American Optical 11m

[jorymil]

I picked up what I thought was an American Optical Series 10 microscope for parts a few weeks ago. When I got it, it turned out to be slightly different: a Series 11M with a fixed-height stage: very similar to the various student models. As far as I can tell, _exactly_ the same stage.

The difference between the Series 10 and the 11m seems to be in the stage/mounting block. Normal series 10 stages mount on a dovetail, which is screwed to the microscope base; 11m scopes replace the dovetail with an aluminum block that has an identical hole pattern, then bolt the stage directly to the block. Swapping a 10 dovetail for an 11m block allows you to use 50/60/150/160 stages on an otherwise "10" scope.

Here's a link to the catalog in question from Steve Neeley's site:
https://user.xmission.com/~psneeley/Per ... atalog.pdf

Anyone else do this?

[apochronaut]

I can't see why one would? The 11 is a basic student grade microscope, kind of s cheaper afterthought based on the series 10. Changing an 11 to a 10 might make some sense but after acquiring the necessary components with which to get it to a 10's specifications, a pretty big cash outlay plus a lot of work and adjustment would be required. There are a lot of really inexpensive used 10s around anyway, although I see that quite a few have the achromats fitted, rather than the plan series.

[jorymil]

Agreed. It's a pretty niche thing: I certainly would not have sought out an 11 on my own, but having the pieces allows me to put a 60 microglide stage or a 50 phase contrast stage on an otherwise stock 10. As you say, 10s are cheap; you wouldn't try to upgrade an 11, but you would strip it down to perhaps make an existing 10 a little more versatile.

I'll post a pic or two to show what I'm on about; sounds like this is definitely not a frequent mod

Appreciate the response!

[apochronaut]

I can see that it might be a way of converting a 10 to phase, if the phase components from a 50 became available. Until recently, 34mm parfocal AO phase parts have been fairly easy to acquire but when condensers now show up they are priced too high.

A couple of other conversions that make or might make sense.
1) this one I have not done but would play with if I had the time. Put the top plate from a derelict #1240 phase condenser body on a series 4 phase condenser body in order to utilize the series 4 condenser diaphragms. This would allow the use of multiple possible condensers that fit the 1" female thread of the 1240 : at least 8 of them, an abbe aspheric, dry achromats with 5 focal lengths and two high N.A. oil achromats. Other short bodied phase objectives , Baker, Lomo etc. might then work for phase on a series 4 . Of particular note are the higher end Lomo water immersion phase objectives that with the standard series 4 phase condenser , don't work.
2) Lowering the stage about 10mm on the dovetail allows for the use of the 45mm parfocal advanced plan achromats and plan fluorites from the series 400 microscopes. You could also use the Reichert Austria objectives. The entire conversion would require the use of different eyepieces and if you planned on more than 4 objectives in the nosepiece a series 110 5 place nosepiece too. The space under the stage gets tight. Could be done on a 20 too. If you were lucky in finding objectives you could convert one to planapos, something possible at 10X and 40X only with 34mm objectives.