Public microscope+camera in Montreal

[D Straney]

Weird question, not sure it even fits in "projects" 100%, but...
Just moved to Montreal, and I'm looking for a local hackerspace etc. that has a decently-high-zoom microscope with a camera, to photograph some bare silicon for my reverse-engineering projects.  Doesn't need special lighting or to be able to pick out individual transistors in a high-density CPU, just able to identify old large-feature dies like this, for example:

(I don't know the actual zoom setting, wasn't able to figure it out from the knobs; this is just a fairly normal microscope though with a cheap camera attached - nothing fancy or high-end)

My previous local place, Artisans Asylum (highly recc. for those in the Boston area) had free Circuit Hacking Nights every Wednesday and some good equipment.  Found 4 promising places here in Montreal: out of those, "le space maker" seemed the most serious/well-equipped by far, but they said they didn't have what I was looking for, and the others either didn't have microscopes in their equipment list, or didn't seem like the type of place for that.  Buying's also not an option for me, I need 100% of the bench space I have and can't fit another piece of equipment in my apartment at the moment.  Tips from others in the area?  Anything I might be missing?

[Alex Eisenhut]

Welcome to Montreal. I can guide you to where you can gain lots of weight, but the hackerspace ... space... isn't well served here IMO, not at your level. You might hear about the Foulab, it's a great place to hang out, eat pizza, get a bit drunk, but I don't recall any particular amazing equipment that comes to mind. If you see a HP 1741 oscilloscope there, that was my donation to them...

Try to get in touch with Concordia, McGill, and ETS and see if they have equipment they might want to let you use, especially through student associations.

[magic]

That's not a lot of resolution and not very hard to do with a photo camera and a macro lens, maybe even point & shoot with a closeup adapter.

If you don't have any of that, but can find space for one more small box, some of those "USB microscope" gadgets are not completely hopeless.

[Alex Eisenhut]

There are also macro & other lens add-ons for phones, I had a few for my G7 and the quality was surprisingly good.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005180328028.html

[D Straney]

Hah, yes, feel like a lot of self-control is going to be necessary now, living in The Land of Poutine.  Good to know, and thanks, will have to hit up Foulab at some point for social and project-motivation stuff.  I'm actually getting a McGill ID in January so hopefully there'll be something I can access with that.

Unfortunately my phone camera has awful quality and my "camera" camera doesn't do lense swaps (it's a cheap point and shoot), but this USB microscope seems relatively decent as far as those go, going to give that a try: https://www.carson.com/product/mm-840-en. Do you know what the common name would be for point-and-shoot-closeup-adapters like you mention?  I've tried a bunch of similar search phrases but haven't come up with anything, feel like I need the right term for it.

Thanks for the advice all around, good stuff.

...now that I think about it, maybe my phone camera is only barely-usable at normal distances: it did a surprisingly decent job looking through the eyepiece of a non-camera-equipped microscope one night when the camera-equipped microscope was busy:

[Alex Eisenhut]

If you want to be like a local, eat at Japote when at McGill, it's just across the street. 

[richnormand]

In the improbable situation that you cannot find a suitable setup in Montreal contact me by PM.
I might be able to help you depending on the sample size.
Not in pix but also have access to a DSLR with closeup lens.
Only glitch is I am in the Ottawa region.... depends on how desperate you get I guess

My cheap ebay ccd microscopes does a decent job with a good light source and monitor like the photo you posted.
They are small and plug right in the computer. That might be a better long term solution for you.

Also, as pointed out, Montreal has a lot of excellent restaurants.

[D Straney]

Wow, much appreciated!  As you say, that would be a pain, but glad to have a backup option.  Good to know you can get good results with a decent close-up USB camera too.

And thanks for the restaurant recc., I've been to Nouilles Zhonghua a couple times but hadn't seen Japote, man those curries look good.

[richnormand]

OK, so to give you and idea of these USB microscope cameras, I rummaged in my "odd and sods" drawer to find this pretty old TWS2708 EPROM with a missing window.
So it is pretty dusty!! I then found my old USB CCD from ebay that was about $20-25 shipped, pretty low res.
The grandkids loved playing with it.
The attached photos should give you an idea of what the lowish end USB camera can do in your geometry.
It works better for PCB and SMD examination though.
I rarely use it as I prefer the stereo microscope.....
Hope that helps. I am sure you should be able to find a low price, a higher resolution with the proper working distance for your application.
Cheers.

[richnormand]

Here is the same thing with the stereo microscope camera

[magic]

Do you know what the common name would be for point-and-shoot-closeup-adapters like you mention?  I've tried a bunch of similar search phrases but haven't come up with anything, feel like I need the right term for it.

They are simply called "close-up macro lenses" or something like that. Lots of them on AliEx, eBay, etc and from various importers. The cheap ones are like this. There are also more advanced lenses, made of multiple glass elements and better corrected. The most popular are Raynox, particularly DCR-150 (208mm) and DCR-250 (125mm), the latter being more suited for high magnification.

I have a DCR-150, DCR-250 and two of the cheap +10 diopter (100mm) ones.

This image was taken on an old point-and-shoot with 7-30mm lens (at 30mm of course) plus DCR-250 and one +10D. Not great, but not too awful. Unfortunately, on 30mm, either of these lenses alone just doesn't give enough magnification for chips. I also tried stacking two cheap +10D together and that was noticeably worse. For best results (and high magnification) you would want a longer base lens and preferably just one high quality closeup lens.

All of that stuff pretty much requires a tripod and, ideally, a remote release cable. So, frankly, if you don't already have (or want to have) photographic gear, getting a microscope may be a better option after all...

[D Straney]

Just to follow up in case anyone happens upon this later:
Turns out the Carson MM-840 worked out nicely - it's $65 US, so can't quite compete with the $20 aliexpress ones on price, but the image quality is pretty solid (see below).  Doesn't quite do artistic-quality photos, but it gets close; I really like looking at hybrid modules up-close with it.  The biggest downsides are...
1. The lights: there's only 4 LEDs and they're not very well diffused, so it gets glare-y when you're not holding the camera right up against the object.
2. Attachment/holding: the flexible arm is janky and not very rigid (so it's hard to adjust focus because each turn of the focus knob changes the position), so what I found myself doing is skipping the stand entirely, and holding the camera in my hand up against some kind of reference point.  Would be better if you already have or are willing to build a small, simple rigid variable-height holder for it.  Because the zoom is controlled by how close to the object you can get, the clear stabilization cover around the camera also limits how much you can zoom unless the object can fit inside that - going to experiment with removing that to get better zoom on small dies.