Olympus dic on optiphot

[EVILsteve]

I bought an olympus bh2 dic setup, has anyone successfully made these work on a nikon optiphot? I don't have a bh2 to compare from.

Condenser
Nikon condensers to olympus is common and to my understanding optically fairly similar. The dovetail is larger on the olympus and looks removable, i dont have the dic condenser yet to confirm this. fabricating a nikon dovetail is easy enough for me. This I belive should be all I need for this end.

Intermediate tube.
The nikon dovetail is larger, are the olympus dovetails removable? If not I'm fairly confident I could make a split adapter that clamps on to the olympus dovetail and has the larger nikon profile on the outside.
But are the placements of the heads the same distance from the objective on both or within a close enough tolerance? I'm sure I'm not the only one that's tried this.

[Scarodactyl]

A nikon head can be adapted onto an olympus dovetail and the spacing will work fine.

[woyjwjl]

I bought an olympus bh2 dic setup, has anyone successfully made these work on a nikon optiphot? I don't have a bh2 to compare from.

Condenser
Nikon condensers to olympus is common and to my understanding optically fairly similar. The dovetail is larger on the olympus and looks removable, i dont have the dic condenser yet to confirm this. fabricating a nikon dovetail is easy enough for me. This I belive should be all I need for this end.

Intermediate tube.
The nikon dovetail is larger, are the olympus dovetails removable? If not I'm fairly confident I could make a split adapter that clamps on to the olympus dovetail and has the larger nikon profile on the outside.
But are the placements of the heads the same distance from the objective on both or within a close enough tolerance? I'm sure I'm not the only one that's tried this.

I'm also looking for DIC kit. Can I see yours?

On the contrary, the forum has modified the Nikon kit to Olympus for discussion.

[EVILsteve]

My dic is being shipped and about a week or two away.

Are you thinking about olympus to nikon as well? Nikon to olympus is easier for the condenser. The nikon dovetail is 45mm and the olympus 47mm. It clamps down then you can re-center in the olympus like any condenser. Olympus to nikon does not physically fit without modifying the holder or dovetail. I plan to machine a new dovetail.

The Intermediate adapters are quite different though. The nikon fits between the stand and nisepiece. I'm not sure how those dovetails match up. Olympus intermediate is between the stand and head. Olympus dovetail is smaller at 44mm, nikon 47mm. Even if you could clamp this down it would be off center with no way to correct this like the condensers. You need to make up that space somehow or another to keep it centered. I plan to machine a dovetail thats split in two pieces that fits over the olympus and with the nikon profile on the outside. Once in place it should hold itself together but I will likely cut a groove around the circumference and use a c-clip to keep it in place.

There's adapters to mount the nikon head to the olympus dovetail, placing the nikon dovetail above the olympus . I'd read that this works fairly well because the nikon mounts slightly higher from the objective than the olympus stand. For the dic adapter that would make it slightly lower than designed in a nikon stand. How that translates to the dic effect I have no idea yet.

I will source an olympus stand if this fails to work correctly.

[deBult]

Did you consider moving to an Olympus BH2 stand, reusing your Nikon 160 mm objectives and eyepieces?

[EVILsteve]

I did consider that and still am.

I was hoping if there was some reason not to pursue this such as the condenser would cause issue with Kohler illumination or stage height is too low to fit the condenser than I'd hear it here and get an olympus stand on the way.

But since i can do the machining Id prefert to hold off until I try my nikon plan apo's with the dic if I need to get new objectives I will probably try to find a complete olympus bh2 with the objectives and save shipping costs. I paid more in shipping costs for these objectives buying individually as I did than I paid for the nikon stand.

[viktor j nilsson]

Might be tricky. Even if you are mechanically able to attach the Olympus intermediate piece to the stand, you are likely going to change the prism-to-objective distance, which can be pretty bad for DIC. But then again, if you are going to use it with mismatched Nikon objectives, there's a slight chance it even improves things. If it's easy for you to do it, always worth trying.

But I would definitely have bought a BH2 stand if I were you.

[woyjwjl]

First of all, I associate myself with the above statement.

I'm curious. Olympus DIC is usually more expensive than Nikon. Is it convenient to disclose your purchase price?

I am using BHS. The early Olympus ah or later BX DIC kits, or even Nikon DIC kits, are often easily available on the market.

It can be seen that my DIY difficulty is less than the purchase difficulty.

So I still suggest you buy BH2 shelf. After all, the price of a complete DIC kit is often three times or more than that of a complete BHS (with four Splan objective lenses).

[EVILsteve]

I appreciate the advice and I'm hearing you all loud and clear, just get the olympus stand and be done with it.

I spent around 3400CAD on this set. Cost wasn't really a concern for purchase, it was availability that pushed me towards the olympus. Nikon parts are scarce when your actively looking for them but stands are readily available if I required a different one. Canadian shipping is horrid though so my cheapness starts to shine through out of the principle of the matter.

With any luck this won't be another heine condenser incident where I summoned cthulhu. Just need to get it through the door unseen so it can blend into the surroundings on my desk.

[EVILsteve]

The DIC components arrived before my olympus bhs stand so I attempted to adapt these parts to the nikon. I can report that with some simple 3d prints this is easily adaptable to the nikon optiphot and works just fine with nikon plan apo objectives.

The only hang up I came across is the olympus condenser has reliefs for under stage mounting bracking that do not coincide with the nikon counterparts. This prevents the condenser from reaching the underside of the slide by about 5mm. This would take about 5 minutes to add some relief with an angle grinder.

I can add some pictures if anyone's interested in adding olympus parts to a nikon and can put the stl's on thingiverse. This went together so smoothly I kinda regret bothering getting the bhs now.

[woyjwjl]

Well, any picture can relax the brain