Review of the OMAX 40X-2500X Digital LED Trinocular Microscope with 5MP USB Camera

The world of microscopy is so fascinating! You don’t need to be a scientist or researcher to own a good quality microscope, and enjoy the world of what is not visible to the naked eye. Microscopes are great for learning about the (small) world around you. Having a microscope at home is also great for homeschooling and for those in college and university that may need to use them for their studies. I admit to geeking out around microscopes. When I was a kid I remember asking for a microscope for Christmas. Sadly the one that I asked for was not the one I received as a child, and I was disappointed by my ‘toy microscope’. I could barely get it to work and it did not offer that wow factor I was searching for.

 

Fast forward to now and I am thrilled to report that I now have that ‘wow factor’ that I was searching for as a child. I am the proud owner of the OMAX 40x-2500x Digital LED Trinocular LED Compound Microscope with 5MP USB Camera from MicroscopeNet.com. If I have to sum up my experience into one word about using this OMAX microscope it would be “AMAZING”! My family is also enjoying using it as well. This post will review the features and use of this compound microscope.

What is a Compound Microscope?

Historians credit the invention of the compound microscope to the Dutch spectacle maker, Zacharias Janssen, around the year 1590. The compound microscope uses lenses and light to enlarge the image and is also called an optical or light microscope (vs./ an electron microscope).  The simplest optical microscope is the magnifying glass and is good to about ten times (10X) magnification.  The compound microscope has two systems of lenses for greater magnification, 1) the ocular, or eyepiece lens that one looks into and 2) the objective lens, or the lens closest to the object. (This explanation was taken from here. This website also includes the parts of the microscope for novice microscope users, or others that want to learn more about microscopes in general.)

About the OMAX 40x-2500x Digital LED Trinocular LED Compound Microscope with 5MP USB from MicroscopeNet.com

OMAX is a Chinese brand of microscopes. The optical quality is quite good and the overall build quality is good and solid.

 

This OMAX digital microscope comes with a 45° inclined 360° swiveling trinocular sliding viewing head. This means that the binocular part is inclined at a 45 degree angle for easy viewing, and the viewing head trinocular can rotate 360 degrees, so that the user does not have to keep turning the entire microscope in position to view the specimen. It has two pairs of widefield eyepieces, four achromatic objectives, stain-resistant double layer mechanical stage with scales, coarse & fine focusing, NA 1.25 Abbe condenser and variable intensity LED transmitted illumination system. It offers six levels of magnification power: 40X-100X-250X-400X-1000X-2500X.

 

We love the mechanical stage on the OMAX microscope. Moving a slide by hand is inaccurate and cumbersome, but with the smooth and precise knobs on the OMAX to control the slide position, scanning becomes a breeze, as well as centering on a specific element of your sample. The Omax digital microscope comes with a well built and fluid 3D mechanical stage, and it provides precision with the slide movement.

The LED light included with this Omax digital microscope is extremely bright and clear, while not discoloring your sample too much compared to a similar halogen unit. Even basic blood work benefits from the use of a LED light as you can see from these videos that we took:

The microscope works on 100V-240V as the power supply range.

The 5MP (2592×1944 pixels) USB digital imaging system that captures still microscope images and live video on computer. See the software section below for more details.

 

Pros

– The magnification reaches 2500X

– It has a replaceable LED light

– Digital imaging system which captures still microscope images as well as live video

Features

• Trinocular viewing head with sliding adjustable interpupillary distance
• Double layer mechanical stage and fine focus knobs on both sides
• NA1.25 Abbe condenser with iris diaphragm & filters
• Variable intensity LED transmitted illumination

Software

The OMAX 40x-2500x Digital LED Trinocular LED Compound Microscope with 5MP USB Camera from MicroscopeNet.com includes software that can be used in Mac OS, Linux, and all windows operating systems. We have tested it in both Linux and Windows. See the chart below for more details. While we tend to use Linux more at home, we are using this OMAX microscope with Windows as we need the measuring feature. We are mostly using the OMAX microscope for looking at various mushroom spores that we collect while hiking and need to be able to measure each individual spore for identification purposes.

Camera

This Omax digital microscope is truly a digital microscope which gives it an advantage over other similar brands. It has a USB port built onto the back head of the microscope. All you have to do is plug it in and then install the proper software for your operating system, and then you are ready to go!

Specifications of the 5MP camera: true color 2592×1944 pixels (5M pixels) – 0.5X reduction lens to get a larger field of view – 0.01 mm calibration slide: 1mm/100 division – Frame speed: 5fps at 2592×1944, 18fps at 1280×960, 60fps at 640×480 – Capturing microscope images, recording live video, measuring lengths, angles, areas, editing images – USB cable included with the microscope.

Other videos of what we think is an Amoeba and Bacteria in Water:

Still Pictures taken with the OMAX microscope:

Conclusion

Overall this AX 40x-2500x Digital LED Trinocular LED Compound Microscope with 5MP USB Camera from MicroscopeNet.com is extremely convenient to use, and easy to setup. This OMAX microscope is excellent for a holiday or birthday gift for younger students with an interest in science and the world of microbiology, for college and university students, and adults too (including mycology enthusiasts, vets, and the curious at heart)! You can buy it directly from MicroscopeNet.com as I did. They provide fast shipping and have great customer service. They answered all my questions prior to me purchasing this microscope as I was looking at different models. OMAX microscopes can also be found on Amazon.