Created and maintained by Bill Beaty. Mail me at:
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RATS!!! NO LONGER AVAILABLE FROM HARBOR FREIGHT!
Try the $129 microscope from American Science Surplus instead. 400 power.
(I haven't bought one myself, but the description looks good, and it's
about half the price you'll find elsewhere.)
SCIPLUS: microscopes page
https://www.sciplus. com/s/c_17/ sf_110
> Bill,
> I would appreciate any leads on where to purchase a high quality but
> affordable microscope to be used by homeschooled children of elementary
> to junior high age. Thanks for your help!
> Tina M.
Hi Tina! I have just the thing. A mail order company for cheap shop
tools has started selling an imported chinese microscope. I bought one
for my daughter (who's 5y, so this is a future xmas gift.) I played with
it for awhile, and compared to those cheap "chemistry set" kid's
microscope, this one is *really* nice. I suspect it's a medical school
microscope for a third world country. The XY stage is the best part; it
lets you drive around on the slide (and in most science catalogs, the
price of an XY stage is the same as this entire microscope, stage
included!). I can't recommend the accessory illuminator lamp; I suspect
it's designed for a lower voltage, so on a 120V the light bulb burns too
bright and fails in a few minutes. (If you can find an identical bulb for
120V, it would work fine.)
Also: the price started out at $89 and only went up recently, so I bet
this company is making a big profit. Maybe if you got five or ten
homeschoolers together, you could buy several and talk them down on the
price?
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