AmScope SP-18 Outlet 40-Piece Deluxe Microscope Slide Kit with Stains

Muy contento

I bought this for my boyfriend to go with his microscope at Christmas. I had ordered several other sets but had to return them because they were cheaply made or targeted for kids. This one had a decent quality of supplies for an adult who wants to do actual experiments as a hobby but it was still made on the cheaper side. After returning 5 kits I settled on this one because it was getting too close to Christmas. He enjoys it and has examined several things so it definitely does the job. Hope this helps!

Nice addition to my exploration

I don't know if I just didn't read enough but I was expecting the scalpel, poker and spatula to be real metal tools. I was wrong.

Purchased for a gift for my nephew and he loved them!

A BIG ISSUE: There are no instructions included, so you'll have to do your own guessing/research to properly dilute the powdered stains, hatch the brine shrimp, or use the mini-microtome. Amscope has moved away from printed materials, and state that manuals are available on their site. I was unable to find instructions there, or anywhere else. This is an okay way to get some basic slide prep materials in a single package- things like decent blank slides, decent cover slips, a couple of basic stains, some sample collection vessels and a cheap but functional pipette. It's only worth it if it's on sale cheaply- the remaining content isn't particularly functional, fun, or useful- the plastic "scalpel", painted to look vaguely real, is the worst offender and is fairly representative of the general vibe of the kit. The "needle probe" is cut square on the end (for safety?), so it's not a needle probe. Oh, and the tweezers are too flimsy to actually tweeze a real sample, say a bit of wet moss on a rock. (An exception here might be the brine shrimp hatchery, if you've never cultivated Sea Monkeys before, which can be pretty neat. But, again, you'll have to do your own research to find the proper water dilution to add to the salt/egg mix.) One particularly frustrating bit of kit here is the microtome. You're left on your own to figure out a good way to get functionally thin sections for actual meaningful microscopy. Due to the design of this "microtome", it's very difficult to get friction alone to precisely hold the sample in the chopper window at the correct height, so you end up trying to hold both the tool and the sample simultaneously with one hand, at the proper depth for a suitable section, while turning the blade with the other. I was unable to get usably thin sections of the easiest material- a carrot, cut to fit the window. Maybe with more practice the thing could be forced to work, but I think I/you would be better off with a real hand microtome, a home-made microtome, or the microtomeless thin-section techniques that can be found on the web and in the literature. If it's cheap enough, get this kit for the relatively small number of useful bits when you're getting started with your first scope. Otherwise, you're probably better off buying the stuff you actually need/want separately. Two stars for the usable bits, the rest (most) get zero.

Just what I needed for my young niece.

Everything was cheaply made,this is for a beginner and an age group from 5 to 10