Donegan DA-5 OptiVisor Headband Magnifier, 2.5x Magnification, 8" Focal Length

Expensive, but are comfortable and well made. I program CNC machines and use these for surface inspections and overall cosmetics of the high quality our product demands. Great for any high detailed work needed. Take out slivers with precision tweezers with ease. Great for crafts also. I keep 1 in work and another for home and travel trailer. If you need it it is indispensable.

Being one with eyes of advancing years ;-) I often find myself reaching for magnifying glasses for reading small print, and using my desk mounted magnifier lamp for working on projects with small / intricate parts. My desk magnifier is in the 2.25 - 2.5x range, and it is a high quality optic / magnifying lens with a fluorescent bulb to light up the work. It is a nice lamp, but there are times I want a little more mobility and other times where I don't like working with the lamp hanging in front of me! I am very happy I took the plunge and tried the Optivisor (I bought the 1.75x for starters). in the first few days I owned it, I used it 4 or 5 times on projects - with the most recent being when I had to find the CMOS jumper on my sons motherboard and reset it whilst the board was still in the computer. The Optivisor came in REAL handy - and having the 1.75x meant I could stay a workable distance back from the work without having to stick my face right next to it! Now, I used a flashlight and rested / pointed it at the work - so I can see some benefit on perhaps getting the LED light attachment for this. Now I have to debate spending $30 for that - which will of course make me consider building my own being the "tinkerer" that I am.Now that I have used it, I am already considering the 2.5x lens attachment as an accessory to the head band. I wish they made a 2.25x lens. In summary, here is what I like about the Optivisor: - The band fits my 7 7/8" head! I often have trouble with head-wear / hats due to my large dome ;-) and it is nice to see this fits with room to spare! - The adjustment knob on the back is easy to use, and you can snug it up comfortably without it becoming uncomfortable. - The lens / optic is quite good, the clarity is good, the focal point has a good + / - range of a couple of inches such that if you move, the work stays relatively still in focus. - The fact you can swap out different lenses on the same head piece is nice, gives you options depending on the project at hand. - The flip-up eyepiece is wonderful, you don't have to take the Optivisor off your head when you don't want magnification for a brief moment or more - and being a comfortable head band is a plus to that! What would have been nice to have: - An integrated lighting system would have been nice as a stock option - I would have paid more for that. There are after market LED lights, but they run on AA batteries, and add a big block to the side of the Optivisor to house the batteries when mounted on the band. I am worried about the extra weight on one side as a result. Overall, Highly recommended tool - I would buy it again!! Thanks for reading. UPDATE: I liked the Optivisor so much, I bought another replaceable lens at 2.5x! This is a very handy tool...

This is actually a discussion about three of the Donegan visors: the DA-2. DA-3, and DA-4. Who knows how Amazon groups or separates reviews now. Hopefully this will be accessible and helpful to people seeking all three. They're good quality, as expected, with glass lens plates in the DA series. Note that if you are nearsighted, your eyesight as well as the correction already present in your glasses affect the working specifications of the visor, even more so if you wear bifocals or progressives. This means that the focal length advertised for the Donegan visors will not be your working distance. I cannot speak to correction for farsightedness. Since I'm involved in many interests and wasn't sure how I wanted to trade off magnification and working distance, I bought DA-2, DA-3, and DA-4. I find that despite the many recommendations to stay with the lower powers, which I well understood, I often need the magnification of the DA-4. You may be different. It depends on you and the type of work. I recently had to replace some surface-mount capacitors. They weren't absolutely miniscule, about 3mm diameter, but I needed the DA-4 to see the solder pads clearly enough. But here's the gist. I was surprised by the actual working distances I achieved with all three visors. My uncorrected vision is awful, something like 20/325 and 20/375, maybe a little better as I've aged. My clear vision extends about 9 inches from my corneas, then I'm done. I wear progressives and I use every bit of them, the very tops of the lenses for driving, the very bottoms for any close work. Here's what I get, the usable distance from the work to the visor lens plate. These measurements are close, but not necessarily perfect. * DA-2: Advertised focal length, 20 inches With my glasses, distance, 14 inches With my glasses, near, 7 inches No glasses, 5.5 inches * DA-3: Advertised focal length, 14 inches Glasses, distance, 11 inches Glasses, near, 6 inches No glasses, 4.5 inches * DA-4: Advertised focal length, 10 inches Glasses, distance, 10 inches Glasses, near, 5 inches No glasses, 4 inches To summarize, all but one of the practical working distances are far shorter for me than the advertised focal lengths, eyesight corrected or not. Even the DA-2, which is probably the most-recommended visor, is a bit short for many activities. The distances decrease with more powerful visors, as expected, but are not always linear. The DA-2 improves my working distance slightly when using the near-vision portion of my lenses versus uncorrected; the others decrease it. All decrease my uncorrected-vision working distance, workpiece to eyeballs. I have an outstanding optometrist who works at one of the local laser surgery clinics. He is so far ahead of the usual ones. We've had long discussions about lens power, and one thing he's told me is that there is no obvious set point of "correct correction" for nearsighted eyes. He says that most people, in the exam, will keep wanting more and more correction, beyond what they actually need. He first reduced my correction and improved the balance of my vision. He makes it a practice to not let people get into stronger lenses than they should ideally have. I bring this up because I'm puzzled as to why my 20/20 corrected distance vision doesn't agree with the Donegan focal lengths except for the DA-4. The weaker the Donegan power, the more the divergence for me. Makes me wonder whether there's a connection to this slightly-weaker distance correction I have. Seems to make sense, but I'm not well-informed enough to know...I'll ask at the next exam. The depth of field is so shallow with these visors that you won't find it useful to "just move back a little" to gain more working distance. To my eyes, from the point of best focus (which is really quite good), there is a truly sharp range of about a quarter inch either way. A depth of +- 1/2 inch gets pretty blurry. Go an inch either way and it's not usable. If you labor under the notion that you'll have vision from "20 inches onward" with a DA-2, that's not true. You'll see from "19 to 21 inches." Lastly, I immediately feel cross-eyed when wearing the visors. I haven't measured, but I think the optical centers are narrower than my own and it strains my eye muscles. I can't wear them for long at a time. Don't misunderstand...I like the visors and do use them. I just don't have as much room as expected.