Re: Recommendations for commercial multi-photon system purchase
Posted by
George McNamara on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Re-Recommendations-for-commercial-multi-photon-system-purchase-tp3499069p3593706.html
Hi Bogdan,
In addition to the purchase price, you should obtain from the vendors the
annual service contract(s) to calculate the total cost of ownership.
Comparably equipped microscopes may have a factor of 2 difference in
annual price, from different vendors. If your grant and project ends in
two years, you may not care, but if you want to use the instrument as a
confocal microscope in say year 7, 2x price difference in service
contract is a big different in TCO.
The multiphoton laser service contract may be an additional cost direct
from the company (ex. $15K/year for Coherent Chameleon II).
Leica offers an NDD4 module, though it is not attached to the microscope
(I forget whether it is a liquid light guide or fiber optic). Our Leica
NDD4 has blue, cyan, green and red filters, and additional filters are
pricey compared to conventional microscope filter sets. Talk with Owen
Schwartz about the Leica NDD4 implementation - he is the instigator for
it.
Sincerely,
George
p.s. The New Zeiss LSM710NLO NDD# option is attached to the microscope.
At 12:11 PM 8/23/2009, you wrote:
Hi fellows,
I am also in the last stages of choosing a confocal/multiphoton system
for
our laboratory. After seeing multiple demos i am thorn between an
Olympus
FV1000MPE system and an Leica SP5 II. Our needs are to be able to do
both
confocal images on fixed and live in vitro cells and live in vivo
rodent
brain imaging. Both systems come with a UV, visible Argon four lines
(488
etc), laser diode 560 and 633 and IR laser (Chameleon for Leica and
Maitai
for Olympus), a complete set of Apo objectives as well as the famous 25x
NA
1.05 from Olympus and the "equivalent" 20x from Leica. The
microscopes are
inverted and the system also includes 2 NDD for Leica and 4 NDD in the
case
for Olympus.
Fro what I could see the Leica software appeared more user friendly and
I
would give their system a better feel for confocal imaging and
manufacturers
potential upgrades- the system I am pricing does not include the
AOBS
feature, "white laser" or resonant scanner but those could be
added later.
On the other hand the Olympus seems a better choice for multiphoton
imaging
and an easier system to tinker with. The tech support and managers for
both
companies seemed outstanding to me here in the Washington DC-Baltimore
area.
I found interesting that I was not able to find any info on "how
much" such
a system should cost and after intense "negotiations" the
quites range on my
case around the ~700k mark with Olympus a little bellow and Leica a
little
above.
I was wondering if people who recently had to make a similar decision
can
offer me some guidance both on the merits of their systems once they
were
installed as well as on the price, support etc.
Thank you very much,
Bogdan
George McNamara, Ph.D.
Image Core Manager
Analytical Imaging Core Facility
University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine
Miami, FL 33010
[hidden email]
[hidden email]
305-243-8436 office
http://www.sylvester.org/AICF (Analytical Imaging Core Facility)
http://www.sylvester.org/AICF/pubspectra.zip (the entire 2000+
spectra .xlsx file is in the zip file)
http://home.earthlink.net/~geomcnamara