TOMLOV HDMI Digital Microscope Model DM9 MAX

OK, not my normal tech stuff – or isn’t it? The Tomlov DM9 microscope came out of the blue – I was not aware of the company until just a short time ago when they contacted me by the contact page in here. They asked me if I’d like to review their digital microscope.

Spur of the moment I said “sure”. As it happens, for some time now I’ve been relying on my Samsung phone to see really tiny print and tracks when writing about technical products – I have to say not the most convenient way to magnify anything and not a lot of control but it works.

I’m due some eye surgery back in the UK later this year and that and associated delayed prescription change means my eyesight can be less than perfect for looking at tiny stuff – yesterday’s A1-SLWF-3 WLED controller being a prime example – without help I couldn’t actually read the port allocation for the IR controller – see relevant SMLIGHT blog entry – and that’s not an isolated example. Surface mount components give me a lot of trouble.

So when the opportunity to grab a microscope came up – I thought I’d give it a go.

In return for sending the device to me, all they asked for was a link to their website. Yes I’ve checked it – looks fine. Full specifications and description for the microscope are on the site – in good English.

The package arrived last night somewhat bigger than I expected but part of that was simply good, solid packing. The scope took me all of 5 minutes to open up, assemble and power on. Straight up it looks to be good quality. The manual is multilingual and has 29 pages of quality English text and imagery including exact assembly details.

Enough waffle – this rechargeable microscope comes complete with 10.1″ screen which can be connected via HDMI to a larger screen or the whole thing can be used stand-alone.

Used stand-alone, the combined monitor/microscope comes complete with 64GB microSD for storing images and video. There is an IR remote which has a range of 5 metres. On opening, the monitor/scope (which has an internal rechargeable battery which can be recharged by USB-C) came fully charged and the remote had a new battery in it. Controls are located on the bottom of the monitor and also on the remote.

For lighting there is an 8 LED array in the scope (dimmable) and a pair of base-mounted side lights (dimmable) which are also rechargeable by USB-C

Photo resolution can be up to 20M, video up to 1080FHD. The device works with various versions of Windows and can work with the Windows Camera APP on the PC for direct storage into the PC. I can see this getting used in reviews – all I need now is more bench space.

Yes, that’s part of my fingernail in the picture on the right… Shots made with my phone as last night I had yet to hook this up to the PC. The level of detail is great – and I’ve not even tried the base lighting yet – just the main array mounted in the scope area.

Why a remote control? Well, if you are video recording something very small you really don’t want to be messing around with the on-scope controls. The unit has rubber feet and can vibrate easily.

This morning – I made a very short video segment for you… you would not believe it – I could not get transfer link fom one PC to the next working – so I tried sending the link by email – my Outlook account is dead according to that PC – so I thought I’d send the link to myself via Facebook – because I wasn’t using my normal PC – it wanted to lock me out for unusaal activity.. whoever thinks that what we have is true AI needs to have a rethink.. bunch of dumb bots at Facebook and elsewhere..

Anyway… the microscope has a decent microphone but my office has a noisy air conditioner so I stuck with my cheap Lavalier shirt mic – and Microsoft Camera APP is awful so I went to the free (my favourite) OBS Studio (recommended) – for just a quick video snippet..

I’ll write a little more soon about this device once I use it with a project – for now, initial impressions – I like it.