YOCTOSUN Head Mount Magnifier
For years I’ve used a simple swing arm magnifying lamp when I need to do close-up model work, and while it’s not particularity fancy, it does a reasonably good job. I recently saw a few folks using a new style of lighted headband magnifier and thought I’d pick one up over at Amazon. The new magnifier is pretty inexpensive at around $15.00, made by a company called YOCTOSUN. I saw units that look identical for a few dollars less but at this price I figured I’d try out this ‘name brand’ first.
These glasses come with 5 interchangeable lenses of different magnifications: 1.0x, 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x and 3.5 times. Also in the package are 3 AAA batteries to power the dual LEDs, a microfiber cleaning cloth and an elastic headband that attaches to the arms of the glasses for a more secure fit. All in all, a nice little package for the price.
This is very subjective of course, but right out of the box the arms of the frames have a very plasticky feel to them, almost like children’s sunglasses. You’ll definitely want to handle these carefully. The battery compartment and the adjustable front portion of the glasses, while still made of the same plastic, seem well enough engineered.
The 5 acrylic lenses come in a separate storage box, and slightly surprisingly seem to be of fairly good quality. I was sort of expecting to see something similar to inferior drug store reader glasses, but was pleasantly surprised at how crisp things looked through the plastic lenses, with little distortion.
The glasses actually have two moving parts up front, the section that houses the LEDs and a black clip that holds the lenses. These are handy for making adjustments to the light and lens angles. The lenses are a simple press-fit in to the black plastic bracket, this makes for quick lens changes and the lenses seem to hold in this bracket very nicely.
The lighting on/off slide switch is located right behind the two LEDs. These LEDs don’t throw a ton of light, as you might expect but they are nonetheless useful.
All in all I was pleasantly surprised by these magnifiers. Yes, they do feel a bit on the cheap side due to the plastic used, but they’re also well engineered and at just $15.00, they’re worth having around. I’ll still use my swing arm lamp for many of the more common tasks, but to get in even closer for the detail work, I’ll be trying out these YOCTOSUN magnifiers.
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YOCTOSUN Head Mount Magnifier
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Category: Useful Tools
