Re: Moving from Used to New...


GTO wrote:
I am not too happy about this thread because it's moving into the completely
wrong direction. Here is why.

Without specifying which of your interests make working with an LM most
enjoyable for you and without telling us about your experience and
equipment, your post will not enable us to help you.

What is it you'd like to know beyond what I've already said? I'll
expand what I've said in case it'll help with my original question.

First, I'm just an amateur. My main interests are examining live
protists and bacteria found in pond water and other sources. I also
enjoy making permanent mounts of insects and insect parts. I primarily
use brightfield, darkfield, and phase contrast techniques.

I have a Zeiss Universal of late '60s vintage. I bought the stripped
stand at a university surplus sale. It was in fairly poor condition and
required a lot of work to get it back in shape (repainting, replacement
of two stripped gears, removal and replacement of congealed lubricant,
and filling many dings with Bondo). I built the rest of the scope up by
bidding on parts on eBay. This was a real pain in the *** because half
of what I got was either misrepresented or defective (such as "like
new" objectives with obvious signs of delamination) and had to go back
to the seller for a refund. It took me almost a year of searching to
find everything I needed to make a working scope.

In the four years that I've been using it, I've had to replace an
objective that started to show signs of delamination, realign the
binocular head (which keeps going out of alignment), and do other
piddly maintenance that I'd prefer not to have to do. It's similar to
owning a '57 Chevy--you have maintenance tasks you just don't have to
worry about with modern cars.

Since I like the overall look and feel of the Universal, I thought I'd
take a look at better examples offered by dealers that had been
refurbished and offered with a warranty. I asked a dealer for a quote
on a Universal in excellent mechanical, optical, and cosmetic condition
with phase objectives and condensers. The quote I got back was $14,000.
Yes, you read that right--$14,000 for a used microscope nearly 40 years
old.

So the bottom line is not that I'm opposed to buying or using used
equipment, it's just that I'd rather not take the "erector set"
approach by buying parts on eBay and building a scope, and the price
quotes I've gotten from dealers in used equipment go beyond the
ridiculous to the insane.

I realize that modern microscopes may not be built to the standards of
mechanical robustness and precision of the scopes of yesterday, but
with modern materials and computer aided design, they should work at
least as well and will have factory support. Plus there's that
satisfaction similar to owning a new car after having driven used
junkers for years.

Did I leave anything out? What else can I tell you that'll help you to
help me?

.