Zeiss Universal Fine Focusing Not Working

[garyjm]

Greetings fellow microscope enthusiasts:

The fine focusing is not working on one of my two Zeiss Universals. I asked a local microscope store about repair and they said it would be very costly so I'm looking for ideas on how to accomplish fine focusing some other way. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks,
Gary

Zeiss Universal.jpg (70.04 KiB) Viewed 2586 times

[elvis_saya]

Hi garyjm,

Here is the guide I used when cleaning up a WL focus block, I believe that it is the same as the universal (credit goes to the German forum poster):

https://www.mikroskopie-forum.de/index.php?topic=9401.0

Otherwise, you may need to check ebay out for one of these focus blocks.

[MicroBob]

Hi Gary,
as your microscope is old and seems to have seen little use it may be just hardened grease. So I would suggest to do a maintenance job on it and see if it works. There is one gear in the drive train that can get stripped and is difficult to obtain. On a microscope that has seen little use it could have been damaged by someone doing fine focus gymnastics on gummed up guides.

Bob

[Crater Eddie]

Gary, is it frozen and will not turn, or spins freely with no result?
CE

[garyjm]

Let me clarify the issue. The fine focus knob rotates but the stage does not move. This can also be seen while observing. The course focusing works just fine. Both course and fine focus knob action are stiff due to the grease hardening but this should have nothing to do with the stage not moving during fine focusing.

I was wondering too if there is some way to compensate for this problem up at the ocular end?

Thanks,
Gary