MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

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Below are some test shots of a steel ruler, taken with my AO Cycloptic fitted with the Cycloptic phototube attachment, for the thread followers here who may be interested. First, though, I decided to clean the optics prior to the test shots, for the first time in the 30 years I've had the scope; the...

Here's another spanner wrench: http://www.skgrimes.com/products/spanner-wrench I actually have one of these, in the flat-blade version, procured years ago for camera lenses. Very robust. Pricey. The round-tip version would be more appropriate for the locking rings under discussion here, as long as y...

Thanks for the compliments. About the drilling: in addition to being whatever tough alloy that Proto made their socket from, when the end was cut off with the abrasive disk, the cut surface of the socket became much harder than the rest of the socket, so that there was a 'crust' that needed to be br...

Whoops, it wouldn't take all the photos; here's #1 & #2:

Sometimes it's possible to make your own tool, if the commercial ones don't fit or don't work for some reason or another. I recently had a problem with a partial Balplan chassis that I got cheap, and which had a coarse focus knob that would not turn. Removing the fine focus knob revealed that the lo...

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I have had luck using just plain acetone to break free objectives from turrets. A single drop usually works, and takes effect immediately. If it doesn't work, try the penetrating oil (you can even make your own by mixing acetone 50-50 with automatic transmission fluid), but use less than a drop and ...

Here is a NASA compilation, v.4 from 1997, listing mass-loss and condensation results from tests done for spacecraft materials, "Outgassing Data for Selecting Spacecraft Materials": http://www.vacseal.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Outgassing-Data-for-Selecting-Spacecraft-Materials-REV3.pdf An intro...

Thanks, Phil, good point about outgassing of greases, a point I had not really thought about. Your experience is certainly one worth considering. Thanks, MikeA, for your interesting info. I have a source for a few Nye oils used by the watch & clock people (I've dabbled); don't know about the exact p...

Possibly, Phil; how old are these objectives? 30 years? That's a lot of time to get used without some maintenance, you would think. Although that green grease they used sure looked and acted 30 years old! When I reassemble them, I will use a lighter synthetic grease, in smaller amounts then what I f...

I've disassembled three of these correction-collar AO objectives now. For the edification of those who may be interested, below are two cross-sectional schematics of the objective & inner sliding barrel. The diagrams are not to scale and the components' proportions are not correct, the better to por...

Charlie raises some good points. As buyers, I think we would all like to see the following categories: a) new, unused; b) looks pretty used, but works well; c) seems to work OK, but needs lubrication and/or adjustment; d) doesn't work, has one or more parts missing, broken, or frozen, needs parts or...

Thanks, Phil, I had a feeling you'd come through with the answer! It's sometimes a puzzle with various mechanisms as to knowing which part unscrews or whatever. Now that I know the end unscrews, half the battle has been won. I had tried a little (!) synthetic watch oil in the inner bore, where the p...

I would think that the 'thingy in a cutout' is just a simple mechanical connection to transfer the rotational motion of the collar to the corrective lens element [in a helical mount] I think you're right; that makes sense. That knurled bottom cover of your objective (as shown in near top of your ph...

I was wondering if the AO objectives with correction collars, which are commonly used on the AO/Reichert Biostar 1820 inverted microscope, are at all capable of being disassembled for the purpose of relubrication/loosening-up of the collars. I have a few that are very stiff; annoyingly, the objectiv...

Page 2: After overnight, test the light about 1/8" (3mm) off a piece of paper, and note that the light emitted is restricted to a very narrow band, the thickness of the slide (image 5) Mount an interesting specimen on the microscope, and lay the edge of the light-slide against the specimen slide and...

Jumping on the "edge-lit slide" bandwagon, here is a cheap way that I came up with, to experiment with the technique, which won't cost an arm and a leg. It involves modification of a pocket LED flashlight. As the test exposures show, it gives acceptable results. The fabrication involves edge-gluing ...

Yes, it works fine for me here; the Flash plug-in is installed in my Firefox. it promps for permission to run Flash; when given, the video starts up.

What would help your exposition regarding this new and impressive technology (not to mention your marketing), is a few side-by-side images, comparing the same subject using the best of normal technology, to those taken with your new microscope, so people can see the improvement from the new tech. Ot...

On the other hand, if the price was very low, and you want to consider the transaction a 'learning experience' (especially after the good advice you have received above), you may try fixing the item yourself. If the optics are in good shape (no worn-off coatings, delaminations, internal and inaccess...

This is amazing, my mind is blown. 30 mu of depth is fantastic. Awesome detail.

Do the posters mean to use glucose or fructose? because Karo (the clear kind) is almost pure glucose.

Apo is completely right, my mistake; iris objectives are also useful in fluorescence work. My Univar manual says, in fact, for both transmitted-light brightfield and darkfield fluorescence: "With strongly fluorescent preparations, the objective iris can be closed down to control glare."

As far as I know, iris-equipped high-power objectives are only designed for darkfield work: the iris enables one to lower the NA of the objective to under that of the darkfield condenser, so that no direct light is captured by the objective. Of course, this doesn't preclude you playing around with t...

Actually, in a collimated beam, the brightness will not fall off that much (as the sq. of the distance), which is exactly why they sometimes have a concave mirror behind the light bulb, and the adjustable condenser-like collector lens after it. Keeps the light from spreading out!

Generally, a contamination that is diffuse or hazy (like a film of dust) will manifest itself as less contrast in the image, which will appear to reduce resolution. The specks of dust you have will do the same, but in the amount of dust that your objective exhibits, not much at all. Much bigger spec...

Before you start making time-consuming/expensive mods to your microscope illumination system, you might want to try this: get one of those $5-10 chinese high-lumen pocket flashlights off ebay, such as (and I am not recommending this exact model in particular): https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tactical-Polic...