MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Hi CE,

Looks like you got everything you need to complete "Natalia"...

BillT

Luckily I still have my old LOMO MFN-11 trinoc with eyepieces, and miscellaneous LOMO objectives to fill the turret. There is an advantage to not selling all your extra stuff.
I borrowed the condenser from the Multiscope, just to make it complete, will have to pick one up at some point.
We had "first light" soon after these photos, though I'll have to take some time to get everything aligned.
Haven't decided which direction I want to go with objectives and condenser, there are lots of options. That will have to wait for a while though, while my PayPal account recovers.
One really cool thing is that the objective turret is on a dovetail, super easy to swap out. I'm going to have to take advantage of that at some point.
The fine focus control slips if I try to turn it too fast. If I turn it gently and slowly (as one should) it works fine. I have tried twisting the knobs opposite directions to see if it adjusts that way, no joy. I wonder if I need a pin spanner, looks like those holes on the ends of the knobs might not be just decoration.
The stage is... different. I wanted a standard stage instead of the rotating stage on Boris so got this one. I have yet to figure out how to get it to grip the slide properly and hold it straight. Of course I have barely started playing with it.
CE

What a pair of beauties!!...

BillT

Thanks BillT!
CE

I enjoy reading this thread! My microscopy experience started with LOMO units back in the late 80's in USSR! In fact I actually brought Biolam with me to the US. I had it equipped as much as Biolam stand would handle, including rotating stage with CT-12, MFN-11 photo head with "optovar", OI-35 illuminator, spare AY-12 bino head, sets of objectives and eyepieces and even some spare parts. Served me well here through grad school for "take home" histology. I still have the unit, minus the photo tube for MFN-11, which I took apart to use the projective on old Zeiss scope.
I have very little experience with Polams and similar stands, but have worked quite a bit on big MBI-6 and MBI-15.

Thanks Oktagon! I'm glad you enjoy my LOMO adventures. I like the LOMO gear, and am having a lot of fun finding parts and assembling them into a working instrument. This has actually come together a lot quicker than I expected, due to a couple of great strokes of luck.
CE

Nozdrovye tovariche!

I lived in Russia for two years as a wildlife photographer, I say that I am loving this thread as all the cities mentioned were places I have been or visited. Russia is a beautiful country with many beautiful people. Belarus (Minsk) is, most likely, the cleanest country in the world. Thanks for the memories.

Winter is fast approaching, and that means microscope season! I'm already starting to get the itch, have been thinking about completing this instrument. The main thing she is missing is a good condenser. So, I'll ask the folks here who have experience with LOMO gear... which is the "best" LOMO condenser? I would also consider another brand condenser as long as it would fit the mount without excessive modification.
Ideas?

Later...

Looks like the biggest players are the KOH-1K that I have on Boris with NA= 1.24, and the OI-14 with NA= 1.4. I found a nice OI-14 on $bay that included the usually missing .3 top lens as well as a few filters for a decent price, so now I'll be watching the Russian Post tracking again for the next few weeks .
CE

Hi CE,

Good luck with your parts search.. I have been waiting for a Lomo to appear at the right price and condition on Ebay.. I see them as a very good microscope that is underrated..

BillT

I agree BillT, as I'm sure you are not surprised. I still have several saved searches on $bay looking for different variations of LOMO microscope, BIOLAM, etc. I see a lot of them go by.
CE

CE,

I have seen, on eBay, a Tiyoda aplanatic achromatic condenser claimed to have 37mm mount, sold for about $50 shipped. I don't have that condenser myself though, so cannot confirm if it has 37mm mount (which is what my LOMO Biolam has).

Another thing you may want to find out is if that condenser needs a separate lower lens for wider field coverage for objectives of 10x or less. Some Tiyoda microscope seems to use such an lower lens, which may or may not be the same as Biolam's lower condenser lens.

Some Tiyoda scopes / objectives seem to copy old Zeiss Jena design. At least there is physical resemblance.

Interesting information about the Tiyoda, thanks. I settled on a LOMO OI-14 as it seems like a popular LOMO condenser much praised by the folks at Micscape. It looks exactly like the KOH-1K condenser on my other big LOMO stand, but is NA 1.4 instead of 1.25. This particular one came with both the 1.4 top lens and the .3 top lens... the .3 being for use at 10x and lower. The KOH-1K also has the ability to change the top lens, but I only got the 1.25 top lens with it.
CE

OI 14 not acromatic
KOH-1K acromatic

Thanks Francisco, I completely missed the point that the OI-14 was not acromatic. It will be interesting to compare the two.
ZZFFNN, I'll keep an eye out for those Tiyoda condensers, thanks for the tip.
CE

While the stand I'm working on here is actually from a POLAM L-213 polarizing microscope, it is the same stand used in the Biological Laboratory Microscope BIOLAM L-211 (as well as the L-212 and L-2-2) as seen in this catalog excerpt. This is basically what I'm putting together with this build. You can see that the KOH-1K was the stock condenser for this model. I have seen information on the OI-14, but not the KOH-1K. I have also seen the OI-27 condenser on $bay but don't know anything about it either.
CE

Time for an update:
While trying again to align the optical path yesterday, it finally dawned on me that the viewing head is slightly misaligned with the rest of the scope. I didn't measure the offset, but I estimate that it sits almost 1mm to the left of centered on the arm mount. On the left side it is held in position by the dovetail flanges, no adjustment there. On the right of course is the thumb screw that tightens it down. The piece that holds the dovetail mount is firmly located to the rest of the arm with pins if I recall correctly, no adjustment there. I'll have to take all that apart and see if there is any adjustment that I have forgotten about, otherwise I'm going to have to come up with some kind of shim for the dovetail flange to shift it over so the head is properly aligned with the objectives. That explains why I have had so much trouble. And yes, I tried more than one head, all the same. Rats.
CE

There must be some kind of adjustment like you say.. LOMO has to good of a reputation for this to be a defect.. I am sure you will get it aligned soon..

BillT

Have you tried with the adjustment screws of the condenser support?
What head does it use?

Francisco wrote:Have you tried with the adjustment screws of the condenser support?
What head does it use?

It was while trying to center the condenser that I realized the head doesn't seem to be aligned properly with the objectives. I was using the MFN-11 head at the time, but have also tried the binocular heads with the same result. I don't know the model numbers at the monent, and I'm not at home now to check.
CE

Edit much later...

Now that I am home looking at this again I'm not so sure about all this. Let me work on it a while and I'll be back.

CE

Hi Eddie,

when your microscope head is not centred on the stand the centering of the image would change when you turn the head on the stage. This would be an easy test.

My russian scope arrived and seems to be in good condition. The black paint is probably not original but looks good. I probably keep the stand though I got it yous as a "Beifang" with the rare Zeiss Jena photo head.

Bob

MicroBob wrote:My russian scope arrived and seems to be in good condition...

That's great Bob! I sure would like to see some photos of it if possible. It would be a lot of fun to see one other than mine
CE

So of course you fellows were right, imagine that! I finally had time today to go through re alignment of the illuminator and condenser, and now things are much better. Thanks for the nudges.
CE

Congratulations