The reason to have a set of magnifying glasses with LED's are many and varied. From soldering to jewelry design, magnifying glasses are essential for working on small details while giving you the full range of motion to work on the object in front of you. The added addition of LED lighting makes it even easier to see what you are working with and get the job you need doing, done.
Yoctosun head mount magnifier
Choose your magnification
The Yoctosun magnifier glasses are an excellent balance of price and functionality. The 3.5x magnification is not the largest of the glasses here, but they are more than adequate for most jobs, including soldering and circuit work.
The glasses also come with both arms, and a strap so you can choose how you want it secured to your head.
Qooltek Bracket/Headband
Up to 25x magnification
These glasses from Qooltek are designed to give you a huge amount of magnification for each eye separately. This means you can have two different magnifications at the same time or have just one eye magnified while the other is standard.
This kind of customization makes for a tool that is handy in almost any situation, especially if you are working on tiny things like rings or other jewelry.
SE Illuminated Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier
Flip down magnifying glass
This set of glasses is extremely cheap, and though the plastic does feel budget, the lenses themselves are very good. The extra flip-down loupe offers 4.5x magnification on top of the normal lenses giving you great control over what you are seeing.
Morduedde lighted head magnifier glasses
Lenses can be stacked
This simple headband allows you to stack two lenses, one in front of the other, to give you multiplication from 1x to 6.5x in 0.5x increments. This granular control is incredibly helpful when you are working objects that require more detail the more you work on them. The LED is also powerful, with excellent coverage.
Carson Optical Pro Series MagniVisor
Interchangeable lenses
Like most of these glasses, the Carson CP60's come with removable and swappable lenses. Unlike the others, though it also comes with a removable light source. While having a light on your head is helpful, having it move around as you look at things is often not. The magnetic base on the LED light lets you put it in a fixed position while you use your lenses to see the problem.
Brightech LightView Pro Magnifying Lamp
Light that stays still
OK, I know these aren't glasses per se, but they are extremely helpful and have powerful LEDs in a ring to really light up your work. Because of the armature, they are easily positioned to give you maximum freedom while you work.
Use your head
With glasses like the Yoctosun magnifiers, you can get to work on really fine detail work without the need to worry about your hands. The replaceable lenses make it extremely easy to change the magnification and my local dentist likes to us this pair for when he is doing close up work.
I do a lot of 3D printing and spend a lot of time filing down tiny imperfections on models, so I use a pair of Qooltek loupe glasses. The fact that I can look through one and see the model as it is supposed to be and with the eye get an incredibly detailed zoom makes finishing a breeze.
