AW: CMOS inquiry for camera gurus

Posted by Gerhard Holst on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/CMOS-inquiry-for-camera-gurus-tp7589055p7589069.html

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Dear Michael,

although not being mentioned (PCO is missing in your enumeration), my feeling is that you are not happy with the possibility that a camera after having passed the warranty time might fail. I think, and I can speak only for PCO cameras, but I assume it is true for the other manufacturers as well, that we all do our best in offering good technical systems. If you want to have absolute tight sealings, the solution might be vacuum seals, or with other words more technical efforts, which will increase the cost of the camera as well. But I am sure you know that.
Further, camera systems might be applied in a way, which has not been foreseen by the manufacturer, we had some experiecens with our cooled CCD cameras in the past, that brought us to change and improve the construction. So, I don't think that manufacturers in the scientific market tend to pass on the cost for minor quality to the customer.

And about goodwill and fair dealing, every customer has to make their own experiences with the companies they buy from.

with best regards,

Gerhard


Dr. Gerhard Holst
Head of Science & Research
[phone]

PCO AG, Donaupark 11, 93309 Kelheim, Germany, www.pco.de
Vorstand / Managing Board: Dr. Emil Ott (Chairman), Alexander Grünig, Luitpold Kaspar
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats / Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Johann Plöb
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Sitz der Gesellschaft / Registered Office: Kelheim

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] Im Auftrag von Cammer, Michael
Gesendet: Freitag, 18. Januar 2019 16:24
An: [hidden email]
Betreff: Re: CMOS inquiry for camera gurus

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Thank you for this discussion.  A colleague is in the market for a new camera.  The contenders are Hamamatsu, Photometrics, and Andor.  Info such as this, how a company covers what are most likely manufacturing defects or passes the cost on  to the buyer, are very useful in making a purchasing decision.  Anyone have any similar experiences with Photometrics?
Thank you.

Michael Cammer, Sr Research Scientist, DART Microscopy Laboratory
NYU Langone Health, 540 First Avenue, SK2 Microscopy Suite, New York, NY  10016
C: 914-309-3270  [hidden email]  http://nyulmc.org/micros  http://microscopynotes.com/ 





-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of S Ram
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2019 1:45 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: CMOS inquiry for camera gurus

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Hi Josh,
The $1000 service charge is more or less like a flat fee. In my past life as a postdoc, we had a similar problem in our group where we had 2 Andor EMCCD cameras that lost its vacuum just past the 5 year warranty period and we ended up paying about $2k to fix each camera. We were also charged a
$1000 initial assessment fee which was credited towards the cost of fixing the vacuum seal when we decided to repair the camera (it was cheaper to fix an EMCCD camera than to buy two new ones).

On a related note, I recently (early 2018) had a similar condensation problem with an ORCA Flash 4 LTE . In my case, the camera was 3 years old and I did not have any extended warranty. Moreover it was not a direct purchase from Hamamatsu (it was bought through Zeiss as part of a microscope purchase). Hamamatsu said that they have lifetime warranty on their seal and I got a brand new replacement free of charge. I only had to pay shipping for the old camera, There was no mention about backfill (not sure if it applies to the ORCA Flash).

Hope this helps.

Sripad





On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 11:36 PM Joshua Vaughan <[hidden email]> wrote:

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> *****
>
> Dear camera gurus,
>
> our Andor Zyla 5.5 sCMOS camera shows condensation on the chip when we
> cool it. Andor told us this might be caused by a backfill issue and it
> costs ~$1,000 to take a look, possible 4-6weeks turnaround and
> probably more money to fix the problem.  I have a couple questions and
> I am also looking for a little advice.
>
> 1. I remember hearing a little bit about cameras holding vacuum, but
> not about this backfill problem. Anyway, what is backfill and how does
> it go wrong? Is it some kind of an inert, dry gas around the sensor
> that may now have some moist air in it? How is it possible to get a
> backfill problem without the seal on the vacuum also breaking?
> Interestingly, I believe I saw online that the (pre-2016) Andor
> warranty is 5years on the vacuum and 3years on the backfill.
>
> 2. If we have to spend ~$1k to have Andor take a look and then,
> assuming it is repairable pay more money (not sure how much, but I'd
> guess at least $1-2k), I wonder whether we might be better off just getting something new.
> Most recently, we had been using the Zyla on a spinning disc, though
> it might have been overkill there. Does anybody have suggestions for
> an alternative, such as a good and affordable CMOS camera? We're
> looking for something with >1MP, >50Hz, QE>65%, some cooling to help
> keep the read noise low, a fire signal for synchronization, and
> compatibility with Micromanager.
>
> Related to 2, here is a little info on the sort of thing we are
> interested in. We recently purchased a ZWO CMOS camera for ~ $900 and
> it has been very nice on our benchtop LED/epi scope (ZWO ASI 174
> Cooled). It gives surprisingly good performance for the price. The
> specs state 2.4MP, 5.9um pixels, cooled to 40C below ambient, peak QE
> of 79%, up to 128FPS, works fine with Micromanager, but *lacks* a fire
> signal and we think only has a buffer of one frame. So it is very
> close to what we want, but we need really need a fire signal for
> synchronization on our spinning disc and we think a bigger buffer would probably also be important.
>
>
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__optcorp.com_produ
> cts_zwo-2Dasi-2D174-2Dcooled-2Dmonochrome-2Dcmos-2Dtelescope-2Dcamera&
> d=DwIBaQ&c=j5oPpO0eBH1iio48DtsedeElZfc04rx3ExJHeIIZuCs&r=hUBj2D5n6oKTh
> x2L01qn8IORZb5f-ruLVXPmQ1zQNnM&m=OmIj-rxBNlGyOuXHGJbzXVkgKu2hgeuHw9xdD
> -_TXhg&s=BeLhzbcCPEEmO1zYg_e2Zngd6YgkUwd8Jl8nawGYcpc&e=
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Best regards,
> Josh
>
> --
> Joshua C. Vaughan
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Chemistry
> Box 351700
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
> 206-543-4644
>

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