After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
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- Location: Southern Ontario
After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
What a beauty! It’s more than I could have hoped for. Unboxed today. After the disastrous false start that was my Leica Galen 3, which I am now in the process of putting out of my mind, I’m finally in the game! Spent two hours going through my little NatGeo prepared specimen box just marvelling at what I could see.
Came with EA 10x, 40x, and 100x oil. I also grafted on the 4x Leica achro from the salvage Galen.
Still need to set up a nice proper permanent desk for it in my home office, until then it’ll live on the shelf with the rest of my toys. Desperately need a dust cover but it almost seems like a shame to cover up something this nice. Maybe I can put together a small plexiglass case?
Stay tuned for more additions, have a Zeiss Standard 18 project started once the parts arrive. May be getting ahead of myself but I am in love with the WG Zeiss scopes
And for those wondering, yes the Olympus head works on the Leica
A few issues to note since nothing is ever perfect:
- The stock eyepieces have an unfortunate pointer and scale measure embedded. Thankfully the Leica eyepieces seem to work really well, even if they do throw off the “vibe” of the scope. They’re also a little dirty, internally. I’m not sure I’m ready to do any disassembling but light dusting with a blower doesn’t seem to be dislodging. Visible flecks so I’m hoping I can figure this out eventually.
- The specimen holder X translation feels a *little* gummier/harder than the Y translation. Not to the point where it’s annoying, but it has caused me to overshoot once or twice because I had to give it disproportionate force to move.
But honestly, that’s about it. To my absolutely newbie eyes everything else seems to be working really well!
Came with EA 10x, 40x, and 100x oil. I also grafted on the 4x Leica achro from the salvage Galen.
Still need to set up a nice proper permanent desk for it in my home office, until then it’ll live on the shelf with the rest of my toys. Desperately need a dust cover but it almost seems like a shame to cover up something this nice. Maybe I can put together a small plexiglass case?
Stay tuned for more additions, have a Zeiss Standard 18 project started once the parts arrive. May be getting ahead of myself but I am in love with the WG Zeiss scopes
And for those wondering, yes the Olympus head works on the Leica
A few issues to note since nothing is ever perfect:
- The stock eyepieces have an unfortunate pointer and scale measure embedded. Thankfully the Leica eyepieces seem to work really well, even if they do throw off the “vibe” of the scope. They’re also a little dirty, internally. I’m not sure I’m ready to do any disassembling but light dusting with a blower doesn’t seem to be dislodging. Visible flecks so I’m hoping I can figure this out eventually.
- The specimen holder X translation feels a *little* gummier/harder than the Y translation. Not to the point where it’s annoying, but it has caused me to overshoot once or twice because I had to give it disproportionate force to move.
But honestly, that’s about it. To my absolutely newbie eyes everything else seems to be working really well!
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Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Unlike objectives, eyepieces can typically be carefully disassembled, cleaned and put back together. You might also be able to remove the reticle in the olympus eyepiece.
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
The eyepiece reticles should be pretty easily removed. I recently obtained a stash of (7) WH10x/H22 30mm eyepieces and half of them had crosshair reticles. I removed a couple, wasn't too tough. Those type of reticles don't really need to be centered either, so if you want to put them back someday it should be easy enough. Congrats on the scope!
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Congratulations on the acquisition! Looks quite nice!
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
I missed the discussion, yesterday, about the Wreck of the Galen
Delighted to see that this Olympus looks so good !!
MichaelG.
Delighted to see that this Olympus looks so good !!
MichaelG.
Too many 'projects'
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Looks a real beauty - congratulations! 2hrs on a box of slides! Ha!
Wait 'til you really get started with this lovely 'scope - 2hrs will just about be enough for one part of one slide!
Good luck and please keep us posted.
Wait 'til you really get started with this lovely 'scope - 2hrs will just about be enough for one part of one slide!
Good luck and please keep us posted.
John B
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Congratulations on the nice looking CH-2. Cleaning the eyepieces and removing the reticles shouldn't be difficult. Be sure to note the orientation and don't flip the lens. Before beginning do a search on cleaning the Olympus lens.
Here's a good place to start;
Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYY8qC ... robehunter
Here's a good place to start;
Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYY8qC ... robehunter
"You're never too old to have a happy childhood"
Leitz Wetzlar SM-LUX
Olympus IM
Canon 450D
Leitz Wetzlar SM-LUX
Olympus IM
Canon 450D
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Congratulations.
Removal of the reticles is easy - you unscrew the top part of the eyepiece. There is a helicoid. Re-assembly is slightly tricky, need patience to initially orient the parts then screw them together.
BTW I would keep one reticle eyepiece. It is useful for measuring the size of interesting objects one finds in a specimen. Although a crude estimate is seasible without reticle.
Removal of the reticles is easy - you unscrew the top part of the eyepiece. There is a helicoid. Re-assembly is slightly tricky, need patience to initially orient the parts then screw them together.
BTW I would keep one reticle eyepiece. It is useful for measuring the size of interesting objects one finds in a specimen. Although a crude estimate is seasible without reticle.
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- Posts: 42
- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:51 pm
- Location: Southern Ontario
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
Thanks everyone! I'll screw up the courage to remove at least the pointer eyepiece. The measurement scale isn't AS intrusive and I can probably live with it for now.
For some reason I was under the impression that the CH-2 provided for kohler illumination but it seems that's only with a specific add-in, and the lighting seems perfectly fine to my untrained eyes right now. Really pleased with this purchase
For some reason I was under the impression that the CH-2 provided for kohler illumination but it seems that's only with a specific add-in, and the lighting seems perfectly fine to my untrained eyes right now. Really pleased with this purchase
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- Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2020 9:13 pm
- Location: Georgia
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
I love my CH-2. It came with the E A4, EA10, and EA40X objectives. I've since added a generic 20X, Swapped the A10 for a DPlan 10, changed to a 5 position nosepiece, and added a 40PL phase objective. At some point, I may replace the EA40 with a 100x oil but I have that on another scope right now. Good luck and enjoy!
Perry
Insatiably curious.
Insatiably curious.
Re: After a false start, my first scope! Olympus CH-2
It apparently provides "fixed Kohler" of a sort. Not sure how the lens assembly down there is constructed but there might be some easy ad hoc way to add an adjustable iris diaphragm. It shouldn't make much difference for most observation, though.littlejackal wrote: ↑Fri Aug 13, 2021 1:20 pm. . .
For some reason I was under the impression that the CH-2 provided for kohler illumination but it seems that's only with a specific add-in, and the lighting seems perfectly fine to my untrained eyes right now. Really pleased with this purchase