Posted by
Deanne Veronica Catmull on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/FW-LSM-510-META-computer-upgrade-tp7584062.html
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Good afternoon List servers!
We have a Zeiss LSM 510 META confocal microscope at our facility In Melbourne, Australia. It recently underwent a computer upgrade to the newer Windows 7 platform with ZEN 2009 software. Before the upgrade (and partially the reason for the upgrade) was that the computer was 10 years old and getting slow. The microscope was sometimes struggling to communicate efficiently with the microscope and we were experiencing a number of software related issues which were making our experiments longer and more troublesome. Sometimes we needed to re-boot the whole system several times just to complete an experiment.
The upgrade occurred three months ago now and the system has never worked efficiently since.
Firstly two printed circuit boards failed which are involved in communication between the computer and the microscope (this is believable given our previous issues). But since then we have found out a few things:
1. The computer that was sent out was configured in the entirely wrong way for our instrument and had to be re-configured to be compatible.
2. The computer was meant to be supplied with 24 GB RAM but it only has 16 GB. This is still in the process of being rectified.
3. The printed circuit boards, and AOTF cable had to be replaced twice (the first replacement was deemed faulty)
4. The PMT to Ch3 no longer works despite it working perfectly before the upgrade
5. The system works when initially started up, then after several hours I was finding that even our test slide could no longer generate a good image in confocal mode despite being able to get a prefect image at the start and the following morning with the same test slide. Is this a laser or power supply issue?
Has anyone else experienced endless issues after an upgrade like this? Any suggestions what may be wrong with our microscope?
Zeiss used to be exceptional with their servicing but have found their service with this upgrade slow and inefficient. There seems to be constant problems with their communication with the German head office and their Quality Control with parts and international pricing. Has anyone else experienced this? We are trying to gather notes to compile when revising the accumulating service costs to the machine.
Many thanks in advance,
Deanne.
Deanne Catmull | Research Assistant and HSR
Melbourne Dental School | Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
Level 6, 720 Swanston St
The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia
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