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Hi Claire et al,
On a previous Biorad inverted system, I had a process where all objectives were removed from the microscope immediately after use and stored in the "upright" position in their own containers, awaiting cleaning and inspection. Even then, one of our Nikon oil lenses was sent back to Japan for repair. I suppose, that wasn't not bad for almost 16 years of imaging.
Now that I have a microscope where all objectives stay on the microscope, one oil objective has been replaced and another sent for repair in just 3 years. I think it is time to go back to removing all objectives after use. It's a painful process but does save damage and dollars.
Another partial solution I am considering is to buy an upright confocal configuration just for fixed, stained slides. That would keep a large percentage of our users happy and might likely reduced objective damage from both oil and motorised stages.
Cheers
Paul Rigby
Assoc. Prof. Paul Rigby
Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis (M510)
The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6007
Australia
-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Claire Brown, Dr.
Sent: Tuesday, 28 May 2013 7:38 AM
To:
[hidden email]
Subject: Oil inside lenses.
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We are relatively routinely seeing oil inside of our Zeiss 63x oil immersion lenses. You end up with a bead of oil inside that acts as a lens itself and the lens is unusable.
As far as we can tell, it usually happens after prolonged use over many years. We are at a point now where our lenses are "old" and Zeiss cannot repair them because the parts are no longer available. It costs us $6-8,000 to replace them. With 13 microscopes we have one lens failing every 6-12 months or so. I can't afford to keep replacing these lenses and with this becoming a "routine" occurrence I want to seek out advice about why this might be happening. Our users are well trained and I don't think it is neglect by them. I think this is due to routine use.
I have two questions:
1) "Is there a defect in how these lenses are made?"
For example, perhaps the seals on the front lenses degrade over time - we inspect our lenses regularly and many that have had oil inside have no obvious damage by visual inspection. Maybe they need to be resealed every year or two, maybe an internal seal degrades over time? Preventative maintenance of these lenses or a change in how they are manufactured would certainly cost less than $8,000 I would think.
2) "Do people have a similar problem with oil immersion lenses from the other major manufacturers?"
I look forward to some input here.
Sincerely,
Claire
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