Microscopy purchase

[Numina]

Hi, has anybody bought a microscope from the "microscopesindia" ebay store? I'm thinking about buying one of their microscopes.

[Sallubrious]

I bought one a few years ago.

It's constructed very well and has nice feel to it. I wasn't overly impressed with quality of the optics though but for the price I paid I think it was quite reasonable. I put a better quality objective lens in it and now it's great. I wasn't impressed with the light source either, it needs a power adaptor which is a bit of a hassle.

I don't know if I'd purchase a high end scope from them, but for an entry level scope it was a fair price. There's a few U.S. companies selling scopes online too, they have comparable models and sometimes they have specials that compete on price with microscopesindia. So it might be worth checking a few of them out too.

[Numina]

Thanks Sally, I wasn't too sure about buying from them. I have also been looking at the US sites so I might have another look there. Thanks again.

[fungi1963]

I've had an eye on a few in the USA from Amazon, again not laboratory grade optics but some decent scopes for the money, the bundled digital cameras are usually crap but if you get a scope with the attachment while leaving you free to view at the same time you can add your own camera later and pick something better in quality and probably same or lower in price.

I googled microscopesindia and get a lot of from China hits as well. No idea whats up, most seem to come from China these days.

Prices don't seem all that better than Amazon which probably has better warranty/returns??

Edited May 23, 2014 by fungi1963

[Numina]

There is a US site www.greatscopes.com that has a good write-up on what you should look for when comparing different products (it goes thru all the components and tells you what is cool and what is not). According to the information in that, the microscopesindia stuff seemed to tick all the boxes (including semi-plan objectives, all metal focus and stage gears etc, etc) but I still had an uneasy feeling about the one I was looking at on their ebay ad.

I also googled microscopesindia but didn't find it, I think it is only an Ebay shop (this also made me a bit nervous given they had pictures of a slick looking manufacturing facility etc as part of their ebay ad, you'd think if they did have such an impressive looking setup they'd have an independent web site). I don't know how all that ebay vendor stuff works but, rational or not I feel more confident about buying from the US than Asia for something like this. Thanks for the replies.