Fossil diatom from Oamaru

[hkv]

Is that Carl ZEISS EVO LS 10 Lab6 your own or do you have regular access to it?

I've often wondered about a used table-top SEM.... seems that for the cost of a decent modern optical system, you could get lucky with a basic SEM.

I have my own in the basement. Besides Lab 6, it has EDAX Octane EDS and an Atlas 5 large area scan generator (32k x 24k pixel scans). A used SEM in decent shape is about the same price as a used confocal setup. The running cost is high though due to all gases needed, gold sputter and critical point driers etc. Also fixation, dehydration, etc tends to be costly as the chemicals used are expensive. I found this unit that was bought by a medtech company just before covid. They ran it for a few months before covid hit. It seems they never got around to start using it again after covid and sold it. It only had a few hundred hours of running time on it so it was almost like new. Exciting machine to play around with and more difficult than I thought, but I am learning.

[Sure Squintsalot]

Wow! Aren't you lucky! I'll assume that the pumps came with it!

I'd have to throw out both the clothes dryer and washing machine if I'd have any hope at running all of that equipment in my basement.

I bet incidentals add up fast; sputtering sources are no joke!

[woyjwjl]

I'm curious, so far no one has requested you to provide uncompressed images

[hkv]

Wow! Aren't you lucky! I'll assume that the pumps came with it!

I'd have to throw out both the clothes dryer and washing machine if I'd have any hope at running all of that equipment in my basement.

I bet incidentals add up fast; sputtering sources are no joke!

Yes, the system has three (rough) vacuum pumps. One for High Vacuum mode and a second for variable pressure and when the Deben cool stage is used. In that case, the first pump make sure the column has high vacuum whereas the other maintain the vacuum in the chamber. The vacuum system has the Zeiss Eco Tank add-on which means a vacuum tank is used to maintain a vacuum reserve. This means that the pump only runs for like 20 seconds every hour or so to maintain the vacuum. Nice and quiet compared to having the pump running continuously. The third vacuum pump is for the gold sputter. As you said, the metal targets are not cheap. A 57 mm gold target was over $1000. Not sure how long it will last, but I guess years if only used in a home environment with occasional use.