Professional photography kit cleaners- will they be good for old microscopes?

[Kinetochore]

This far out of town ( nearest capital city 250km away ) there's no-one to clean and service microscopes

The big 4 are on contract to hospitals and universities in town about 50 kay away- and while they do regular servicing on site it's no longer possible just to sling the techies a beer and have an item needing service included in the day's worklist

I've literally been told my ECeBi microscope isn't worth repairing, with all the travel it's not economical- and if I do take it to Brisbane as a small one-off job it's also likely to not be a priority

Stupid of them, because now my research buddies have six much nicer microscopes scattered over three different locations with a radius of 100k. The Olympus CH2 + vertical illuminator is definitely going to need a major cleanup if we decide to use it and that brings it to a total of seven microscopes worth servicing

Hoping to have the mad skillz to be able to do all this in-house one day, but maybe that's a pipe dream and in the meantime our kit still needs caring for

Would any place that's got a good reputation for servicing cameras also be appropriate for getting them to service the microscopes? There are quite a few closer than 250k away

Has anyone else successfully gotten their optics cleaned and serviced at a local camera place?

[imkap]

I'd say microscopes are simpler to service than cameras, as cameras are smaller. The only real fiddly part would be the microscope head.

A serious mechanic stands behind their work, so whether they' will repair something they don't usually do, I think you must ask them. They might waste too much time and they can't charge you for learning...

But it is worth a try, chance is they might have some skills and tools needed, maybe even some experience.

Next up is to ask yourself, can you do it... that's what I'd do

[Kinetochore]

Thanks Imkap, I'll ask around

Absolutely have the capacity and tools to do it, but worried I might muck something up around solvent/ seals/ cement and wreck parts it's hard to get replaced

Also, the RH here is about 60-90% here most days. I can undertake repairs in the laminar flow cabinet to keep spores off everything but at that RH% it could still be an issue