I knew what the other reviewers had said, but even so, I was surprised at just how heavy the box was when it was delivered. It's very solid -- no "toy" feel whatsoever. No worries about it tipping over or anything. However, I almost dinged them a star on their goofy instruction manual download procedure. Instead of having a printed manual included, they had a pamphlet with instructions to go to their website and enter a password printed on a sticker that's on the outside of the shipping box. And then when you do all of that, you find that the manual doesn't say anything that you couldn't already figure out anyway. I can maybe see not including a printed manual with it, as so many people never bother with reading them anyway so why print it when people can just download it? Plus, you can more easily provide updates and additional data. But why the goofy password? It's not like anything in the manual is secret or proprietary or would be a benefit to anyone who didn't own the microscope. They should just post them all online available for free download with no passwords. I bought this scope to do electronics work -- specifically for tiny surface mount parts. However, if you plan to do electronics, you'll want to get the WF5X eyepieces too -- perhaps you should look at the version of this microscope with the 5X and 10X eyepieces to begin with. The one I bought came with 10X and 20X eyepieces and so I had to buy the 5X eyepieces separate. For moderate size parts, the 5X eyepieces are perfect and for tiny (0201 scale) parts the 10X are perfect. I don't know if I'll ever really use the 20X eyepieces. When I bought my WF5X eyepieces, however, I found a strange discrepancy in the reviews and AmScope product specs for the AmScope WF5X eyepieces. Their spec listed the 5X as having only a 11mm field-of-view, which is ridiculous seeing the 10X has a 20mm field-of-view, though another source listed it as being 18mm. The comments from reviewers were mixed -- some seemed to indicate the AmScope 5X and 10X eyepieces were both about the same field-of-view and another reviewer described a much smaller field-of-view, consistent with a 20mm to 11mm reduction. So with all of the mix of data, I opted instead to purchase OMAX WF5X eyepieces (part CS-X2AEX205C) which are spec'd as having a 20mm field-of-view. They work just fine on this scope (as both are standard 30.5mm diameter eyepieces) and I can confirm the OMAX WF5X eyepieces (that I received) have the indicated 20mm field-of-view. The working range for this scope is great -- no worries of crashing your soldering iron or tools into the scope. And the lighting with the single gooseneck LED light is good. However, I opted to also get their 6W LED dual gooseneck adjustable brightness light to use with it and be able to light things from both directions (to eliminate shadows). I do wish that the base of that dual gooseneck light was about 1/2" (~13mm) shorter than it is. If it were, it could be placed lengthwise on the base of this microscope as the perfect "add-on" without consuming more tabletop space. At least it will fit sideways on the scope's base without falling off. The only change I would really make to the scope is in the arm adjustment. Due to the height of my table and chair, using the scope as it was designed puts it a bit too high for me. So, I flipped the adjustment arm upside down so that I could adjust it at a slight downward angle and make it more comfortable. But if you do that, you have to be careful of not accidentally releasing the lever and crashing the head of the scope into your work. It would have been better if they had designed the arm adjustment slightly differently to where the lock position would already be at a slight downward angle (perhaps 20 degrees from parallel instead of the near 0 degrees that it is?). That would extend the control range significantly and still not risk crashing the scope's head. Maybe I should ding it one star for that? Though once you have it configured to your liking, it doesn't matter much. Prior to this scope, I was using a lighted magnifier in conjunction with reading glasses. But this is such a huge improvement. For the price, it was well worth it to upgrade. I have no regrets over this purchase. UPDATE 14 Aug 2023 : I've done some recent upgrades to my microscope setup and thought I'd share. While the WF5X eyepieces have done well over the years, they do have more of a "tunnel vision" effect with a smaller apparent field of view than the 10x eyepieces. The difference is in the diameter of the lens itself. I happened to come across a couple of blogs discussing this and found mention of an alternate 0.5x objective lens. Strangely, AmScope doesn't sell it and neither does Amazon nor any of the Chinese suppliers. However, this microscope is essentially a rebranded Euromex BE-50 (see euromex[dot]com), and they have both a 0.5x and 2.0x objective lens that fits this microscope perfectly (exact fit). So, I ordered the 0.5x objective lens and have found that it in conjunction with the 10x eyepieces (which is still the same 5x overall magnification) gives a much larger apparent field of view with less "tunnel vision" than the WF5X eyepieces with the original 1.0x objective lens. It also has a slightly larger working distance, at 250mm instead of 230mm. The only suppliers I could find that sold the Euromex objective lens were in the UK and Germany. I got mine from optics-pro in Munich. I also found a better solution for the AmScope 6W gooseneck light. On Aliexpress, you can find essentially the same 6W gooseneck light (in fact, the LED goosenecks are interchangeable) that bolts onto the upright post of the back of the microscope and gets it completely out of the way. I have switched to it and like how it has freed up the area on the base of the scope for placing things while working. Unfortunately, though, Amazon doesn't carry it either. The same Aliexpress sellers that have the other 6W gooseneck light also have WF10/22 eyepieces (and maybe even WF10/23) with the same 30.5mm attachment diameter that can improve the field of view even more. And they have a variety of cameras with the same 30.5mm attachment that fits the eyepiece socket of this microscope. I got the 55MP version. While it's not useful for soldering, it does facilitate circuit reverse engineering, as it's easier to glance between a monitor and your paper where you are taking notes than looking through the scope. Though it's too bad this isn't a trinocular scope to where you can leave the camera attached all the time. And one other find was that the "large dollar" (like Morgan and Eisenhower silver dollars) round plastic coin storage tubes with screw tops that hold 25 coins are perfect for storing the eyepieces of this microscope. Those storage tubes are 38.5mm diameter by 59.4mm deep, which is deep enough for the longer WF5X eyepieces that are about 56mm long.

J'ai profité d'un prix bas cette semaine sur ce produit : je l'ai eu à 227€ port gratuit, puis il est passé à 267€, 289€ et maintenant 262€, le tout en moins d'une semaine ? A 227€ c'est une super affaire. La construction est surprenante : tout métal, donc stable et solide. Le bras d'éclairage est facile à orienter pour obtenir la luminosité voulue. Le champ de vision en 10x est parfait pour travailler sur les composants CMS de type 0805, 0603, SSOP et même TSSOP. Les œilletons 20x seront plutôt réservés à l'inspection. J'ai du acheter un autre siège pour mon plan de travail, car il faut être assis plus haut !

Arrivato in anticipo sulla data prevista. Amazon è impeccabile. Appena aperta la confezione l'ho subito montato e provato. Lo trovato veramente valido, secondo le mie aspettative e anche di più. La sostituzione degli oculari è una cosa semplicissima, anche se lo utilizzerò, per quello che mi serve prevalentemente con quelli da 10x. I materiali sono di ottima qualità, meglio di quello che mi aspettavo. Durante l'utilizzo, permette di lavorare e fare agevolmente lavori di saldatura. Se siete alla ricerca di un buon microscopio ad in prezzo decente, lo consiglio.