G600 Electronic Magnifier Stand "Improvement"

thingiverse

I recently purchased an electronic magnifier from one of the Chinese online retailers. It was billed as having 1-600X continuous magnification. I thought that meant I could adjust the level of magnification. It has a fixed magnification, and you can adjust the level of magnification only by raising or lowering the unit. The problem I had with that was two fold. First, the goose neck that came with it was VERY stiff, so raising and lowering the unit was a fight. Second, you couldn't get it high enough for the magnification to be low enough to be useful. I searched for an alternative stand, and while there were some very nice ones, they weren't what I wanted, so, here's my take on it. The unit goes together with a piece that snaps into the base that came with the unit, a pillar to raise and lower the unit, and then a bracket to attach the unit to the pillar. There are two types of pillars, both of which I've misspelled in the STLs, but I'm to lazy to fix it. The first, is a 200mm long unit that has a center hole meant to fit an M5 screw. The second is a 50mm long unit that features threads on both ends. The second pillar allows you to print as many as you want, screw them together, and have the length of pillar you want. There are two types of bases. To go with the 200mm pillar is a base that has a hole for the 5mm screw that goes into the pillar. The second has a 25mm pillar with a threaded hole that allows you to screw in one of the 50mm pillars. There is one bracket that attaches to the back of the unit and slides up and down the pillar. It's kept in place by tightening an M4x25 screw through a M4 nut that gets slid into the bracket. The knob is designed to have one M4 nut screwed all the way up to the head of the screw, then slid through the nut. You may need to put a nut on the other side of the knob and tighten it down to pull the nut and screw head all the way into the knob. I recommend printing the 200mm pillar on its side, and the 50mm pillar pieces on their ends with the hole on the print bed. If the 50mm pillars are printed on their sides, they require support, and then the threads don't work well. For the bottom with the threads for the 50mm pillar, I suggest printing it feet down with supports. Again, if you print it on its side, it needs support for the threads, and they don't work as well. For the bottom with just the hole, I recommend printing it on its top with the feet off the print bed. The knob should be printed with the larger hole on the print bed. You can do supports or not, depending on your printer. I ended up putting it in with other parts that were using support and forgot to put in a support blocker for the knob. The supports came out easily enough. Finally, I recommend printing the bracket with the flat side down and no supports. What I like about this design is that it flexible, allowing you to choose what type of system you build, and with the threaded pillars, how high you want to go. What I don't like about this design is that it needs external hardware. I normally avoid designs that need screws and bolts, so I'm a little disappointed that this one needs them. I originally printed the knob with a threaded shaft, and the hole in the bracket with threads, but the first time I tried to tighten that screw down, it snapped. It is also very wobbly. I may work on a way to stiffen it at a later time, but for what I'm using it for, it works very well. It will hold steady unless it or the table is tapped, and when I'm soldering SMD components, that's not an issue.