olympus vanox stage adjustment

[houstontx]

I am beginning to suspect the issue may lie with the "objective" changer button on the keypad. I have been moving the objectives and condenser magnification by hand. However there is a blue objective button with left and right arrows. Also there are three buttons on the bottom right side marked with 1-4x, 10-20, 40-100.

In one of the manuals on alan wood's site it suggests "making a point of changing the objectives with the keypad".

But when I hit the button, I hear noise, but no movement from the turret or the condenser. So either there is an internal mechanism that is adjusting magnification and it is out of sync with the actual objective, or the mechanism just isn't working. OR the buttons on the bottom side could be out of sync or not working. When those buttons are hit all I hear is a short beep, no mechanics sounds...

All other settings for the pull/turn knobs are set for brightfield, normal viewing, no magnification.

[Pau]

I must repeat my ignorance about the Vanox particularities but this doesn't make sense for me: because the microscope uses normal DIN objectives, they must be parfocal, independently if they are moved by hand or servo motor. The motors only will turn the turret (and maybe other components like condenser diaphragm)

Remove the magnification changer if doable, and any other complementary optic system between objective and eyepieces. Some time ago I had a similar issue after cleaning an intermediate Pol tube, at first I was astonished until I understood that I had mounted its lenses in opposite positions

[Charles Krebs]

Auto turret or manual turret, stage height, neither should make any difference to your problem.

You can focus the 10X, but the 20X and 40X will "hit" the slide. Your objectives are not "parfocal". To me this means either a "bad" objective, or, somehow a significant deviation from the 160mm tube length. (I assume you are doing this by viewing through the binocular eyepieces and not something attached to the trinocular port. I say this because it is not uncommon at all for trinocular ports to have been improperly set-up causing the tube lengths through that port to be far off).

I noticed something interesting. When I looked at my Olympus LB Series brochures it appears that there was a change (sometime between 1980 and 1990), See the 10X specs between the two catalogs:



The original S Plan Apo 10x had an 18.34mm focal length with a working distance of 2.03mm. But they are all 45mm parfocal, so on a properly set-up microscope it should not be any issue. Whatever version you have is not the problem. I only mention it because if you have the original version then there is an ever greater discrepancy in working distance between the 10X and 40X, and that could "mask" your actual problem a little).
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Did you try Choronzon's suggestion?

:Try focusing with a bio slide with coverslip side up

I'll go even further. Mark a blank slide with a marker pen. Don't add a coverslip. Focus on the mark with the 10X. See if it is possible to focus with the 20X or 40X.

Again, it could be very useful to know the field diameter you can see through your viewing eyepieces (use your micrometer slide), along with the designated FN marked on your eyepieces. As I mentioned earlier... if you are getting a significantly higher magnification than the objective designation, it would be a good indication that somehow, somewhere, your tube length is too far off. This would alter the focus distance and could very well be your problem.

[Pau]

Did you try Choronzon's suggestion?
Quote:
:Try focusing with a bio slide with coverslip side up

I'll go even further. Mark a blank slide with a marker pen. Don't add a coverslip. Focus on the mark with the 10X. See if it is possible to focus with the 20X or 40X.

If the slide is upside down this could fully explain the issue, I see it too often at the school lab, but I didn't even think about this possibility.

[houstontx]

just got home from work, used a slide with cover slip. Problem solved. The micrometer slide was indeed upside down the entire time. You're right Pau, total rookie mistake! Honestly all the bells and whistles on this scope and I just thought there had to be some little setting I was overlooking.

Big thanks all and especially to choronzon whose advice I should have taken sooner!

Really excited to start using the polarized sliders with this, and eventually adding DIC one day...I think I need to pass microscopy 101 before that happens though...

[Gary W Brown]

The objectives on the microscope in the photo are from the later model -2 series. The Vanox AH used the shorter barrel 36mm objectives while the next generation used the longer 45mm barrel objectives. There is not enough adjustment room to accommodate the longer barrel objectives.

Gary