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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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     We use the hand-held Scalar scopes-- both in a traveling exhibition 
on magnification and cells (It's a Nano World) and recently in a 
permanent exhibit at our museum.  

    As mentioned, we do encase the camera, lens, and cord in a custom 
housing of modified electrical fittings to protect them:   the plastic 
cover on the lens is somewhat vulnerable but can be recessed into the 
housing, the cord can get bent and damaged with a lot of use, and the 
camera is valuable;   this also enables us to set the location for the 
lenses so that items are in focus as you touch things with the housing, 
and also keep visitors from changing the buttons on the camera to off, 
etc.  You can see one set of photos at

http://www.itsananoworld.org/magnification2.htm

and I'd be happy to send a few digital photos to anyone who wishes.

     They are versatile, as you can put in different lenses-- we use 
two, one each with 30X and 200x lenses.  This makes for a real "Wow!" 
factor for our visitors, who are usually quite surprised to see how 
their hair, clothing, skin, etc. look when really magnified.  The 200X 
is of course a bit harder to use, with a narrower depth of field-- so 
having samples that include fuzzy fabrics, carpet, and the like is a 
good idea.  

     Being able to manipulate and move around the camera, especially to 
look at themselves, makes this whole weird new world of 
zoom/magnification a lot more tangible to our visitors.

     We switched to the L-2 model ~3 years ago for several reasons (any 
of those things might have changed/improved--  I haven't seen a VL-7 in 
a long time now):

1)   the lenses have a much better bayonet mechanism to secure them to 
the camera body.

2)  the cord is more durable and easier for us to protect-- the old VL-7 
had a coiled phone-type cord that was problematic with a lot of use

3)  I think the L-2 model may not generate as much heat altho' we still 
pull some air by the camera body (via a fan inside the cabinet, and 
through the flexible conduit);  in prototyping we found the VL-7 camera 
was pretty warm and would eventually stop working (permanently) if it 
was encased with no cooling.

     With all the use in the traveling exhibition, we do seem to replace 
the lenses every 6-9 months, and the camera bodies every year or so.

Kathy Krafft
Exhibit Projects Director
Sciencenter
Ithaca, NY
607-272-0600 ext 25

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject:
> Re: Video Microscopes
> From:
> Anna Grace <[log in to unmask]>
> Date:
> Fri, 8 Sep 2006 14:41:45 -0700
>
>
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related 
> institutions.
> ***************************************************************************** 
>
>
> We have these Scalar scopes from School Technology Resources, too, 
> but  we have the VL-7 models because they are much more durable and 
> have a  better picture quality.  They can be modified and housed to 
> make them  even more durable.  Ithaca Science Center developed a way 
> to do this.
>
> Anna
>
>

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