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LOMO MBI 15 microscope
I received it in very bad conditions (the seller informed me of the poor condition of the microscope).
Dismantle it piece by piece, remove the old grease, clean it, put new grease on it, adjust it and the microscope works again very well. It is a work of many hours but the result compensates the effort.
It is a very heavy microscope. It has an incident and transmitted and mixed lighting system, filters for fluorescence. You can use all the accessories for LOMO; Condenser phase contrast, dark field, fluorescence, ... etc

+ LOMO MBI 15

This is a system microscope. Large and versatile. Never seen like this before.
I guess from the photos that the knurled white wheel (?) above the nosepiece is a 6-position selector for the cubes? and the cubes are installed inside? I also imagine that there is a black slider on the right side (looking from front), is that for general purpose filters (ND etc) or the excitation filters?
Was it originally configured with an HBO-50 Hg lamp?

Hobbyst46 wrote:This is a system microscope. Large and versatile. Never seen like this before.
I guess from the photos that the knurled white wheel (?) above the nosepiece is a 6-position selector for the cubes? and the cubes are installed inside? I also imagine that there is a black slider on the right side (looking from front), is that for general purpose filters (ND etc) or the excitation filters?
Was it originally configured with an HBO-50 Hg lamp?

Yes, the fluorescence illuminator has a 50W HBO lamp that replaces the halogen illuminator (12V 100W).
The small gate (bottom right) is the access to install the excitation filters.
The emission filters are placed on the wheel located above the revolver of the objectives. The other wheel corresponds to the optovar

Is it not a dual illumination microscope? A halogen lamp in the bottom port and an HBO lamp in the upper illumination port? For epifluorescence one needs an excitation filter, a dichroic mirror and an emission filter. In modern microscopes they are all arranged in a single cube. In older instruments they might be separate.

What a very interesting instrument! You have put a lot of work into it, well done.
CE

Hi Francisco,
thank you for showing this interesting and rare instrument. It is always amazing to see how large and detailed the LOMO procuct portfolio was. They probably have produced very few of these instruments and it is luck to find one in more or less complete condition. If a dealer dismantles it and sells it in parts it is gone and many people have useless parts in their cupboards that never will form a complete instrument again.
It is an especially big amount of work to restore such a telephone box microscope with its many glass surcafes compared to a standard lab microscope - good work!
With the Hg lamp I would be cautious. I think they may show the end of their life time by exploding. I think you were supposed to take notes of the hours in use.
Do you know this source of information on LOMO: http://www.mikroskopfreunde-nordhessen.de/lomo.php
Wolfgang is a nice person and always helpful.

I also just bought an unusual LOMO microscope, but it is just a bigger lab microscope, rare but far less special.

Bob

Francisco,
That is a serious scope restored by love and dedication! Great job!

Bob,
That web site is a great LOMO resource. I saw an em8il there, which should reach Wolfgang, I am guessing? If I email him, can I write in English (I am pretty sure his English is better than my Google-translated German)?

Hi zzffnn,

I don't know whether he speaks english but I'm shure he will do his best.

Bob

Hobbyst46 wrote:Is it not a dual illumination microscope? A halogen lamp in the bottom port and an HBO lamp in the upper illumination port? For epifluorescence one needs an excitation filter, a dichroic mirror and an emission filter. In modern microscopes they are all arranged in a single cube. In older instruments they might be separate.

The HBO lamp is placed in place of the halogen lamp.
The "artifact" of the upper back corresponds to a photomultiplier (I think for photography). The lighting is directed with the sliding levers (lower rear part) through the filters to the upper part. By means of prism it is sent to the turret of objectives through filters and dichroic mirror.
I do not know fluorescence microscopes well, because although I have several fluorescent microscopes I have almost never used this lighting technique, it is not valid for the use to which I destine it (video)

Crater Eddie wrote:What a very interesting instrument! You have put a lot of work into it, well done.
CE

Thank you.
Yes, many hours of work. All the mechanics were blocked by the corrupted grease (something normal in the microscopes of this brand). The most "complicated" is the focus block. This same focus block is shared by many LOMO microscopes; MBI 11 - Biolam M ......
What surprised me, very pleasantly, is that the optical part was in very good condition, without delaminacón or fungi only some dust and dirt.

zzffnn wrote:Francisco,
That is a serious scope restored by love and dedication! Great job!

Bob,
That web site is a great LOMO resource. I saw an em8il there, which should reach Wolfgang, I am guessing? If I email him, can I write in English (I am pretty sure his English is better than my Google-translated German)?

Thanks.
Now that it works correctly, it will become part of the LOMO microscope collection

MicroBob wrote:Hi Francisco,
thank you for showing this interesting and rare instrument. It is always amazing to see how large and detailed the LOMO procuct portfolio was. They probably have produced very few of these instruments and it is luck to find one in more or less complete condition. If a dealer dismantles it and sells it in parts it is gone and many people have useless parts in their cupboards that never will form a complete instrument again.
It is an especially big amount of work to restore such a telephone box microscope with its many glass surcafes compared to a standard lab microscope - good work!
With the Hg lamp I would be cautious. I think they may show the end of their life time by exploding. I think you were supposed to take notes of the hours in use.
Do you know this source of information on LOMO: http://www.mikroskopfreunde-nordhessen.de/lomo.php
Wolfgang is a nice person and always helpful.

I also just bought an unusual LOMO microscope, but it is just a bigger lab microscope, rare but far less special.

Bob

Thanks for the interesting information.
Yes, the HBO lamp contains mercury vapor so when you "explode" you have to get away and ventilate the place well.

"I also just bought an unusual LOMO microscope, but it is just a bigger lab microscope, rare but far less special."
I like LOMO microscopes. What model, a photograph ?. Thank you

The "artifact" of the upper back corresponds to a photomultiplier (I think for photography).

That makes it an even more interesting research instrument. A photomultiplier is an extremely fast, extremely sensitive linear photodetector. It is by far more sensitive than a camera (at least, from the same era...). Hence it is used in confocal microscopes and other microscopes to measure and quantitate the very faint fluorescence.
Thanks for sharing.

Hobbyst46 wrote:

The "artifact" of the upper back corresponds to a photomultiplier (I think for photography).

That makes it an even more interesting research instrument. A photomultiplier is an extremely fast, extremely sensitive linear photodetector. It is by far more sensitive than a camera (at least, from the same era...). Hence it is used in confocal microscopes and other microscopes to measure and quantitate the very faint fluorescence.
Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the info.