Reichert Zetopan equipment questions

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:40 am

I just purchased a Reichert Zetopan microscope. It came with

two diaphragm condenser

Objectives:
- Plan 2.5/0.08 160/-
  Plan 4/0.10 160/-
  Plan Ph A 10/0.25 160/-
  Plan Ph A 40/0.65 160/0.17
  Plan Ph A 63/0.80 160/0.17
  Plan Oil Iris Ph A 100/1.25 160/0.17
  
  All Reichert.
Oculars:
- one BPK 10x
  one Plan 8x
  
  both Reichert

It is missing a light source, missing one ocular and the lever to switch back and forth from the trinocular tube is broken. Otherwise it seems to be in good shape; the mechanical movements are all smooth, I have not found any mold and the optics are all clear and clean. I have found a local biology professor who is good with microscope and has a machine shop (and also owns a Zetopan) who is going to help me repair the trinocular lever. I found this seller of retrofitted illumination for classic microscopes. So I think I am mainly now going to be looking for parts and trying to understand the parts I do have. I have some questions

1) Many parts have a five or six digit "Nr." on it them. For example the Plan 2.5/0.08 160/- objective has "Nr. 440 739". Similarly when looking on eBay at Reichert parts many sellers list a similar number with the items and often show this number in one of the photographs. I have found an old Reichert Zetopan catalogue online but the catalogue number and these numbers printed on the parts do not correspond in any way that I can tell. Are the numbers printed Reichert components serial numbers rather than model or catalogue numbers? When buying used parts is there a good way to match the part being sold to known components from old scanned catalogues?

2) In my BPK ocular what do the B, P and K stand for? I think that K means the ocular compensate for the objectives, and the P means planar image, but if any of you can confirm these I would be grateful. What does the B mean?

3) I will be shopping for oculars, either a BPK to match the one I have or a pair of others if I cannot find a matching BPK. There are
many Reichert oculars for sale online. When an ocular is compensating do I have to know what objectives it is compensating for? For example, Reichert made other microscopes: Neozet, Biozet, Microstar, Jung, Polylite and others. How do I know that an ocular I am buying compensates for the objectives I have? Is it the case that Reichert was consistent with its compensating design so any Reichert ocular I buy will be OK?

4) I have read several articles on Kohler illumination but none of these articles have two-diaphram condensers. What are the two diaphrams on my condenser for?

5) Reichert made two different kinds of phase contrast systems: Zernike and "Anoptral". I know from the catalogue that my objectives are anoptral phase contrast. I am interested in buying a condenser to do phase contrast microscopy. In the catalogue there is only one kind of phase contrast condenser listed and it says "Phase/Anoptral phase contrast condenser". Does this mean that the condenser works with either kind of phase objective?

6) The microscope came with an incomplete illumination system which is the "US" system on page 9 of the catalogue. It has two filter slides but one filter is missing. I think I am missing the "frosted daylight filter". With the LED retrofit illumination system will I need this filter?

7) can I use the phase contrast objectives for standard brightfield microscopy?

8) on the 100x objective what is the purpose of the iris?

9) I am imagining that it may be hard to find an Reichert compensating ocular that has a reticle. If I can't find one of these, are there other ways of doing measurements through the microscope?

10) other than eBay, what are some good places to look for Reichert parts to buy?

thanks
brett

Ichthyophthirius · Post by **Ichthyophthirius** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 7:25 am

Hi Brett,

2) BPK = high eyepoint, wide field, plan, compensating; B = Brille = glasses, meaning with high eyepoint for use with glasses

3) If your objectives match the pictures in the catalogue, you should buy the eyepieces also listed and pictured in the catalogue. PK and BPK should work. The plan objectives definitely need compensating eyepieces.

4) The lower aperture serves as the field aperture in the two-diaphragm-design (when using high-magnification objectives). When you flip out the top lens, the upper aperture has to be opened fully and the lower aperture becomes the condenser aperture (no field aperture in that case) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WTm ... or&f=false

5) Seems that Ph and PhA all use the same ring diameters http://www.science-info.net/docs/reiche ... ntrast.pdf

7) Yes, although the image quality suffers a bit at higher NA (40, 63 and 100); best to try it for yourself

8) For use in darkfield, you have to reduce the objective aperture slightly. That's what the iris is for. http://www.olympusmicro.com/primer/imag ... rdioid.jpg

9) Most manufacturers had eyepieces that could be opened to allow the user to insert their own recticle. I don't know about this one. If you find out the recticle diameter, you can buy replacement recticles on Ebay.

Regards, Ichty

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 9:16 am

I have a Retrodiode LED lamp house for my Zeiss Standard. It's an easy off the shelf solution, powerful and with good service (I had it replaced well beyond warranty), but it's not perfect:
- It uses a COB LED with nine separated light points whose total size is too large to mimic well the lamp filament it replaces, so it's inadequate to do true Köhler ilumination, but with a opal glass in the illumination train it works well enough.
- With the standard dimmer it flickers when not at full power, not visually but with the camera live view and video. They sell a replacement 21kHz dimmer that doesn't flicker but is more expensive

Now I mostly use a 10W Cree XML LED T6 Neutral White 4000k that is a perfect match for Köhler and even with an expensive driver and an inexpensive power source and heat sink could end less expensive but requires DIY work

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 9:45 am

Ichthyophthirius wrote:3) If your objectives match the pictures in the catalogue, you should buy the eyepieces also listed and pictured in the catalogue. PK and BPK should work. The plan objectives definitely need compensating eyepieces.

OK, this is good to know. If I am right about the "Nr." being serial number then I guess I am doing matching by sight.

Pau wrote: Now I mostly use a 10W Cree XML LED T6 Neutral White 4000k that is a perfect match for Köhler and even with an expensive driver and an inexpensive power source and heat sink could end less expensive but requires DIY work

Electrical DIY work is something I am comfortable with. Thanks for this suggestion.

thanks for the other info too.
brett

houstontx · Post by **houstontx** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:58 am

I found this link with lots of zetopan info:

http://www.science-info.net/docs/reichert/

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Fri Sep 23, 2016 2:58 pm

houstontx wrote:I found this link with lots of zetopan info:

http://www.science-info.net/docs/reichert/

I found this too and the information has been helping me. One frustration I am having is that it seems that Reichert did not put model or catalogue numbers on their parts so I am trying to match used parts I find for sale to the catalogue by picture-matching.

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 12:16 pm

Pau wrote: Now I mostly use a 10W Cree XML LED T6 Neutral White 4000k that is a perfect match for Köhler and even with an expensive driver and an inexpensive power source and heat sink could end less expensive but requires DIY work

I went to my local electronics store and frustratingly they do not sell drivers and really could not tell me much about them. They also do not sell high wattage LEDs either. I have been reading about LEDs and drivers and I am getting my head around the requirements. I may have some questions once I know enough what to ask.

thanks
brett

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 3:27 pm

I think I will use the Cree XLamp XP-L

I think because I want to do Köhler illumination that I will use just a single LED. Is that correct?

From reading about drivers I think I need a DC driver that can go up to 3 Amps and output up to 3.4 volts. I am finding a driver with these specs very hard to find. What driver are you using?

Do you have a dimmer on your set-up or do you just use the apertures to dim?

regards
brett

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:42 pm

The only drivers I have found so far are

http://www.leddna.com/2-8a-7135-constan ... m-l2-xm-l/

and

https://www.kiwilighting.com/10w-high-p ... led-driver

Neither of these are expensive so based on Pau's post about using an expensive driver I think I have not found the right thing.

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:29 am

The components I bought and I'm very satisfied with:

- LED: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Top-10W-Cree-XL ... fresh=true . I think that it's a more modern model than the XP-L, I find 4000K more convenient than 6000K cold light to get a good and easy WB. You can find its specifications at Cree site.

- DRIVER: http://www.luxdrive.com/products/buckbl ... ed-driver/ bought at LEDsupply.com with a potentiometer 2K-POT supplied by them, it was recommended by Charles Krebs and is also the one that 75RR uses

- A generic enough powered 12V DC source

- A big aluminum passive (without fan) heat sink

- Thermal adhesive paste, it prevents the need of drilling the heat sink to fix the LED module

The only remarkable issue is regulation at low power because it's very powerful and the pot doesn't regulate it well at the beginning, so I have a 16X ND filter at the filter tray under the condenser to put it when needed, take a look at: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=31546 for some discussion.

If finally you use any of the inexpensive drivers you linked please keep we informed on how it works and how do you mount them.

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Tue Oct 04, 2016 6:32 am

Thanks for the links and information. I have posted a question about dimming on the LED driver thread. I will be buying both the ledsupply driver and one of the cheap ones and I will report back my experiences with the cheap drivers.

brettpim · Post by **brettpim** » Wed Apr 11, 2018 11:01 am

I have finished my illumination system so I thought I would post about it with pictures. I bought a Cree XLamp XP-L and the Luxdrive Buckblock. The Buckblock only goes up to 2.1A and the LED can go to 3.0A so I am probably only getting about 800 of the 1150 lumens the LED can produce. However, if anything, I am finding that at highest setting I am getting too much light for brightfield microscopy so I think the 2.1A limit is not a problem.

My colleague with the machine shop turned a metal base to attach it to. We decided that the mass of aluminum in the base is sufficient to dissipate any heat so we did not additionally attach a heat sink. So far this has not been a problem.

The filament of a standard Reichert Zetopan "Lux US" light source is 5mm forward from the center of the centre of the lamp housing. In my LED light source the base of the LED is about 3.6mm forward of the centre of the mount. I am still able to focus the LED on a sheet of paper held over the light exit aperture, but I am at the far end of my focusing range so I recommend being further away than 3.6mm.

I wired up a the LED driver in a project box with an on/off switch and a switch between a 20K linear potentiometer and 20K logarithmic potentiometer. Similar to Pau's experience I have trouble driving the LED at the low current with both potentiometers. But I do have ND filters if I have to go lower than the potentiometers allow.

The power supply is just an old AC/DC transformer from some electronic device I or my colleague used to have.

I did buy one of the cheap LED drivers that claims to be able to drive at 3A but I decided to wire up the Luxdrive Buckblock first and now that I know that more light is not what I need I may not bother with the cheaper driver.

The single LED is very similar in size to the lamp filament so this setup is good for Köhler illumination.

Here is the whole setup

My next task is setting up my camera to take photos through the phototube.
I have a thread on that and I will post there with my eventual solution.

Thank you Ichthyophthirius, Pau and houstontx for the help and feedback.

houstontx · Post by **houstontx** » Thu Apr 12, 2018 12:36 pm

I like it! I have an IK version zetopan that will need lots of light, i may have to copy this in the future. Mine has a much larger lamphouse though...