[photo-3d] Re: Viewer Review - 5 - An Alternative

["Grant C. Campos" <gccampos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you for your comments about my viewer and slides!  I'll try and
"illuminate" you on what I did and even suggest some things to do differently.

Dr. T wrote:
"This is the tricky part.  Perhaps Grant can illuminate
us on this.  The lenses need to be properly aligned and
placed at a convenient distance from the slide holder
which allows freedom for focusing in both sides of
the "optimum" focus plane."

What I did here was cut off about a 1/2 inch of the end of the new aluminum lens
housing (after removing the glass from the housing, of course:), and grind off
the threads and a lot more of the material to help it fit past the other parts
of the inside of the viewer that couldn't be dremeled away.   I was very careful
to dremel out just enough of the lower inside edge of the viewer so that the
bottom of the aluminum lens housing rested upon the horizontal ledge that the
original housing used to slide on.

I then detached the rack part of the original lens housing and placed the viewer
on the bottom of a box so that the front of the lens housing and the outside
edges of the viewer touched the side of the box (to make it square and aligned
properly).  Here is were I would try and do it differently: I would have the
aluminum lens housing extend about a centimeter past the front plane of the
viewer so the focusing would be more centered in the total range.   I then
epoxied the rack part of the original lens housing to the outside of the
aluminum housing, making sure that they were aligned so that the lenses would
track equally with the inter ocular adjustment.

The other problem that I ran into was that the "u" shaped spring, that holds the
focus adjusting knob, had to be modified to make room for the lens housing.
The left hand screw was too high and the bottom of the "u" interfered.   I
turned the "U" around and did a lot of other work on that, and I am sure there
is a much better way to do it.

It is much easier to show you and I tried to take pictures but that doesn't do
it justice.

Hope this helps,

Grant