Dust Covers

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SutherlandDesmids
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Dust Covers

Post by SutherlandDesmids »

Does anyone know of a source of dust-covers made to size for a microscope?

I'll have no difficulty with my new Optiphot at present but I intend to add an Optizoom (Nikon Optovar) and a drawing-tube in the next few months and I've never seen a cover meant to include a drawing tube. A camera apparatus could be, I think, probably removed and stored in a box when the microscope is covered up.

This is obviously a Zeiss Axioscope, but it gives a good idea of the considerable additional width added by the tube. Given the fact that the lenses can be capped, it's not so much a concern about dust getting at the tube as a normal cover 'riding up' over the tube.

Image

Obviously I can't give you measurements until I have both. I would have asked a friend of mine who is good with a sewing-machine but unfortunately she has developed cancer and it seems hardly fair to trouble her.
Patrick J.K.C. Gray

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Just tape together some plastic garbage bags.

grgh
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Post by grgh »

Just remember all your trying to do is keep dust off your equipment.
Plastic suit covers cut down, make ideal covers, keep out of sunlight though.

One of my Zeiss scopes has a photo tube left in place with a pillow case on the scope and then a suit holder on top of that.

Cover up time less than 30 seconds.
used to do astronomy.
and photography.
Zeiss Universal Phase contrast.
Zeiss PMII
B&L stereo zoom.

Pau
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Post by Pau »

I have this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Zeiss-microsco ... :rk:6:pf:0
Its big and very nice, it covers my Zeiss WL with the camera and fluorescence illuminator attached ...and when covered it looks like a new microscope :smt043
Of course garbage bags are less expensive although don't look so nice and some of them have more static electricity issues
Pau

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

Lou Jost wrote:Just tape together some plastic garbage bags.
Plastic bags work, as far as keeping dust out. However, they also get electrostatically charged quite easily, and then attract dust like a magnet attracts iron filings. The next time you put the dusty dust cover on the scope, the static charge gradually dissipates, and some of the dust from the interior of the cover then transfers to the scope. Never turning a dust cover inside out helps somewhat.

I have had much lesser problems with static electricity by using cloth (even synthetic cloth like nylon/polyester). I especially like thin rip-stop rayon sail cloth. You can buy it in any color you wish ("Zeiss" deep blue is my favorite for this use) by the meter/yard and if desired you can have it machine-sewn into a cover, or just around the edges to stop threads from getting loose. The threads of this cloth are very fine and tightly woven, and virtually no dust passes through.

Even an unsewn cloth sheet works fine as a microscope dust cover, as long as the size is sufficient to abundantly cover the scope down to its base and the immediately surrounding table area. If fraying at the unsewn edges becomes a problem, sewing shops sell a kind of scissors with zig-zag cutting edges to trim the margins of the cloth and lessen (although not completely stop) the problem with fraying.

Shaking the cloth out of a window or terrace once in a while gets rid of most of the accumulated dust. Rinsing or machine-washing is possible, although rarely necessary except if the cloth is exposed to unusually high concentrations of fatty or corrosive contaminants (e.g. cooking vapors or an open fireplace). An antistatic spray may further help to keep dust away, although some of these sprays may actually generate dust on their own.
--ES

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Enrico, doesn't cloth shed fiber fragments? Maybe thick aluminum foil or those aluminum survival blankets would be a good choice of material.

enricosavazzi
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Post by enricosavazzi »

Lou Jost wrote:Enrico, doesn't cloth shed fiber fragments? Maybe thick aluminum foil or those aluminum survival blankets would be a good choice of material.
Not much shedding from the rayon cloth I am using. Synthetic fibers are in principle a continuously spun length, so the opportunity for shedding is only when the fibers become broken, e.g. by wear or repeated folding/unfolding. Compared to the amount of dust collected by a statically charged plastic bag, the cloth wins hands down.

I am not sure why woven plastic cloth seems to collect much less static charge than plastic sheet. It must have something to do with the presence of fibers rather than the nature of the material in itself. Possibly the static charge tends to distribute evenly on surfaces, and surface area in a woven cloth (at a microscopic scale) is much higher than on a plastic sheet.
--ES

Olympusman
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Dust covers

Post by Olympusman »

I have been restroing an inverted metallurgical microscope and one day in my workshop I made an amazing discovery.
Those "tote bags" you seem to get when you subscribe to anything are great dust covers. Cut off the handles and turn them inside so that you don't have to live with the logo.

Mike
Michael Reese Much FRMS EMS Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

SutherlandDesmids
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Post by SutherlandDesmids »

My sincerest thanks. All most helpful.
Patrick J.K.C. Gray

Alan Wood
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Post by Alan Wood »

When I wanted a dust cover for my Olympus CK2 inverted microscope, I could not find a suitable standard one.

Most of the made-to measure ones were made of poor quality material.

I am in the UK, but I ended up ordering one from CompuCover in the USA:
http://www.compucover.com/

I am very happy with it, strong material and well made.

Alan Wood

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Enrico mentioned above that plastic dust covers attracted dust. While this might seem like a negative, it might instead be a desirable feature of dust covers. It may be that a dust cover which attracts dust doesn't shed dust when you lift it off the microscope. A normal cover might shed dust onto the scope when removed, defeating its purpose.

iconoclastica
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Post by iconoclastica »

I have an epi-illuminator in that position, that sticks out in a similar fashion as the drawing tube. When I am done for the day and about to cover up the microscope, I loosen the screws somewhat so the illuminator can be turned. Then I align the tube with the stand. Sometimes when I feel like it I turn the head too so the eye-pieces face away. The dust cover (aw right, dustbin liner) then fits easily.
--- felix filicis ---

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