My experience buying used Mitutoyo 100X 0.70:

MacroLab3D · Post by **MacroLab3D** » Wed Jan 15, 2020 5:11 pm

Hello, dear scientists. First of all let me thank you for creating this invaluable source of information: THANK YOU.

Today i will share my experience of buying used Mitutoyo 100X / 0.70.

Short story: Impossible to buy used 100X.

Long story began from my attempt to buy 50X. Thanks to your suggestion i was able to make a right choice and avoid terrible disaster. I decided to buy this unusual objective despite your fair warnings against it. Idea was that the prices on Ebay is the same as 50X 0.55 so why not go higher? Yes i know low working distance but it is low on 50X also. I mean 13mm and 6mm is what i call low in both cases. It is not like 10mm and 34mm you see. It is LOW and your lightning setup is going to be the same for both objectives anyways. So why bother with that difference? - this was my logic.

I began to surf Ebay for 100X 0.70 and noticed 2 different models. At first i even thought that one of them was counterfeit version but later realized that there are 2 different models but one new revision 378-806-3 and other just older previous mark 378-806-2.

See collages i made from ebay listings:

They have one interesting difference - older model has more protruded nose compared to new, shortened one. Particularly it's noticeable on this photo when they stand side by side we can see how much less light under the new one.

Another difference is the maintenance holes at the back of the lens. New one with smaller holes and old one with bigger holes.

Frontal difference is the chamfer on a barrel. Newer model has it wider.

I remember i saw same topic somewhere on this forum but failed to find... at first. And then i found it eventually, with Google is more resultative and quickly found what i was going to show you 10X old vs new:
https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=20737
And another one which i never saw before:
https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... be81615447
So... moving along.

Same story with other Mitutoyos. 50X 378-805-3 (new one) has less light access compared to older version.

I even made a graph comparison:

Here you can see how 50X_0.75_378-814-4 has much less light access compared to even 100X_0.7_378-806-3. And 100X_0.7_378-806-2 looks even better:

Same working distance (5.2mm vs 6mm). Looking at this i can't imagine using 50X_0.75_378-814-4 for Macro. It is out of question, unlike 100X_0.7_378-806-2. Which eventually i decided to buy.

So. Prices was between $1200 and $2800 all from China. I noticed that all sellers share same photos. Which looks fishy already.

So i tried to find source. And i found (i believe) original merchant on Aliexpress:

Looks legit! Original packaging, assuring note card:
"No copy,no fake,or rebuild,100% genuine", unbelievable price!
So i got excited. I prepared my bank account and got in contact with the merchant. Nice lady speaks chinese (luckily Aliexpress translates it on the fly to English), she assured me that she will check their warehouse tomorrow and today they already closed. With a great excitement i relaxed till the next day when she got me a sad news. All 100X 0.70 is sold out.

Suddenly.

Despite active listing showing 3 items available to this day.

But she said, we have 100X 0.55 just for you. Interested?
No i said.

And came back to Ebay cheaters

. Who knows i will try. I messaged to avery one of them and they suddenly "lost or broken":

And all of this took some time. They are very slow to respond.

As a result now we have clear Ebay lol. No more Mitutoyos 100X for sale on Ebay YAY!

But a whole sea of other magnifications is still available you are welcome. All from China. And all, i believe non existing sold out made just to bring your attention to sell you something else instead.

Well that's enough Ebay for me for now. Guys i know you made a successful buys there i envy you but my point overall you better not buy from China, as you warned me, by the way.

So what next. I tried one last place SPW Industrial:

Yes i was so desperate to message on this poor photo of precious 100X_0.70_378-806-2. And next day they responded. They said that it is "currently not accessible". And immediately changed status to sold out after that. Beautiful. I give up.

Conclusion: do not believe in fake listings. They are just fishing.

I guess my next option is Edmund Optics. Sounds crazy but this is a reality. And they selling only 100X_0.70_378-806-3.

Scarodactyl · Post by **Scarodactyl** » Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:10 pm

A lot of these types are mirror listings of stuff that's available on Taobao (see https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=39455). Sort of handy in the sense that buying directly off of Taobao is difficult, but (obviously) this leads to some serious problems too. Not to mention the annoyance of having so many fake/shadow listings.

Macro_Cosmos · Post by **Macro_Cosmos** » Wed Jan 15, 2020 11:59 pm

I suggest against buying anything from ebay listing thieves. What they do is steal listings from Taobao and claim they've tested it. They do not own the item which means they have absolutely no way to test it either. 100% test muh shoe, liars.

100x typically goes for ~$900, you mentioned $1200-$1500, which means the listing thief is making up to a whopping $600.

A very simple indicator of listing thieving is the ratings. If you look at their ratings, it's very bad (98% positive is very bad, anything below 99.5% is bad for a seller that has sold over 1000 items). You can look at how people describe the transaction, usually you'll see "seller doesn't have stock", "never received", "order cancelled" etc.

There are some genuine ebay sellers based in China that unfortunately will have their reputation tarnished due to this practice.

Ironically, the people who own these items (Usually 亞輝 based in Guangzhou) can't do anything with their photos being stolen since eBay just doesn't care. They [eBay] even allow people to duplicate listings thereby taking original photos in the process.

I'm all for salvaging, it's good for the environment, but I do not like deception.

I wouldn't mind getting one for you (from China), it's going to be based on trust and you will have to risk me being a thieving [profanity]. However I cannot guarantee anything. I've never handled a 100x before, I have no basis to test it against, I don't have an adequate way to measure the performance. What I can do is ensure that it works, send sample photos and photos of the lens itself, and forward it to you with top-notch packaging. I'm not here to make a big profit, I just don't want to make a loss, so yeah the price will be marked up by perhaps 10% since I will have to talk to the sellers, get the lens and test it.

CNY (25th of Jan) is coming, not the best time to shop from China anyway.

That said, the 100x HR I have on my watchlist still exists: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mitutoyo-M-Pla ... Sw6zhd9Nm9
Local seller too, it's pretty expensive though.

MacroLab3D · Post by **MacroLab3D** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:21 am

Scarodactyl, i tried Taobao too, just forgot to mention that in the post but situation there even worther then on ebay. Alot of $1 listings this is ridiculous.

Macro_Cosmos, thank you for your offer but i decided to not to buy used 100X. It is too risky and i am too poor for that. Yet i am wondering why are you looking at 100X HR with light angle of 6 degrees and working distance 1.3mm? This looks like impossible to use at all.

Adalbert · Post by **Adalbert** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:39 am

Hello everybody,
Some years ago I bought a lens 100x.
But I haven’t found any interesting macro-motive except the scales for this magnification up to now

BR, ADi

Macro_Cosmos · Post by **Macro_Cosmos** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 10:23 am

MacroLab3D wrote:Scarodactyl, i tried Taobao too, just forgot to mention that in the post but situation there even worther then on ebay. Alot of $1 listings this is ridiculous.

Well, the ￥1 listings do indeed say "price is negotiated" either in the listing itself or description. It's really assumed. Not your fault, not many are accustomed to Taobao. What happens is the buyer would speak to the seller via the Taobao app, and then the price is negotiated from there. They expect you to give an offer rather than revealing how much they want for it. This also allow sellers to put out bogus listings to attract customers. Upon asking, they will just say it's not in stock and steer the discussions towards alternatives. Good marketing sure, it's not allowed on Taobao but the rules aren't and cannot be enforced due to how volatile the market is in China.

MacroLab3D wrote: Macro_Cosmos, thank you for your offer but i decided to not to buy used 100X. It is too risky and i am too poor for that. Yet i am wondering why are you looking at 100X HR with light angle of 6 degrees and working distance 1.3mm? This looks like impossible to use at all.

Passing on the 100x is a good idea. Even if you do get it to work and you're able to go beyond 0.5um (50 MPlan Apo requires 0.5 as the DOF is 0.9um), the camera might not be up to the task. EO states that the 100x has a DOF of 0.6um, I recommend halving that, giving 0.3um steps to allow a liberal tolerance for stacking... yeah getting 0.3um per step, that's a big rabbithole in itself.

EO also states that the lens has a resolving power of 0.4um. Using Nikon's resolution tool, a pixel size of 15.5um is recommended for a 0.9 NA objective. Modern sensors have high megapixels and small pixels (photosites). Whatever extra basically goes to waste -- simply magnifying the result. The D810 for example has a pixel size of 4.88um, which is a third of 15.5um. Objective is being out-resolved by the camera. The 36mp is thus essentially overkill. Of course there's benefits, pixel shifting is still somewhat immature IMO but it does bring very positive outcomes in these cases.
(The way I explain things might be inaccurate but I believe the concept is correct. Matching pixel sizes is beneficial)

As for the 1.3mm working distance, it's good enough. Anything above 1mm can work just fine. The difficulties lie within your system, does it support such small step sizes, as small as say 0.3um?

Forum member Macrero posted a beautiful image, involving an Olympus 50x with 0.8NA (!!!), the working distance would be around 0.5-0.6mm (I don't know how he measured 1mm). The obstacle would be the actual shape of the objective rather than the working distance. It's possible to remove the outer housing on certain objective lenses, making lighting a lot easier. I tried with my Mits, zero success.
20x disassembly @14:52: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J16EeaibdNE
NO I DO NOT RECOMMEND TAKING THE ENTIRE LENS APART. I simply want to take that outer shell off, revealing the nice somewhat conical shape.

Check Macrero's shot out: https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40907
Oly 50x Mod: https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40767
Nikon tool: https://www.microscopyu.com/tutorials/m ... resolution

MacroLab3D · Post by **MacroLab3D** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:21 pm

Adalbert, i still want to check it by myself if i can find anything interesting.

Macro Cosmos, Thank you for the info. I have StackShot 3X so step size is not a problem i guess?

Look, someone already disassembled his 100X 0.70 378-806-2 and decided to sell it after all. Strange isn't it? He not just screwed off the cover shell but sawed it off. If i understand it correctly.

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:18 pm

MacroLab3D wrote:I have StackShot 3X so step size is not a problem i guess?

If you mean the equipment at https://www.cognisys-inc.com/store/stac ... l-pkg.html, then no, that's not precise enough to work at sub-micron step sizes.

You might be able to get by with the best of the screw-driven ball- or roller-bearing slides that are available from other vendors.

But a much better solution at sub-micron is to use a repurposed microscope focus block that has been automated by the addition of a stepper motor driven by the StackShot controller. See for example https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=27549 and other people's systems that you can find by following links that come up in the discussion.

--Rik

MacroLab3D · Post by **MacroLab3D** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:07 pm

rjlittlefield wrote: no, that's not precise enough to work at sub-micron step sizes.

Rik, you opened my eyes... once again

)

Well... i thought i have only one problem - absence of 100X 0.7 but there are too much more of them hahah. Thank you so much. Now i need to think even moooore.

I thought that expensive rail must be able to do anything.. and now i just noticed 2um is the lower step... meaning i can do maximum of 10X magnification on that rail which i exactly have right now. Just beautiful.

...i cant stop laughing on myself. How naive.

mawyatt · Post by **mawyatt** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:50 pm

Sub-micron territory is where the Piezo Stages shine, much better than even the superb THK Focus Rails with Trinamic Controllers.

Best,

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:06 pm

MacroLab3D wrote:now i just noticed 2um is the lower step... meaning i can do maximum of 10X magnification on that rail which i exactly have right now.

It's actually a little better than that, but not much. 2 μm is a convenient order-of-magnitude for the specification. The behavior is complicated. See https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=16323. I have not done a long test like that for the 3X, but as I recall a quick test looked similar to the High Precision line.

I used to use StackShot rail down to NA 0.55, nominal DOF 1.8 μm, but I stopped doing that once I had a suitable focus block system.

By the way, Mitutoyo specifies DOF for their objectives as a one-sided number: maximum distance away from perfect focus. That's why they quote the 10X as "Depth of Focus (μm): 3.5" rather than the 7.0 μm that would be listed by say Nikon for NA 0.28 . (The standard calculation for two-sided DOF is just 0.00055/NA^2, using the 1/4-lambda wavefront error criterion with green light, lambda = 550 nm.)

Assuming your StackShot rail is same as mine, you could go to 20X NA 0.42 OK. (Nominal DOF 3.2 μm, Mitutoyo says 1.6 μm.)

--Rik

MacroLab3D · Post by **MacroLab3D** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:54 pm

This is just too exciting information, Rik. Thank you so much for helping me with links and formulas.

mawyatt, Piezo stages sounds incredible. Now i am wondering if there are commercially available solutions, with a motion/camera controller.

A lot of information to research, guys. I am going to dive in.

Thank you so much!

dhmiller · Post by **dhmiller** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:48 pm

So is it safe to assume that a Stackshot rail would not be adequate for a 50x Mity (which I happen to be considering)? And that anyone using a 50x (or better) probably has some other (custom) type automation device?

rjlittlefield wrote:
MacroLab3D wrote:now i just noticed 2um is the lower step... meaning i can do maximum of 10X magnification on that rail which i exactly have right now.
It's actually a little better than that, but not much. 2 μm is a convenient order-of-magnitude for the specification. The behavior is complicated. See https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=16323. I have not done a long test like that for the 3X, but as I recall a quick test looked similar to the High Precision line.

I used to use StackShot rail down to NA 0.55, nominal DOF 1.8 μm, but I stopped doing that once I had a suitable focus block system.

By the way, Mitutoyo specifies DOF for their objectives as a one-sided number: maximum distance away from perfect focus. That's why they quote the 10X as "Depth of Focus (μm): 3.5" rather than the 7.0 μm that would be listed by say Nikon for NA 0.28 . (The standard calculation for two-sided DOF is just 0.00055/NA^2, using the 1/4-lambda wavefront error criterion with green light, lambda = 550 nm.)

Assuming your StackShot rail is same as mine, you could go to 20X NA 0.42 OK. (Nominal DOF 3.2 μm, Mitutoyo says 1.6 μm.)

--Rik

rjlittlefield · Post by **rjlittlefield** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:00 pm

dhmiller wrote:So is it safe to assume that a Stackshot rail would not be adequate for a 50x Mity (which I happen to be considering)?

It's barely adequate -- far from ideal.

And that anyone using a 50x (or better) probably has some other (custom) type automation device?

I expect that's the case. Some of them will be using other commercial rails such as https://www.mjkzz.de/collections/focus- ... 0497462387 .

--Rik

mawyatt · Post by **mawyatt** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:28 pm

MacroLab3D wrote:This is just too exciting information, Rik. Thank you so much for helping me with links and formulas.

mawyatt, Piezo stages sounds incredible. Now i am wondering if there are commercially available solutions, with a motion/camera controller.

A lot of information to research, guys. I am going to dive in.

Thank you so much!

There's been quite a bit of work done by folks here to make these piezo stages useful for sub-micron image stacking, they are good into the nanometer range. The OEM piezo stages and controllers/driver/amps are very expensive (follow link in one of the threads) but we've developed our own controllers and driver/amps to utilize the surplus stages at a more practical cost.

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40679

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40681

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40682

This is the latest "Closed Loop Controllers".

https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... hp?t=40510

Best,