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I bought this head-mounted magnifier to be able to work on tiny hobby crafts. It's great! A few minor quibbles: the screws on the side need to be tightened often or it will be too loose to stay up when you push it up; the mechanism by which it stays on your head is a squeezing motion so that doesn't feel good after a while. Over all though, great purchase, great price!
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This is well worth the price in my opinion. The L.E.D. light is bright and it is even possible to move it side to side and aim it at your work. There are three levels of magnification with one fixed-lense, one flip-down lense, and then the jewler's lense to further increase magnification. The adjustment band is easy to adjust to fit your head size.Best Deals for SE MH1047L Illuminated Multipower LED Binohead Magnifier
I purchased this to begin working on vintage pocket watches as a hobby. What a great value. First, it's lightweight, and the adjustment wheel in the rear makes quick fitting to your head very comfortable. Though the LED light is bright and has a built in tilt to direct the light, it is the typical bluish LED light (a more neutral color light would be nice). The lenses are nice; behind the fixed visor lens is a magnifying flip down lens (inside the case), then the jewelers swivel down lens all with nice clarity, especially for the price. Unless you're a professional, I see no reason why not to go with this for years to come and spend the savings on your hobby.Honest reviews on SE MH1047L Illuminated Multipower LED Binohead Magnifier
I had never bought a product like this before. In looking through all the choices available and reading the reviews, I decided to give this a try mainly because of the price. I have nothing to compare it to, however, this product is perfect for my needs. The light is significantly bright, the headband adjusts easily, it is light weight, and the magnification power is sufficient.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for SE MH1047L Illuminated Multipower LED Binohead Magnifier
*Note* At the time I reviewed this product, the price was around $12. It's now dropped to almost half that, which actually makes it a reasonable unit for the price. For this price, I feel it's worth it, especially if you want to modify it a little to make up for some of its shortcomings.Now, lower the lights, and roll film!
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... For those who don't already have a big head. Scratch that, this won't boost your ego sufficiently... or maybe at all...
It's cheap, it's light, it works, it shipped really quickly... but it's definitely not the Rolls Royce of head mounted magnifiers. First off, it definitely feels like ~$12 strapped to your head. No... I have to scratch that too. My cheapie black baseball caps from eBay cost 1/3 the price and are FAR more comfortable. This definitely feels like a sharp plastic band cutting into your forehead. Also, the magnifier front portion that is attached to the headband, flops forward no matter how you force the seemingly oversized and overly strong aluminum bolts to tighten it. I used it twice on the first night I got it, and I finally just gave up and let it flop because my forehead stopped it at just the right angle. More on that in a bit. ;-)
The lenses work well. It indeed has 3 levels of magnification, and if you use the highest, you're working with something VERY tiny indeed. There is a considerable amount of edge distortion, and I found it a little tricky to keep my head still so that the image was clear enough when working with the really tiny stuff, but it's a practice thing and I simply haven't used one of these long enough. What do you want for ~$12? BTW, I may use that phrase A LOT for this review.
The LED light does in fact work, and it does in fact come off very bluish. It's tolerable, but it would be pretty slick if replaced with a brighter and whiter LED. :-)
The first time I used it, I did some soldering of fine wires, with lap joints to connect them tip to tip. It did well, but it was a simple job and it wasn't really pushing the limits of "tiny". The second use was more pressing I discovered that my finger was sore in one spot because somewhere in my workday I picked up a sliver. It was a tiny one, so I had to use magnification level 2, and I needed very bright light, and a sewing needle to pick the sliver out. The procedure took a lot longer than I expected it to, and I did have a very hard time keeping my head in alignment with my finger so that I wasn't drifting the view to one side or another. Just a little to one side, and things got really blurred, and likewise with too far or too near a lot of blurring if I wasn't holding my head JUST RIGHT.
I was at it so long with that stupid sliver (which turned out to be a chip of porcelain) that I became sort of immersed in the world of the head magnifier, and by the time I got the little bastard out of my finger, I had lost all concept of how tiny it really was. That was a big nod to the head magnifier it worked well enough to give me pause when I lifted the magnifier away and saw how very tiny the sliver actually was.
Then too, I also had a big moment of pause and a big laugh when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and saw the huge red crease across my forehead the harsh plastic edges had been cutting in for quite a while and I'd desensed to it a bit. It's time to say it again What do you want for ~$12?
Long and short they work. They work well for how little you spend to get into basic head mounted magnifiers. The selection of magnifications is nice, but there are a LOT of areas for improvement. One, the sloppy "can't tighten this friggin thing" front part is really annoying. Two, those sharp edges, good God, really! And three, why the blue LED? Blue light is hard for human eyes to focus on and the worst in the world for such an application. Fix these three major pains in the a**, and you've got something really good going here.
All that said, what do you want for ~$12? ;-)
A little update, 7-13-13: It's been quite a while since I bought this thing, and I'm surprising myself to say that it's kind of become indispensable. I do a lot of work with soldering, and as it happens now I feel awkward as h*** doing any soldering WITHOUT it, because I can see my work area just so much better, magnified. Additionally, I occasionally fabricate my own printed circuit board designs, and I've found that for drilling out the PCB pads, it's become as indispensable as with my soldering. Simply put, I can nail all the holes dead center with ease, where without any visual aid I tend to hit a bit off center. Makes ALL the difference. It's especially valuable when looking for tiny solder bridges, cracks in traces or other such micro-fine trouble spots in things. I also find a lot of use with it in reading part numbers on chips, because sometimes the print can be so faded-looking no matter what the light angle. Frankly, I've gotten to the point where I don't hardly care anymore how floppy and uncomfortable it can be. I just do the work, and completely ignore any irritation on my forehead. That said, as before, I am not using it for an 8+ hour a day job. Were that the case, I'd definitely want to either improve or replace it. For hobby uses, it's fast becoming my BFF for a LOT of the things I do.
Another update, 8-17-13: I finally got off my *** and did the LED upgrade to the illuminator unit for this head mounted magnifier. It was surprisingly easy, owing to the fact that the illuminator unit comes out of the magnifier very easily (just rotate up and pull out!) and disassembles just as easily (four screws and no locks). The LEDs themselves were just common 5mm/T1-3/4 LEDs, and are soldered into a tiny piece of PCB in parallel with each other. They fit into a plastic reflector assembly, and were a little hard to get out of it but I managed to pry them out with the tip of an X-Acto knife without any damage, rocking back and forth between the two LEDs. I then removed the two power wires to make the rest of the work easier on me. Desoldering them was pretty much a piece of cake, using a Radio Shack vacuum 45W desoldering IRON (not a common solder sucker) although one of the solder pads showed signs of peeling after the LED removal was done so be careful about board damage. Prying again with the X-Acto, I was able to remove both LEDs easily enough, and then I replaced them with a pair of 27,000 MCD 5mm white LEDs from www.c-leds.com (eBay). They soldered in easily, I resoldered the tiny wires (make sure you get em right!!) and then the whole thing went back together in seconds. I did all this work, mind you, with the magnifier on my head but obviously without the illuminator. I like this thing more every day, lol. Anyway... End results! It's definitely less blue, more comfortable to look at, but there still seems to be a bit of a bluish cast that is probably coming from that cheap, metallized plastic reflector. Not sure what to say about that, but I'm sure it could be worked on. It could also be coming from the plastic lens that sits over the LEDs, which could be removed easily enough I'm sure. Also, the LEDs I used are probably brighter but the difference is so little that I couldn't really be sure there was a gain at all. Anyway, it's good enough, the work was easy, and had I been in a racing mood I'm sure I could have done it in less than 5 minutes instead of the ten or so it did take me. I'm pleased enough it's an upgrade. Now I just want to work out some kind of padding to make the unit more comfy, and I'll be plenty happy with it. :-)
Rick NR417
