Objective Cleaning With Water

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MicroscopyLearning
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Objective Cleaning With Water

#1 Post by MicroscopyLearning » Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:20 am

Hello. Could there be any problems with submerging the tip of the objective in water for cleaning it. Could water get inside of the objective or could there be condensation. Is this method effective or is there another way it should be done.

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75RR
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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#2 Post by 75RR » Tue Jul 13, 2021 5:36 am

Could there be any problems with submerging the tip of the objective in water for cleaning it.
Yes

Follow the tips in this booklet:

https://www.zeiss.com/content/dam/Micro ... -zeiss.pdf
Zeiss Standard WL (somewhat fashion challenged) & Wild M8
Olympus E-P2 (Micro Four Thirds Camera)

apochronaut
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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#3 Post by apochronaut » Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:54 pm

Easiest way is to use isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. I use clean swabs to occasionally dust off the front lens . One end with a little bit of alcohol to clean the lens and the other end to dry it, then I use the same wet end with a bit more IPA on it to clean the objective body and the other end to dry it. It takes about 2 minutes.

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#4 Post by farnsy » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:01 am

apochronaut wrote:
Tue Jul 13, 2021 6:54 pm
Easiest way is to use isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs.
I guess this is a good time to ask this:

I had read somewhere that IPA was too harsh for routine cleaning of microscope optics and that instead we should use n-hexane. Do you have any experience or opinions on this?

Or for that matter, dilute soapy water followed by distilled (both on cotton swabs)?

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#5 Post by apochronaut » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:29 am

I would agree in the case of pure ethanol but not isopropyl. Firstly, for older uncoated optics , they are pretty impervious to to just about anything , so I wouldn't worry too much about alcohols. When it comes to coatings, maybe some of the softer internal coatings of the past might be sensitive to it. I have seen lenses with degraded coatings due to cleaning but I don't know what caused it. The older Reichert Austria coatings with the deep purple lustre and some internal coatings from the 170mm Leitz era are the ones I am talking about. Possibly an ethanol based cleaner was used.
Nikon recommends using IPA to clean a 1700.00 camera lens.
You might be asking related to your new 60 mm parfocal Chinese objectives. I have some of those, so I will gladly sacrifice one and test IPA out for you.

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#6 Post by farnsy » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:38 am

apochronaut wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:29 am
You might be asking related to your new 60 mm parfocal Chinese objectives. I have some of those, so I will gladly sacrifice one and test IPA out for you.
No need to put any equipment at risk for me. I'm only interested as a matter of general best practice on any microscope (objectives, eyepieces, or elsewhere). What I don't want to do is clean my equipment thinking I'm doing well and later find that my solvents over several cleanings damaged a coating somewhere.

By the way, if you have 60mm objectives that you don't value, I may be interested in buying some. I just ordered the 100x fluor WI objective from Radical, hoping to use it with DIC. We'll see how the quality of that is in a month or so.

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#7 Post by apochronaut » Wed Jul 14, 2021 1:21 am

farnsy wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:38 am
apochronaut wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:29 am
You might be asking related to your new 60 mm parfocal Chinese objectives. I have some of those, so I will gladly sacrifice one and test IPA out for you.
No need to put any equipment at risk for me. I'm only interested as a matter of general best practice on any microscope (objectives, eyepieces, or elsewhere). What I don't want to do is clean my equipment thinking I'm doing well and later find that my solvents over several cleanings damaged a coating somewhere.

By the way, if you have 60mm objectives that you don't value, I may be interested in buying some. I just ordered the 100x fluor WI objective from Radical, hoping to use it with DIC. We'll see how the quality of that is in a month or so.
I just have the same 1.10 W planachromat that you have and the R.M.S. version. The coatings look like multi-layer ( 1/4 lambda) depositions of MgF2. A nice greenish turquoise coating that targets the red and blue wavelengths. The coating doesn't seem affected by IPA but maybe I didn't rub hard enough!

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#8 Post by Harold » Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:08 am

My wife is an RN. So she has access to individually wrapped sterile swabs. After reading the article from Zeiss about objective cleaning, I'm thinking these might work nicely with 70% ethanol. They're certainly "uncontaminated".

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Re: Objective Cleaning With Water

#9 Post by Hobbyst46 » Sat Aug 28, 2021 8:30 am

Harold wrote:
Sat Aug 28, 2021 12:08 am
My wife is an RN. So she has access to individually wrapped sterile swabs. After reading the article from Zeiss about objective cleaning, I'm thinking these might work nicely with 70% ethanol. They're certainly "uncontaminated".
For the removal of oil and oily residues, both hexane and IPA are better than 70% ethanol. Heptane/octane are both as effective and less hazardous than hexane. Xylene is excellent but is considered harmful.
Whatever liquid is used, it should be sparingly applied.

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