USB digital microscopes

[fafster]

Does anyone have any microscopes that they can recommend? The traditional style would be best as they have a lot of slides that can be used.

 

Cheers.

[BIST]

i would recommend these

Camera reviews - Veho VMS-004 Discovery Deluxe USB Microscope review - Digital Photography Now

[fafster]

Thanks for that. Checked them out online, but that's the first review I've seen. Will have a chat with the Science dept.

[BIST]

Thanks for that. Checked them out online, but that's the first review I've seen. Will have a chat with the Science dept.

 

theres also reviews here Veho VMS-004 Discovery Series 400x USB Microscope: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

[gerardsweeney]

If it's of interest, I'm having no end of fricking trouble getting a VMS-004 Deluxe to install on our XP 32 bit boxes.

 

The teacher who bought the thing was told that the driver supplied is for the wrong model (?!) and downloaded the updated driver from their site.

And it will not install.

 

Unpack VMS-004 Version2.zip

Run DrvSetup.exe and it crashes with a VMDRV.EXE error. Consistently. On several different models of PC here.

 

According to a review on Amazon, it's trying to install a P2P program for Diino - not sure how accurate that is. Whatever the hell is causing it, it's making me want to Hulk out!

 

I did find a driver which kind of works:

http://www.kjell.com/filarkiv/USB/50729/50729_XP_2k.zip

 

which comes with a fairly basic AMCAP utility - but the app that the Microscope comes with doesn't see it.

 

All in all, I've wasted far more time on this than it's worth.

[gerardsweeney]

Replying to myself - the virtual equivalent of how I keep my sanity at work..

 

I did eventually manage to get this wretched thing to install... The drivers installer would continually crash - I suspect it's clashing with our Symantec virtualisation agent, though that's a guess - it's the one background component consistent on the various PCs I tried it on.

 

So I built myself a completely standalone XP box - no domain, AV or anything, and installed the drivers. Then I copied the created %systemroot%\System32\DRVSTORE\vmuvc_4C44DB0967B91DA831C255BCEF075EEE2067B174 folder (this will probably vary on your PC) to a pen drive.

 

Connect the camera - sorry - microscope - to my "live PC", let it install as a USB Video device. Device Manager, Update Driver, point to the inf in the copied folder on my pen drive. It installs itself as a Digital Microsope.

 

 

Then run the MicroCapture installer (NOT the DrvSetup one), and it'll install MicroCapture.

Give write access to C:\Photos and C:\Videos to any non-admins who might need it.

 

And - touch wood - it seems to install so far.

 

If anyone wants them, PM me and I will mail you a download URL.

 

 

Cheers,

Gerard

Edited October 27, 2010 by gerardsweeney
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[Lardboy]

Thank you gerardsweeney

 

This has been doing my nut in. I found the file you were talking about in c:\windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository on my Windows 7 machine. Did the copy across to the same directory and bob's your mum's brother.

 

Thank you once again,

 

Lardboy