MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Frustrated with customer service or lack their of at microscope companies. I haven’t been able to get a response from Zeiss for requests for parts or service manuals. I’m far from rich and can’t afford to send my stuff out to be repaired for major $€£¥. I save money by purchasing used and sometimes broken equipment and fixing it. This has served me well in the past and I have been able to get parts and service manuals from most companies. But it seems that when you get to companies that specialize in optics they treat service manuals like TOP SECRET information and replacement parts like governmentally controlled substances. Sony is great. I finally got a user manual for my microscope from Nikon but no service manuals. Zeiss…..crickets.

Anyway, I purchased this fiber optic illuminator as broken. It came with fiber light arms which is one of the main things I wanted, but I would like to get the unit itself working. A service manual would be a big help. I could get by with just a schematic. Getting into it was like getting into a Chinese puzzle box, but I did it. It would take me a good solid week or maybe two to reverse engineer the thing. That isn’t worth it to me. If anyone knows where I could get at least a schematic for this I would greatly appreciate it. I haven’t been able to find anything about it’s guts on the internet.

I used to work for an industrial system supplier that also serviced and sold replacement parts. Their website was a gold mine of service manuals and exploded diagrams that anyone from garage enthusiasts to competitors could access. Ironically, having all of that documentation made it very clear that DIY service and repair was such a pain in the ass, that it was worth it to just get it serviced professionally. As a result, more than a third of the company's business was repeat servicing and repair. Keeping that stuff secret and unavailable is short-sighted and only hurts the manufacturer, in the long run.

If you're that motivated to find stuff, try google in different countries, ie: google.de, google.fr, google.etc....

I will admit that I am getting lazy in my old age and do get things professional serviced more than I use to. But I am a retired tv broadcast studio engineer and have a very complete electronics lab at home. Electronics and amateur radio are still hobbies and interests of mine. Once I figured out how to get inside, the light source circuitry is comparatively simple compared to many things I have worked on and built. But schematics make things much easier to trouble shoot even for the simpler stuff.

Last time I looked Schott had manuals on their site. I just purchased a KL 1500 myself just today.

einman wrote: ↑

Mon May 01, 2023 1:39 am

Last time I looked Schott had manuals on their site. I just purchased a KL 1500 myself just today.

Perhaps worth noting that [contrary to the subject line] Schott is the correct spelling

MichaelG.