Do your homework before buying a metallographic microscope to avoid being cheated

Metallographic analysis of metal materials generally uses an inverted metallographic microscope, and inverted metallographic microscopes are divided into monocular, binocular, and trinocular. Monocular metallographic microscopes have basically been discontinued, so binocular metallographic microscopes are considered low-end. I found that some friends who consulted about metallographic microscopes really know too little about microscopes. For these friends, I suggest that you really do your homework before buying, so as not to be fooled by some salesmen who only care about making money!

From the name, you can see that the binocular inverted metallographic microscope and the trinocular inverted metallographic microscope are different by one eyepiece. The trinocular inverted metallographic microscope has one more electronic eyepiece than the binocular. This electronic eyepiece is used to connect to the camera and can be used to take pictures. Binocular metallographic microscopes can only be observed with the naked eye, and your experience is entirely used to judge the metallographic structure. If you want to take pictures, you can only use your mobile phone to shoot the eyepiece tube. I have tried to take pictures with a mobile phone, which requires a lot of patience. Moreover, binocular metallographic microscopes are equipped with achromatic objectives, and the usable objective is only 10X. If you look at materials with 100 times magnification, the clarity will not be enough if it is higher. Most of the low-end trinocular inverted metallographic microscopes now have long-distance plan-field achromatic objectives. Even if you only want to see 100 times, it is more appropriate to choose a trinocular inverted metallographic microscope than a binocular. You don't need to take pictures now, but you may not use them in the future. If you choose a trinocular, it will be convenient for upgrading in the future. If you choose a binocular, you can only buy another one if you want to upgrade.

How to distinguish the achromatic objective and the long-distance plan-field achromatic objective mentioned just now? You only need to see if there is a PLL letter on the objective. The one with nothing in front of the magnification is an achromatic objective, and the one with PLL is a long-distance plan-field achromatic objective. Now the only metallographic microscope that can use this method is 4XC. The configuration of 4XC on the market is relatively messy. You can distinguish it according to the method I teach you. The imaging effect of the PLL objective is better than that of the achromatic objective. If the 4XC is equipped with an achromatic objective lens, the price should be cheaper, otherwise you will suffer a loss if you buy it.