Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

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matt09
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Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#1 Post by matt09 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:03 am

Hi All,

I've acquired an old Olympus CK microscope in great condition.
The objectives included go up to 20x allowing for 200x mag with the stereo eye pieces.
I've had a good play and was wondering how well this old scope would work if I were to buy higher magnification objectives.
My knowledge on optics and microscopes generally is pretty limited but I do know there are various problems with increasing magnification.
The focal length at 200x is also already very small so I don't know if this would be a problem.

How much higher than the 200x magnification could I go with a microscope of this era? I have been looking at 40x and even 100x objectives but I know I could well be wasting my money on something that won't work.
I know focusing would be a problem so I was thinking of 3D printing a giant focus knob.

Thanks

PeteM
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#2 Post by PeteM » Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:17 am

Beyond 10x, the objectives on your CK should be long working distance types.

Olympus made a short barrel 40x objective with a long working distance (LWD) for the CK. It should be OK, though not quite so satisfying as the 20x LWD objectives they made (they're pretty good). Just match your flat bottom dish to your lens (my recollection is that they made the 20x in both 1 and 1.2mm working distances).

At 100x you'd be looking at inverting the slide and cover slip to allow close enough focusing and deal with the mess of oil upside down. Olympus 100x lenses from this era are cheap enough (used) you might want one; but also find you seldom find it worth using.

MicroBob
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#3 Post by MicroBob » Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:31 am

I have this microscope too, with the 20:1 LWD objective. Originally the scope was just supplied with the 4:1 and 10:1 objectives. My impression is, that the condenser can just support the 20:1 objective, but won't be good for a 40:1 objective. There is only coarse focus so a 40:1 would not be much fun to use.

An interesting upgrade would be the phase contrast kit. They surface now and then on ebay.

Apart from that I wouldn't invest further money in this microscope but use it for what it is good.

Here is a link to the brochure: http://www.alanwood.net/downloads/olymp ... ochure.pdf

matt09
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#4 Post by matt09 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:07 pm

PeteM wrote:Olympus made a short barrel 40x objective with a long working distance (LWD) for the CK.
Could you give me the part number of this please, I can't see it mentioned in the brochure?
I think I might give 40x a go but forget 100x, My 3D printed focus adjust will be 2-3x the diameter of the original.

The phase contrast kit's look pretty expensive although they are for slightly newer models.

Thanks for the help.

PeteM
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#5 Post by PeteM » Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:43 pm

Matt, It could well be that the 40x objectives I've seen on CK models were just the regular ones, a bit fatter than usual (and thus requiring that inverted slide). I'd trust MicroBob and the brochure on that one.

It looks like Nikon might have made a short barrel barrel 40x LWD objective from that era: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-40x-0-55 ... rk:18:pf:0

That might work (correction collar, condenser, and correction eyepieces willing). Someone else may know if the collar is actually graduated in mm+ increments.

I have a CK2 with a decent LWD 40x, but they went with a long barrel design by then. My version of the CK2 also has just the coarse focus and it's fiddly, but usable at 40x.

matt09
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#6 Post by matt09 » Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:43 pm

I found this and it's cheap, would it be suitable? Not sure if it's LWD but it looks like it should fit.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/OLYMPUS-40X-Mi ... :rk:6:pf:0

The Nikon is kind of pricey for something that may not work.

Thanks

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zzffnn
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#7 Post by zzffnn » Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:59 pm

That short Nikon objectives (and most other short Nikons) are around 3mm shorter than short Olympus, in terms of parfocal height. Around 33mm vs around 36mm. That would make it difficult to use with other Olympus objective s.

The cheap Olympus 40/0.65/0.17 objective does not have LWD and is used for 0.17mm cover slips. To use that on an inverted scope, assuming the scope has a condenser that can provide light cone NA 0.5 or more, requires inverting the slide on stage (let 1mm slide face up and 0.17mm cover slip face down). Other than that, it would work.

matt09
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#8 Post by matt09 » Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:00 pm

Please excuse my ignorance but my background is engineering and my optical physics knowledge is lacking..
Around 33mm vs around 36mm. That would make it difficult to use with other Olympus objective s
I think you're saying a lot of winding the focus knob would be required between objectives?
The cheap Olympus 40/0.65/0.17 objective does not have LWD and is used for 0.17mm cover slips. To use that on an inverted scope, assuming the scope has a condenser that can provide light cone NA 0.5 or more, requires inverting the slide on stage (let 1mm slide face up and 0.17mm cover slip face down). Other than that, it would work.
I think you're saying the maximum possible focal distance is so shallow that to get any range over the object of interest would require the cover slip down to keep the distance as short as possible?

Are there any disadvantages besides having to use cover slip down? My 20x objective is 0.17 and works fine with a 1mm slide, I don't understand why it works though?

Thanks

MicroBob
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#9 Post by MicroBob » Wed Oct 10, 2018 1:17 pm

It's difficult to work with non parfocal objectives - you have to adjust focus for every change of objective and it you forget it when changeing form short to long you crash into the slide.

The glass between objective and object is part of the optical calculation of the objective. The higher the n.a. on a dry objective the stronger is the negative effect on the image quality. With your 20:1 you will already see a difference between upright or inverted. The stronger objectives might not even focus if they are calculated for 0,17mm and are used through a slide.

mnmyco
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#10 Post by mnmyco » Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:37 pm

Where I work there is an Olympus CK2 that has a 40x on it. LWD CD Plan, 40 PL, 160/0-2 0.55, T2. It has an internal iris and is phase contrast.

mnmyco

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zzffnn
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#11 Post by zzffnn » Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:38 am

Yes, lot of winding on focus drive.

No, it is because of optical correction of objective lenses (corrected for 0.17mm cover glass is very different than corrected 1mm cover glass).

20x NA 0.4 objective that is corrected for 0.17 mm cover can tolerate 1mm cover reasonably, because its NA (aperture) is quite low. At NA 0.65 of 40x, you will see a significant difference when mismatched.

A major disadvantage of use 0.17mm cover slip facing down (1mm at top and 0.17mm at bottom) is that you cannot hold a large volume of fluid, unlike using 1mm at bottom and 0.17mm at top. But large volume of water is usually not easy to handle in microscopy anyway. You usually want small volume of sample water to get better image quality.

MicroBob
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#12 Post by MicroBob » Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:42 am

cover slip down has one more disadvantage: When you move the slide you are always in danger of hitting the stage with the protruding coverslip.

PeteM
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#13 Post by PeteM » Mon Oct 15, 2018 1:29 am

This might be short barrel: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Olympus-LWD-C- ... 1983670888

Asking price is nuts, though.

Quarterbore
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#14 Post by Quarterbore » Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:40 pm

I am late to this discussion but thanks for the old info! I spent years working with these microscopes working in tissue culture and virology specifically both in academia and industry.

I found a used CK-2 that may be priced too good to be true. It has the following lenses:

A10PL
LWD CA20PL
LWD CD Plan 40PL

I understand it was complete as pulled from lab use so it should have all three light annuli. It also has a trinocular head and a few years ago I spent the small fortune to get the photo parts including a 1.67NFK objective.

I want this for working with scouts and looking at aquatic samples. Most of the time I’ve been using a Olympus SZ4045 stereo scope which I’ve also setup to use the same camera parts but I have struggled to use the CHT Phase contrast scope as the cover just makes the sample too limiting.

Hoping for the best but I used this thread as a reference and wanted to say thanks!

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Rossf
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#15 Post by Rossf » Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:03 am

Hey Quaterbore-if you go the CK-2 double check they have the 40x annulus-I’ve got the CK-1 and CK-2 and that 40 annnulus is pretty hard to find-don’t know if Olympus still have them to buy-I actually use the CK-1 a lot more-here’s a link to a lwd 40x non Olympus I’ve been thinking of grabbing cos the Olympus CPlan 40 goes for silly money on eBay-

https://www.ebay.com/itm/SPI-40-LWD-Mic ... 3386050096

I’ve put Splans on it-I’ve put Nikon’s on it-Lomo-as long as LWD it can take up to 40x... just! And that’s on highest illumination-unless you LED it. The CK-1 might be handier with scouts cos it’s so compact and 200 is actually enough for pond microbes-I don’t find the lack of fine focus a prob-with Petri dish you get a slice of habitat so tend not to try chase microbes-most are too fast anyway-fun just exploring depth and seeing what’s living at each level of water algae muck etc.
Regards ross

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Rossf
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#16 Post by Rossf » Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:09 am

Oh forgot to mention-make sure the CK-2 has the slide/ Petri dish plate-I forgot to check and still haven’t found one-holds 35mm petridishes-
Cheers

charlie g
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#17 Post by charlie g » Wed Feb 19, 2020 2:28 am

Hi Matt09 and all....terrific thread, thank you all. I dug out my boxed Olympus CK with it's trinoc nosepiece hosting: 4/ 0.10, with red band marking, 10/ 0.25, orange color band marking, C20/ 0.40/ 1.20 specs on barrel, yellow color band marking. Thanks to a kind forum poster into this thread...I see in the Olympus CK brochure ( a shout out to Allan Wood for his microscopes archive resource for all to freely access!)...I see the : C20/ 0.40 1.20 objective is a specially fabricated objective for these 'clinical work horse' inverted scopes.

I had also aquired my Olympus CK stand for a wonderful low price ( bricks and mortar aquisition at a NY astronomy festival!).

Unless you are trying to craft a richly rewarding documentary film...one where you seamlessly splice : macro photo optics, with stereo scope optics, and then with compound scope optics, onto SEM images...ultimately with atomic force microscopy ( which I have enjoyed in online research postings...it's been quite a few years that we can now observe 'as it happens, gene expression/translation/ protein fabrications'...with real time microscopy!

Matt09...why drop duckets to soup up a quite useful, yet speciffically purposed Olympus CK inverted stand? The footprint of this scope at your work bench is large ( costly space at your microscopy bench).

A quality cmpnd scope with: 1XPlan objective, 2XPlan objective...and then the 4X etc. optics...this setup often replaces for me even the need to drag out a quality stereo microscope.

I guess my question to you is: what sort of microscopy do you desire...where you 'soup up a dedicated inverted stand', to do things it was never crafted to perform? At level of 400X or higher mag...either static prepared specimens, or non-motile/ weakly motile tissue culture specimens...or keenly treated live wetmount slides for motile and 'belligerant...irritable organisms'...all such encounters best with quality compound microscope.

BTW all I can sell my CK for $200+shipping. charlie guevara

highbeta
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Re: Olympus CK Inverted Microscope Upgrade

#18 Post by highbeta » Sat Oct 10, 2020 8:34 am

Hi All,

I wonder if one of you guys can help me with a manual for an Olympus CK/CKP/CKC?
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10480

Thanks in advance,
Highbeta

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