Budget Eyewear Options for Close Up Work!

I'm comfortably slipping into that age range where eye strain is easily found and when the "ready reader" glasses are not too far away at any given time. Although I have always used lenses and loupes for close up work I am wearing them more often for a an increased variety of tasks. I've been quite happy with my choices until recently when wearing ones with a traditional nose arms and pads have started to annoy my nose and cause a bit of soreness, probably due to wearing them and glasses more often! So in a fit of random old maker blogging I though I'd do a round up of my crop of cheap close up work systems!

First up above (and modelled below) are my oldest pair which are essentially a set of loupes on a wire frame with some LEDS. The LED's on this type are rubbish using none rechargeable little coin cells with fiddly little switches and inside pretty poor quality plastic cases that promise to be move-able into any position but rarely stay where you want them to be! The loupes themselves are pretty good and powerful but only put stuff in a working range/focus about 15mm away from them. Far to close for soldering etc but actually can be very useful for looking at tiny mechanisms or indeed for hunting solder bridges or inspecting small joint on PCB's. The loupes can be rotated away from the eye and so you can flip them on of off without removing the frame. They aren't that heavy so can be worn for long periods. 

Next up, below, is these white plastic frames with interchangeable lenses, mine came with a set of 5 lenses promising a range of magnification from 1.5 x through to 4x. The lenses themselves are in a separate box and snap into place and can be rotated which is nice in that you can adjust their position relative to your eye. I find the 1.5x magnification can still return me a working distance of around 20-25cm which I find quite nice in terms of SMD soldering and other small work. They have 2 white LED's mounted above the lens and you can tilt the LED mount down and up to change the angle of them which works well. These take 3 AAA batteries and they are mounted in the front of the frame. I've found these brilliant for a long time but noticed that the combination of a standard glasses type frame that balances over your ear and the batteries at the front makes them feel front heavy and that they might slip off. They never have to be honest but these are the ones that of late, due to increased usage and reliance on them have started making my nose a bit sore! I've found these available online for between £9 and £15.

As previously it seems only fair to let the resident supermodel show off how hot these make you look. :)

So finally we come to the new kids in town! Pictured below these are similar to the last pair but I wanted to try a set that had a headband arrangement rather than a spectacle type set up. This set have a nice around 40mm wide padded and adjustable headband which can be set up to suit the wearer. They offer lots of support and the whole of the white assembly can be rotated up and down without removing the headband. They have a set of lenses similar to the previous set (in fact they are interchangeable) but the 1.5x lens is permanently attached in the frame and you can add more lenses behind if needed. They also have this pop down loupe which I haven't really found use for as yet but it amuses me in how brilliantly dorkish it looks! This set have 3 LEDS and they are powered by 3 AA batteries. You can tilt and adjust the LED up and down and side to side and you can also remove the LED and batteries out of the headband as a complete unit. If you don't want this extra weight on the front and don't need the lighting this is a nice feature! The LED's in this set also have 2 power settings which I guess offers more flexibility. I've found this set online between £12 and £25 so shopping around is definitely worth it. 

This final set have totally got rid of the nose irritation the previous set started to give and they also feel way more secure on your head and are pretty comfortable for a long close up session... Again.. I leave it to readers discretion to work out how "cool" they might make you look!