The newer LUDL stages and Z drives are
great. The small footprint of the Mac5000 is nice too. The difference between
Zeiss and LUDL is that during acquisition of Z stacks we have to time the acquisition
to adjust for settlement of LUDL Z motor after it moves a step in Z. If we don’t
account for the adjustment we see jumping when we play back the Z-stack. We do
not have this problem with the Axiovert 200m’s z-drive, and I suspect you
will not see it on the motorized Axioimager stands either.
We bought all the LUDL parts (Mac 5000,
focus encoder, joystick, scanning stage, z-motor and filter wheels) as part of
a package from a software vender (MBF Bioscience, makers of SteroInvestigator
and Neurolucida) and then put it all together on the Axioimager A1. We are very
happy with it. There was no real cost benefit between all Zeiss + Marzhauser
scanning stage and MCU 28 controller and the LUDL setup. The big difference is
that the Axiovision software has more refined control over the hardware and
does just about everything we need, imaging wise. MBF bioscience makes a very
specific package and its software control is focused on stereology, which we
feel they excel at. For us, we had the A1 stand already, and wanted to run StereoInvestigator
and Neurolucida on it.
Maintenance wise: if the LUDL Z motor
fails, the A1 scope is still operational with manual z-control and there is easy
access to the motor and controller boards without disturbing the scope setup.
If the Z-motor fails in the Zeiss stand I believe the scope will be down until you,
or a service engineer can break down the scope to get to its internal boards. If
you ensure clean electrical current to the stand through at least a line
conditioner, and avoid soaking the system in water or culture media, the
Z-motor in the Zeiss stands should last a long time.
As for cameras, on the A1, we are using an
Olympus Microfire color CCD camera with the IR blocking filter in the emission
filter wheel so we could image Cy5, on our Axiovert 200M we have an AxioCam HRc
for our histology folks, and the Roper Cascade 512B for fluorescence
imaging.
We purchased the Roper Cascade 512B EMCCD first,
3 years ago, and then built a system around it; we tried software control from
a couple different venders, but found the Axiovision software to be the best
match for what we wanted out of the system. We have no driver issues with the Axiovision
software and the Roper camera any more, except that the method used for flat
field/shading correction is awkward compared to using the Zeiss camera. We have
close to 130 active users, mainly a mixed batch of biologists and engineers on
the system, the majority use the EMCCD with no complaints. We have 40 users on
the A1.
Cheers,
Jonathan M. Ekman
Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for
Advanced Science and Technology
Tel: 217-244-6292
Fax: 217-244-6219
From:
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
5:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Thoughts on
Axioimager line of Microscopes/ Imaging system
Hi John, I have always had a high opinion
of LUDL products. Can you give an idea of how much this A1 LUDL set up cost
you? Is it more cost effective to get the motorized components from Zeiss or
LUDL?
Is your camera the Photometrics QuantEM?
How are you liking the EM camera (other than the problems with Axiovision
driver compatability)?
Cheers,
Brian D Armstrong PhD
Light Microscopy Core Manager
Beckman Research Institute
City of
626-359-8111 x62872
From:
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
1:40 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Axioimager
line of Microscopes/ Imaging system
I recently built an A1 using Ludl XY stage
and Z motor, all controlled through Ludl MAC 5000 controler. We use the system
for stereology. If you don’t get the upgrade, the A1 is still a very
flexible stand. Because we cover a lot of disciplines here, our A1 was built to
be capable of tiling, z-stacking, time series, transmitted light imaging,
polarized light imaging, fluorescence imaging (Ludle 10 port filter wheels) and
reflected light imaging. If you go with the motorized versions and add the
Axiovision software for control along with Zeiss cameras I think you will be
quite happy.
We have an inverted Axiovert 200M that can
do limited live cell work; it also does everything the A1 does, except it only
has five fluorescent channels (no filter wheels) and uses Axiovision software.
The key to success with the Axiovision software is to buy the Zeiss cameras
also. We have a Roper EMCCD and a Zeiss Axiocam and there are features like
shading correction that are locked out of the multidimensional acquisition
setup in for the Roper camera making it harder to work with than the Zeiss
camera. You can still do shading correction it just takes more steps.
Both A1 and the Axiovert 200M are used
quite heavily and require little maintenance. When a part does break it can be
exchanged at a significantly reduced cost through a parts exchange program.
Cheers,
Jonathan M. Ekman
Imaging Technology Group
Beckman Institute for
Advanced Science and
Tel: 217-244-6292
Fax: 217-244-6219
From:
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
12:08 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Thoughts on Axioimager
line of Microscopes/ Imaging system
Search the CONFOCAL archive at
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
Hello All,
I would appreciate hearing thoughts on Zeiss' line of Axioimager imaging
systems. I've just found out that an A1 (most basic, for documentation) is
going into our tiny (2 scope) facility. However, I am thinking of asking for an
upgrade to the M1, motorized and apparently suitable for live cell imaging, 3D
deconvolution microscopy, FRET even. Is anyone out there using their
Axiovision's for live cell imaging, FRET, 3D acquisition and deconvolution?
Any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Farid
--
Farid Jalali MSc
Senior Research Technician/ Lab Manager
Dr. Robert Bristow Lab
Applied Molecular Oncology
416-946-4501 X4351 (
416-581-7754 STTARR at
416-581-7791 STTARR Microscopy Suite
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