IOR MC9 research microscope

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Farmazon
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Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:07 am

IOR MC9 research microscope

#1 Post by Farmazon » Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:59 pm

Well, it’s about time I got on with this writeup. I’ve had this scope for about a year and have fiddled a lot with it, and with similar scopes. It’s caused me quite a deal of frustration, especially with the photo-taking part. Anyway, let’s begin.

Warning 1: take all the following with a grain of salt. I’m an amateur lacking experience, and I may not have all the knowledge required to adequately convey all the information, or I may just have some things wrong.

Warning 2: many pictures.

Warning 3: I am not a native English speaker, so if anything sounds strange, well, that’s the breaks.



Some time ago, last spring, I was woken by a loud knocking on my front door. A gaunt, gray gentleman with a proletariat cap saluted crisply and took a heavy sack off of his shoulder. With a hard stare, he growled “Do you know for how long I’ve been carrying this? Here you go – merry labour day!” – and with a sharp *crack*, he was gone into thin air. On my doorstep was the IOR MC9.
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As a short preamble, IOR stands for “Intreprinderea Optica Romana” – Romanian Optical Enterprise. It was Romania’s only optical devices factory, based in Bucharest, established in 1936 – and as such was responsible for producing everything from rifle telescopic sights, cameras, cinema projectors, microscopes, lenses, night vision devices. IOR is still state-owned to this day. The first IOR microscope was produced in 1951.

Detour to some background info: the IOR microscope families are basically as follows: MD (microscop didactic) – school scope, ML (Microscop Laborator) – I’ll let you guess what this one is, MM (microscop metalografic) – same as the one before it, MC (microscop cercetare) – research microscope. There are also others, like the NTI stereomicroscope or the Biorom, but these were basically the main families. The MC family, which concerns us, begins with the MC-1 in the 60s, then there is a gap in my knowledge, which goes straight to the MC5, MC6, MC7 and MC7a, and MC9. The MC9 is the IOR “flagship” scope.

An elusive beast of legend, I would be surprised if anyone knows about the MC9 – with the exception of some members of the Romanian academia or part of IOR. I had the scope for about a year and did not know its designation (MC9). It is not stamped or otherwise marked anywhere on the instrument, so I couldn’t write anything about it because I didn’t know what it really was.

So, to business. The MC9 is a research microscope capable of a multitude of viewing modes. It can do epi, trans and mixed illumination in UV, visible light or mixed light, brightfield or darkfield in just about any combination you can conceive, even unusual things (to me) like transmitted darkfield and epifluorescence simultaneously, or phase contrast brightfield and fluorescence brightfield simultaneously, etc. Due to my lack of experience, I have no knowledge if this is common to other research microscopes.

Okay, so starting with the generalities: it’s clearly a compound microscope. Not getting overly descriptive, it’s a heavy affair with well-placed controls, with a gray matte finish. Originally it comes with a binocular head that includes a zoom turret with 4 detents (1x, 1.25x, 1.6x and phase telescope). It is attached via a zeiss-like circular dovetail. The MC9 has two slots for illuminators in the back, one near the top and one on the bottom. The top one was used for the larger lamps, (HBO or CSI), while the one on the bottom was used for the 30w/6v lamp. Any lamp can be used either for epi, trans or mixed illumination.

The beam path is controlled by a right hand lever with 3 detents (top lamp, bottom lamp or mix), and by a knurled wheel on the left side (epi and trans). In the bottom part there is the standard field aperture control and a lever to flip the ground glass diffuser. There are two adjustment screws for centering the beam in the condenser. For epi-illumination, the condenser is integrated in the arm together with the field aperture, the centerable condenser aperture, two filter slots and a polarizer slot. The filters fit in aluminum casettes that slide into the slots. The beam exits via a hole to enter the fluorescence filter block. This block is mated to the arm by a dovetail and secured with a special screw. It looks like it is compatible with the epi-bright-and-darkfield block for the metalographical MC6, but it is not, not fully (more on this later, perhaps). The fluorescence block has three dichroics and one empty slot for visible light work. The respective dichroics have a 50/50 transmission / reflection ratio, and are made to function at 400, 510 and 580 nm respectively.

The coarse focus movement is spring-loaded to compensate for the stage weight; the fine focus knob is coaxial to the coarse focus and has a range of about 2 mm. It is interesting to note that the focus block is interchangeable with the ones on the MC6 and MC7, and the only serial number printed anywhere on this scope is on the left side of the focus block, which seems like it’s a bizarre choice. A friend had to service the focus block for his MC7 and I am attaching some pictures I made of the internals.

The MC9 came with a pretty comprehensive accessory kit. The original kit contains the scope itself with 5 achromatic objectives, a 6v/30w filament lamp, an HBO 200w mercury vapor lamp with a power unit for it, 4 condensers (UV 1.2 brightfield, UV 0.8 darkfield – an interesting mirrored parabolic device, and a visible light brightfield 1.4). There is also an optional CSI 250w lamp. The projection screen is not normally used for the MC9, but it is a perfect fit. Using my 30w equivalent LED illuminator, the image is barely visible and the camera ports on the left and right side, as far as I can see, do not respect the 160mm tube length – but perhaps my technique is deficient. So, the projection screen is pretty much useless, however impressive it may look. The quadruple condenser turretin some pictures was originally part of another package, either for the MC7 or the old MC1.

I don’t know what else to say about this thing, so ask away if you’re curious. Meanwhile I’ll leave you with some pictures.

I’m glad I managed to save this rare scope from the melter. Even If by today’s standards it is…well, substandard, perhaps, it is a piece of history I’m glad to have.
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Farmazon
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:07 am

Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#2 Post by Farmazon » Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:05 pm

Some more pictures of the focus block:
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Farmazon
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:07 am

Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#3 Post by Farmazon » Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:07 pm

Some pictures of the internals, details and accesories:
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75RR
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#4 Post by 75RR » Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:24 pm

That is a wonderful microscope. Glad you saved it!

Reminds me of the big Lomos - built like a tank!

Did your friend manage to put the focusing block back together again? Very brave/reckless of him to try. Hope he did.
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)

Hobbyst46
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#5 Post by Hobbyst46 » Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:31 pm

This is a fine system scope. Might fulfill the wishes of many hobbyists !
Your description is fluent, clear and comprehensive.
Please tell us more about the objectives, eyepieces, and condensers.
Please show also the power supply unit of the mercury lamp.
EdiT: how do you like the performance of the 30W LED ? did you check its brightness in other modes than brightfield ?
Hopefully you might fetch a trinocular head for it, to ease on the photography job.

Scarodactyl
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#6 Post by Scarodactyl » Mon Apr 06, 2020 9:37 pm

That is a beautiful microscope! I'm glad it has found a good home. I'm curious about its performance but it sounds like an impressive instrument.

PeteM
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#7 Post by PeteM » Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:25 pm

Thanks for your Romanian rhapsody on this wonderful microscope. Was there a Romanian equivalent to the Bauhaus?

Do you know if there was a DIC option for it?

And, wish I could write any second language half as well as you do English. Thanks for your post.

apochronaut
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#8 Post by apochronaut » Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:45 pm

I think I have seen the same microscope only in black, being sold on ebay. Have you contacted Lucien , who sells IOR parts etc. on ebay sometimes? He seems quite knowledgeable.

MicroBob
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#9 Post by MicroBob » Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:04 am

Congratulations to this great microscope! It probably is at least as rare as the Zeiss Axiomat. Compared to a Zeiss Universal or Leitz Orthoplan it is a microscope with similar user value but so much more value as a collectors piece. I find it quite incredible to see what a complicated and seemingly well desingned microscope they developed for what must have been a tiny market. Perhaps someone knocks on my door too, one day! :lol:

Bob

MichaelG.
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#10 Post by MichaelG. » Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:22 am

Farmazon wrote:
Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:59 pm
As a short preamble, IOR stands for “Intreprinderea Optica Romana” – Romanian Optical Enterprise. It was Romania’s only optical devices factory, based in Bucharest, established in 1936 – and as such was responsible for producing everything from rifle telescopic sights, cameras, cinema projectors, microscopes, lenses, night vision devices. IOR is still state-owned to this day. The first IOR microscope was produced in 1951.
Many thanks for posting your story of this wonderful instrument
Until I read this, I was totally unaware of ‘IOR’ ... but I am very impressed !!

MichaelG.
Too many 'projects'

Farmazon
Posts: 19
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 7:07 am

Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#11 Post by Farmazon » Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:58 pm

Hi everyone, glad to see you enjoyed the post and story.

Let's see:
@75RR, it's indeed heavily built, but not as heavy as you would expect. Someone in the know told me that it was pressure cast from some magnesium alloy...? It's definitely not steel, it's not ferromagnetic.
And about my friend, indeed, he not only managed to put it back for his scope, but also fixed one of my focusing blocks with the same problem - a stuck fine focus. The mechanics are really not that complicated and are engineered to be quite foolproof (a lot of different screws, bolts, assymetric parts so you can't mount anything wrong), but it's fiddly and you need to be an octopus to hold all the parts and tools required. The guy is a mechanical wizard, he did it all by himself with no schematics and no help.

@hobbyist46, it's indeed more than what i need right now, especially the fluorescence bits. It's also extremely frustrating to collimate, and i'm not satisfied with the job i did so far.

The scope came to me without any objective. The original kit was supposed to contain a 6.3x, 16x, 40x achromats and two oil immersion apochromats, a 63x and 100x. The oculars in the kit were a pair each of 5x, 12.5x and 16x Huygens oculars and a pair of 10x compensators for the apos. No ocular has special perks like wide-field or high eyepoint. Right now i only have the achromats and oculars. My limited experience places them over chinese objectives as sharpness goes. I have some Carl Zeiss Jena objectives of similar characteristics that seem to be a tad sharper than the IORs. The build quality is excellent. I may attach some pictures some time later when i get the opportunity.

As far as the lamp goes, i can only show the lamphouse with the attached centering mechanisms, it is otherwise empty. There is no power source, cabling or lamp inside. Again, i can't complain, this is the way i received it.

Regarding the "30W led" - i now realize my mistake. I think i was supposed to write "30W equivalent". The power draw for the LED light is actually 7W, which should be equivalent to a 30w incandescent bulb, as far as i know. It is a diy solution, simply a Philips E14 bulb with its diffuser removed. It seems the original incandescent bulb uses the same E14 screw-in mounting, so it was pretty much a drop-in replacement. The quantity of light is adequate for normal viewing, but too weak for projection screen use. I have not yet tried darkfield illumination with this light. The main issue is with the quality of the light, since the "bulb" is actually an array of individually mounted SMD leds. They are arranged in a ring-like pattern and, when setting up Kohler illumination, the pattern becomes somewhat visible, even with the diffusion screen in place. To alleviate this problem i defocus the condenser, but this solution is, i think, sub-optimal.

The IOR trinocular head is exceedingly rare. One of them cropped up on ebay last year but it was out of my budget range...i would love to have one of these heads, but so far no luck.

@scarodactyl - thanks for the kind words. It is impressive enough indeed as instruments go, and i am very pleased by its mechanical and ergonomic performance, not so much by its optical performance, but this is surely due to "user error". I have so far tried my best to collimate it correctly, but i seem to have hit a wall. When time allows, i am still working on it. As a verbal comparison, the IOR ML-4 lab scope which i usually use is considerably better, i suspect due to the simpler layout and better collimation.

@petem - I'm glad you appreciate the story, thanks for the praise! There was a Bauhaus movement in Romania, however it pretty much ended in the 40s. It shaped many buildings in the interbellic period Bucharest. However the later-years IOR product design seems more brutalist than bauhaus, with its sharp lines and gray, concrete-like color and texture. The political regime of the time and the time period itself fit, i think...

My strong opinion is that there was no DIC option for it. The documentation i read mentions nothing of the sort and there are no slots or places where DIC equipment would go. Boo. I would have been very interested in DIC IOR.

@apochronaut - I have never seen any IOR MC, except for the MC1, in black. The MC1 seems to be the precursor of the MC7, with three illuminator ports in the base. You can see it here, about halfway to the bottom:

http://www.astronomy.ro/forum/viewtopic ... 719c7d6187

And i do correspond with Lucian on a semi-regular basis. He is indeed knowledgeable.

@microbob - Thank you! Regarding the rarity, it seems to be truly rare There is literally zero documentation available about this scope online, only 2 or 3 scientific papers that mention it in passing. As i mentioned before, for a while i had no idea what MC this was, i only knew what it was not...ah well.

IOR microscopes were never exported as far as i can tell, and i would venture a guess that the number produced is under 100. Apparently mine was used by a biological research institute. The market would be tiny indeed - this institute, perhaps 2 universities and a handful of hospitals with research branches, maybe? And - who knows, maybe the gray gaunt man might visit you too one day, who knows?

@michaelG - I'm glad you like the old tale. IOR still produces its own microscopes, and i have no idea why they haven't outsourced to China yet. Their homepage (stuck in the 90s) is here: http://www.ior.ro , look for "english" in the upper right. Afaik, IOR produces rifle optics that are sold in the US by Valdada (?), and the customers seem to be pleased.


I'll leave you all with an adaptation of an old joke that applies particularly well to this scope:

A foreign microscopist is visiting communist Romania. He’s taking a train from Bucharest to Cluj and patting his Zeiss Universal on the seat next to him. A Romanian man leans over to talk to him, pointing to the scope.

“You know, we make those better and more efficiently here in Romania,” he says.

“Oh?” Says the foreigner.

“Yes,” the Romanian man responds. “But what is it?”

rmb
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Re: IOR MC9 research microscope

#12 Post by rmb » Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:23 pm

As an "eastern bloc" microscope would this share fitting sizes with the likes of lomo? Or zeiss jena? That would open up possibilities objectives and equipment wise

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