On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 14:15:47 -0600, Jon Elson
wrote:

So, if you need to do a lot of this inspection and rework stuff,
I strongly recommend a stereo zoom microscope. There are constantly
units on eBay to choose from.

Yes, especially for things like hand-soldered 0.5mm pitch TQFPs and
similar.

I've been using this one for several years now for inspection (rarely
for actual soldering; the Optivisor is for that):
http://www.microscope.com/omano-om24l-stereo-microscope.html?category=210
It's 24/40 rather than a zoom but that's sufficient for what I do.

It ain't fancy. The case is handy. The LED illumination works okay
with rechargeables (it comes with a "dumb" charger but I use an
offline La Crosse charger). Optics are good enough and I can snap a
digital picture for documentation by holding a point'n'click camera up
to an eyepiece. More room between the post and the stage would be
nice. Might put together a boom stand, one of these days.