MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

To my surprise, I've found that a frosted glass plate works OK for simple polarization on my SZH10 and SMZ-U. The illumination is from an imported LED plate. Above it is a linear polarizer, followed by a cheap frosted (both sides) glass stage plate. The objective has a linear polarizer. The polariza...

Do you have a picture of the 4x light coverage? . . .Thanks No - and I've put the scope away. The illuminated field is a circle inscribed a tiny bit inside the eyepiece view. That limitation is likely the field aperture as seen through the condenser. Quite usable for scanning. The illumination has ...

Some pix added.

Things should go back properly aligned for a trinocular head rail. You can scratch a couple of faint witness lines in the metal carrier to housing if concerned.

Small foam swabs and lighter fluid or its equivalent can be used to thoroughly clean off the rails. Once you've done that, a very small amount of most any light grease should do - NLG1 or even NLG2 - lots of past references on this site. I like silicone greases that don't outgas, taking care to keep...

Forum member, Saul, offers a wide variety of LED illuminators. They offer brighter illumination for old scopes and are also an affordable fix for a failed power supply. Multiple microscope models are supported in two basic styles. One includes provision for both LED and flash. The other is available...

FWIW, in my experience, Stephen (Scarodactyl) IS the equivalent of a reputable shop - plus being more willing to share accurate information and typically with lower overheads and fairer prices.

Just to add, some affordable meteorite slides ($25 or so) show up on eBay fairly frequently. As with geological slides and chemical crystals, they look amazing between polarizers. It could be cool to talk with your son about the formation of elements in the early days of the universe and how a meteo...

A fair amount of work goes into creating a petrographic slide. Find suitable rock - slab in very thin on a $$$ saw - polish it dead smooth - adhere it to a slide - polish the other side - get it down to 30 microns thick. There are affordable Chinese and Indian sources for sets of these slides, but i...

Feel free to send a PM if you'd like a guide to the pros and cons of various microscopes - it mostly covers compound scopes but has several pages of stereoscope content. The least expensive new stereo microscope I've found usable is an AmScope (and many other brands) Chinese scope with upper and low...

I've adapted one to an Olympus SZH, where it performs very well -- likely better than the original Olympus Plan 1x, given its higher numerical aperture. In this case, the adapter had to go from the Nikon 58mm to the Olympus 54mm thread. If the adapter is made thin enough, I don't think you'd get muc...

Try Googling "how do I connect a monitor to my ____ cell phone." Then, as explained before, consider using a previous generation cell phone camera (free to $50), an extra eyepiece ($25), a cell phone holder ($20) permanently attached to that eyepiece, and a remote release (maybe $15). It will be a s...

The E400 is a wonderful microscope. One hopes that a European buyer will jump on this offer.

Sorry to say, I no longer have an SMZ-10 and don't know. This particular objective is known to have "doming" at low magnifications even when properly assembled. So, others have tried using different stereo objectives -- often to good effect. Sometimes these are inexpensive. As an example, I've been ...

Sorry to say, the National Optical DCX-205-RLED Wi-Fi is precisely what I wouldn't suggest. It's a mechanically poor microscope, with a lousy stage, missing a proper condenser, with mediocre optics, and a more or less incompetent (by today's standards) 1.3mp camera. Most any other $150 monocular mic...

Tim, I'm using one of the "type II" sliders in one of the Standard 18 systems. By re-orienting the prism carrier it works just the same as the "type III." I suspect (but am not sure, not having had a Photomicroscope or thought much about it) that it would be more difficult to do the reverse - and us...

Hi Fan, The earlier Zeiss DIC systems with the upper sliding prism are probably more forgiving. The fixed prisms (inserting into a nosepiece) are restricted to their designated objective, in my experience, unless you're very lucky. Between sliding the other type, tweaking the condenser rotations, an...

I'd suggest you get a separate camera and monitor from the microscope. A fifty-year-old microscope can still perform at a very high standard compared to anything twice the price new. However, cameras tend to become obsolete or broken in five years. A majority of the people I know who bought an "affo...

Hi Tim, If there's a scope you're interested in, feel free to PM for details and pix. I'm buried in scopes coming in and going out for my Micronaut program and would have to pull them out of storage to take pix. So far, about 100 donated to our Children's Museum, Lagoon Scientist program, and famili...

First post updated again. Most items found.

Now looking for Olympus SZH10 parts (focus and iris units) and a Leica DM stand and "B" prism. Lots of items still available for trade.

Nikon Labophot and Optiphot microscopes are outstanding in many respects but with one common flaw: broken fine focus gears. This happens when users counter-rotate the focus knobs and the reduction gearing provides immense torque, splitting the plastic gear from its shaft. For the past few years, a G...

In my limited experience, the most common alignment failures are in the head. It's what gets handled, knocked hardest when tipped, and so on. However, at this point, it could also be that the bottom two lenses (or elsewhere) in the zoom train are off a bit. Still, these are expected to have a parall...

Stjepo, Thanks for the link - that should be all that anyone needs to download it. Did you remove and then replace any lenses in the lower assembly for cleaning? If not, I'd try either the laser or target methods by insertion in the microscope head and see what difference you get (and if you can adj...

It looks like your aftermarket LED lamp is just sitting above the field lens. If so, it's not likely well collimated.

You also need to stop down the iris in your 100x objective a bit. Make sure it works by visually observing through it. Ones sold used are somewhat commonly broken.

Stjepo, I'd think your approach could work if the beam is tightly collimated, concentric with the sleeve, and the sleeve is a close fit to the eyetube. You might mark it and insert it at the exact same compass point in both eyetubes, so any concentricity or out-of-parallel issues are at least consis...

Decent quality camera polarizers, which are faced with glass on both sides and sometimes anti-relfection coatings, are another option. A larger one to fit the field iris and a smaller one to fit between the head and stand. These often don't have the full extinction of better polarizers, but would li...

Hmm this Dark field condenser looks like a BH version with an ADDED mounting ring to match the BH2/Motic. May be in error as I only have the lower NA version.. . . FWIW, the Motic condenser dovetails are around 43.4mm at the widest - or at least the Motic BA400 is. Both the BH and BX dovetails are ...

The DC-W is a pricey, but specialized, darkfield condenser meant to be used with oil immersion and high numerical aperture objectives. You're expected to oil the slide to the objective AND the condenser to the slide. Centering is critical. The high magnification objective might ideally have an iris ...

It's a good scope, for the $200 it cost with tax and shipping. The 40x objective on these is a bit hard to clean (tiny bit of recessed glass, at least on the ones I've seen) - so don't dip it in oil.

It could be lower quality polarizers or too close to an image plane.

A picture might help. Are they film you cut to fit?