Meiji ML2000L for $150 reasonable?

[fuglywug]

Hi All,

I just bought a Meiji ML2000L for $150 here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394256543784?

Is this a reasonable deal? I'm just looking at pond water with my 5 year old. Yes, it would be nice to have phase contrast and a trinocular head, but that means more money of course. I also noticed the stage controls are on the left, which is not ideal. I'm replacing a miserable "Boreal" brand chinese scope that I bought from goodwill for $5.

I looked for reichert microstars, BH2s, and AOs but everything I saw seemed to be expensive or worn.

[PeteM]

It's a good scope, for the $200 it cost with tax and shipping. The 40x objective on these is a bit hard to clean (tiny bit of recessed glass, at least on the ones I've seen) - so don't dip it in oil.

[Scarodactyl]

Meiji makes good scopes, you should have a lot of fun with it.

[fuglywug]

Ok, thanks. I probably won't even use the 100x, but if I do, I will be careful with the oil.

The Meiji stereo microscopes are well regarded, but there isn't much talk about their compound microscopes. I figured it's made in Japan and was a few grand (?) when new, so can't be that bad. I would be curious to know how Meiji compares to other popular used scopes, but I guess it's not that important.

I was also eyeing this odd BH-2 with siedentopf head, but it looks like it did hard time in a Kaiser Pathology lab.

https://www.goodwillfinds.com/home/tool ... 58152.html

I looked up the ML2000 using the wayback machine and saw it disappears from the Meiji site around the end of 2008. After that the ML2200 is the lowest model. There I can see the standard eyepiece is the KHW10X and the objectives are S. Flat on the ML2000. The 2200 was the same but with SM plan objectives.

The scopes for sale on Ebay have the lesser HFW10x eyepieces (18mm instead of 20mm), the semi planar SM Plan 4x and 10x, and the "Phase DM" 40x and 100x. I can't find any info on the phase DM objectives at all. It sounds like the phase part isn't a big deal for brightfield, but I wonder how they compare otherwise.

[fuglywug]

Looks like someone bought the Olympus, perhaps from this forum?

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[fuglywug]

Ok, I received the scope today and so far it seems pretty good. The scope is mostly very clean except for a some paint chips and some oxidation on the bottom of the objectives and the slide holder. The focus and stage controls seem smooth and light, not stiff.

The objectives are all "SM plan" semi plan objectives, so the auction photos were accurate but the description was incorrect. At first I thought the 10x had been crashed and had fractures around the edges, but on closer inspection I realized it's just some sort of goo (almost looks like caulk with missing bits). The 10x also looks like it it is spring loaded but doesn't move - not sure if it's supposed to or not.

One of the eyepieces has a reticule that is dirty on the inside, not sure how to remove it. There appears to be a threaded ring holding it in.

First impressions were pretty bad. Then I read the manual and got the condenser more or less aligned and adjusted the eyepiece diopter to match the PD and that was much better. The blue light filter also fell out from somewhere when I was messing with the condenser, and with that installed the color of the illumination was much better. When I followed the instructions for Kohler illumination I was unable to get any sort of image of the iris for alignment, but I did randomly get a fuzzy edge (not sure what I did) and that allowed me to get it reasonably well aligned. Not sure what I was doing wrong.

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[fuglywug]

Ok, got the reticle out using some machine tool calipers as an adjustable wrench.

[MichaelG.]

The Koehler adjustment instructions seem fair-enough, but step_3 is a [to me] little unusual … i would reduce the field iris at that stage, and then open it at the end of step_4

You may, or may not, find this helps.

MichaelG.

[fuglywug]

Thanks Michael, I just watched a random youtube video on kohler illumination and what they said was consistent with what you're saying. But that's not the problem. The problem is I'm an idiot and I didn't realize there is a separate substage focus control for the condenser.

What's even more ridiculous is I have a degree in molecular cell biology which required doing all sorts of microscopy (including plenty of fluorescence microscopy on organisms I had to genetically modify), although in my defense I don't use that degree for anything, and it's been many years since I did kohler illumination.

Anyway with the condenser adjusted the image is much better. I still need to clean the dusty lenses and then actually look at something that is in a single plane through the correct thickness coverslip, but I'm still waiting on kimwipes and coverslips. Once I do that I think the image should be quite good.

[fuglywug]

I tried the AO 134 10x eyepieces from my AO 569, but sadly they do not quite fit. The Meiji HWF10X are about 0.909 - 0.910 inches in diameter, while the AO's are 0.911 - 0.912, or 2 thousandths too large (too lazy to convert to metric). I did plug the HFW10X into the AO 569 and saw the field of view is about 12% less, which of course translates to about 20% less viewing area.

[fuglywug]

I pulled the objectives off and looked at them. Now I'm wondering if the 10x that I thought had "gunk" on the edge of the lens is missing lens adhesive. The 40x has a nice smooth bead of adhesive around the lens but the 10x looks like it's been improperly cleaned with the wrong solvent or maybe had the lens replaced? Can anyone comment on this? Also the same 10x lens looks like it's been disassembled by someone who didn't have the proper tools and sort of mashed the retaining ring notches.

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[Hobbyst46]

What's even more ridiculous is I have a degree in molecular cell biology which required doing all sorts of microscopy (including plenty of fluorescence microscopy on organisms I had to genetically modify), although in my defense I don't use that degree for anything, and it's been many years since I did kohler illumination.

It seems that at least some career biologists, who do use their degree, either are not familiar with basic microscopy techniques or seem to have forgotten them, because of various reasons. Confocal microscopy for example tends to take over one's mind, from principles of illumination to turning a laser on and off...