Got my kid a cheap little digital microscope for Christmas. He doesn't seem real interested in it. But I am. First used it to see if there was a splinter in my knuckle, I found it, it was too small to see but it took up half the screen. Then I realized it's focusing on things much smaller than I figured it could.
I grabbed a wife's hair off her brush. Probably around around 100mu shows up on the screen as about 3mm wide. I can't get a reliable reading with my dial calipers on something so small as a hair.
I also have a cat that's a total fuzz ball. He's like a cotton ball with sharp claws and teeth. A quick Google search looks like he could easily have sub one thousands inch fur.
Probably buy a micrometer.
I don't have to quantify the sizes precisely but it'd be nice to have an idea say 1mm on the screen equals around 30mu. So if I see a bunch of 1mm bits floating on the screen from a car oil sample I'll know that's definitely bad.
Then there's carbon fiber. Carbon fibers are between 5 and 10mu. I have a roll of carbon fiber. I guess if it can see those clearly then I'll know I can get a particle count of some sort.
That will give me a zip code idea as to the particle sizes im looking at.
To get a reproducible count I'm thinking make a microscope slide with feet on it, say cut up one of my thinner feeler gauges, like a 4 thousands of an inch one so I'm always looking through the same depth of oil.
Here's an oil sample from changing the oil on my predator 79cc air compressor. Has 17hrs and this is the 4th oil change. I did 3 break in oil changes a warm up oil change after a few minutes of running, then again after about 20 minutes and again at 1 to 2hr.
This is at around 15hrs. I was changing over to 0w-30.
Figured a new small engine without an oil filter would have something in it to see.
None of these are bubbles, the bubbles look different from particles.
Ideally in used pcmo oil I'll only see a few of the tiniest particles, maybe even nothing.
I grabbed a wife's hair off her brush. Probably around around 100mu shows up on the screen as about 3mm wide. I can't get a reliable reading with my dial calipers on something so small as a hair.
I also have a cat that's a total fuzz ball. He's like a cotton ball with sharp claws and teeth. A quick Google search looks like he could easily have sub one thousands inch fur.
Probably buy a micrometer.
I don't have to quantify the sizes precisely but it'd be nice to have an idea say 1mm on the screen equals around 30mu. So if I see a bunch of 1mm bits floating on the screen from a car oil sample I'll know that's definitely bad.
Then there's carbon fiber. Carbon fibers are between 5 and 10mu. I have a roll of carbon fiber. I guess if it can see those clearly then I'll know I can get a particle count of some sort.
That will give me a zip code idea as to the particle sizes im looking at.
To get a reproducible count I'm thinking make a microscope slide with feet on it, say cut up one of my thinner feeler gauges, like a 4 thousands of an inch one so I'm always looking through the same depth of oil.
Here's an oil sample from changing the oil on my predator 79cc air compressor. Has 17hrs and this is the 4th oil change. I did 3 break in oil changes a warm up oil change after a few minutes of running, then again after about 20 minutes and again at 1 to 2hr.
This is at around 15hrs. I was changing over to 0w-30.
Figured a new small engine without an oil filter would have something in it to see.
None of these are bubbles, the bubbles look different from particles.
Ideally in used pcmo oil I'll only see a few of the tiniest particles, maybe even nothing.
