Beefy Dynoptic Condenser Knob

[ebenbildmicroscopy]

So, these are Fleabay "salvage" items that I sortuv agonized buying (in order to fancy up a "triocular" B&L Dynoptic). The Dynoptic polarizing stage and substage had been mounted to a grey Dynazoom and the "Panfocal" condenser was like buying a pig-in-a-poke. I had to buy an entire scope to get the Panfocal that was very obscured in the auction listing.

So, to me, that condenser knob on the stage seems really huge and overkill in proportion to the rest of the rig.... is it just me?

The Panfocal condenser is going to be the focus of a future post where I machine a replacement lamp housing and possible conversion to a cob LED since this condenser is missing the lamp and housing as well as the field diaphragm knob that I will be fabricating using a 0-80 tap and die. More to come...

[BramHuntingNematodes]

I was wondering who bought the panfocal condenser it was in one of.them b&l pigeon breast Dynoptics like I got yeah that was tough many a night went by when I almost bought it but I'm glad I'll at least get to see it in action!!

[ebenbildmicroscopy]

Weren't those horrendous auction pics? I am primarily a Leitz and Zeiss collector and know very very little about Bausch and Lomb. I kept pulling up those pics and would compare with one eye by squinting. What had me worried was the square black hole in the base where the lamp housing was supposed to be - I have since located a cross-section blueprint of the condenser in another B&L catalog that I can photocopy to scale to measure and replicate the housing... I'm going to devote a comprehensive post to the Panfocal and refurbing it. As near as I can tell, it was sortuv B&L's answer to the Leitz Berek condenser.

[apochronaut]

My guess is that they just had the knobs. Looks very similar to the fine focus knob on the later horseshoe Dynoptics.

[ebenbildmicroscopy]

I suspect you may be correct. That is one of the more endearing characteristics of most American manufacturing - that they would tend to standardize a part to work in different applications. Some of my most frustrating repair work has been the fact that Leitz changed design features so much and, between differing models, almost nothing is interchangeable - especially Leitz stages and how they mount - almost every model different.