Olympus VANOX Ebay purchase - Some unkown parts?

Inseewincesee · Post by **Inseewincesee** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 12:39 am

As some of you might know [Chris.S, Alan Wood & Charles Krebs who I contacted for advice prior to purchase ] I bought a Olympus Vanox microscope off Ebay last week.

The original listing showed the microscope, plus some other photos of labeled boxes marked Polarizing attachment, Darkfield attachment, Met/Nomarski and Phase contrast, there were also photos of several nose pieces with several objectives attached, the posting was very non descriptive.

Both Alan and Charles warned of possible pitfalls with this purchase, namely condition of the focusing, but said if it was in good condition, it was well worth the 'Buy it Now' price of Aus $2000, especially considering the possibility of a nice haul of objectives , both suggested that I should ask the seller if I could see it in person prior to committing.
Alan noticed something I didn't which was that the seller had zero feedback, that was a worry at first, but somewhat became a blessing in the end.

I contacted the seller asking a question about the gear, he responded and also sent 4 more photos of a cupboard they had found with more equipment in it, with 'You can have all this as well' ...

I contacted him again asking why zero feedback and could I come and see the Vanox.
He replied sure, here's my phone number, I'm selling it on behalf of my company, the microscope is located at the old Sydney oil refinery which we are demolishing.

That explained everything and now it had known providence.
Chris.S, with whom I was in constant contact with while all this was found out said I'd be mad not to purchase at the buy it now price, as I had a lot of info on the sale that the other watchers didn't know, and if they did they would grab it.

So that's what I did.

And here are the results of that purchase.

This is the haul of gear that I know is for the Vanox.

Here's the beast itself, all nice and clean, fitted with a nose piece with Plan Achromats , Achromatic /aplanatic condenser and square stage.
I found a sticker on the rear while cleaning saying it was last professionally serviced 8 years ago.

Here's a more detailed shot of the haul, two Halogen lamp units, one for transmitted light, the other for reflected light, the 'As New' condition full set of Nomarski prisms and M Plan objectives with manual, Nic/Phase contrast condenser with manual, the original tungsten lamp unit at the rear [got 12 spare bulbs for that, 4 spare for the Halogen lamps ]

Detailed shot on the right, Vertical illuminator fitted with nose piece with polarizing objectives, fitted onto Polarising intermediate tube with analyzer and bertrand lens, berek compensators sitting on the Polarizing manual, round turntable stage, two round containers with various eyepieces.
The lone objective at the bottom was one I had just found at the back of a draw full of filters etc, it's brand new in it's tube case with 'Wrong Order' written on the tube, it's a Darkfield HI 100 1.30

Sad that this camera gear is basically obsolete, if only a digital sensor could be retrofitted to the 35mm camera..... I have the original sales receipt for all this gear, the camera equipment cost nearly half that of the Vanox at the time , oh well.

The unknown accessories.
The Darkfield and Polarizing attachments are for a different Olympus microscope, I suspect the boxed phase contrast condenser is for the same model, although I have seen this condenser for sale on Ebay in the last few days with a modded Vanox mount.
What microscope these attachments are for is what I'm trying to find out, anybody know.
The Leitz Wetzlar condenser on the left is marked 6.5, again no idea what microscope it's for, the one on right I have since found is broken, so don't worry about it.

As for the objectives, well a bit of a disappointment really, nothing special.
I posted this elsewhere, but I'll copy it to here to keep everything in the one post.

Phase contrast 4 in box, small old style with PC condenser for different microscope.
Hi-PL100 1.30, PL-40 0.65-0.17,PL-20 0.40-0.17,PL-10 0.25.

Mounted on turret 3 more PC newer style objectives.
Plan PL 10/0.25, Plan 40/0.65, HI Plan PL 100/1.25.

5 Metallurgical Achromats on turret
M Plan 5 , M Plan 10 , M Plan 20, M Plan 40, M Plan 100

4 Achromats picture mounted on Vanox
Plan 4 /0.10, Plan 10/0.25, Plan 20/0.40, Plan 40/0.

4 objectives for polarizing mounted on turret.
A 10 PO 0.25, A 40 PO 0.65, HI Plan 100/1.25 and a Dispersion Staining objective X10 McCrone Associates 10.1/0.30

The 5 M Plans in the box mounted on the Nomarski prisms.
M5, M10, M20, M40, M 100

I also picked up around 500 boxed unused slides, same in different thicknesses of cover slips, cartons of lens cleaning paper, a wooden box with about 20 various coloured , ND and diffusion filters.
Several different boxed Graticules for eyepieces that have never been opened.

I nearly forgot.
I also picked up a Cahn 25 Electronic Autobalance that the seller said I could have.
Looking for stuff about it, all I could find was a used one for sale in the US.
http://www.surplusserver.com/products/L ... lance.html

It was a bit of a risk buying this without knowing what this sale included, as the seller couldn't tell me, as he had no idea what was what.

Seems I did OK.

Peter M. Macdonald · Post by **Peter M. Macdonald** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 3:51 am

I cannot help you with the Olympus equipment but the Leitz items are Ultropak objectives. These are used for episcopic viewing of solid objects. They have an annular opening through which a cone of light is projected around the lens and is focussed onto the specimen.

I search on Google for Leitz and Ultropak will quickly get you to PDFs of the instructions.

Looks like you got a bargain with the main part of the deal.

Peter

Inseewincesee · Post by **Inseewincesee** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 4:18 am

Thanks for that information.
I wouldn't have known where to start looking, it looked more like a Olympus condenser than a lens.

One down three to go.

Pau · Post by **Pau** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 9:14 am

Great lot!
I can see
- DIC (NIC) complete setup for reflected light as I previously supossed
- DIC equipment or transmitted light (the condenser and microscope nosepiece in the second picture
- 3 compensators
- probable darkfield condenser (upper right box at photo last picture)
- complete phase contrast equipment
....so many other useful parts

If you don't know about anyone other parts post a closer picture and ask for it

Again congratulations...you'll need quite some time to fully put all that in good use

Eddie · Post by **Eddie** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 10:24 am

Very nice haul!
In the last picture, lower right, the box with the two round items appear to be polarizing units utilizing Nicol prisms. The smaller one goes on top of the eyepiece and the larger piece goes under the condenser. One or both can be rotated to get crossed polars.

Alan Wood · Post by **Alan Wood** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 2:24 pm

I think 3 of the 4 phase objectives that are in the wooden box with the non-Vanox phase condenser will work with the NIC/phase contrast condenser (it does not have a 20x ring).

Looks like a phase centering telescope in the box. You can use that to see if the rings in the phase objectives line up with the ones in the condenser. The focus on the telescope could be jammed from solidified grease, if it is then I can tell you how to fix it.

Alan Wood

Inseewincesee · Post by **Inseewincesee** » Wed Nov 05, 2014 3:46 pm

I agree, sorry, it's hard to make out exactly what's there from the photos.

I had placed everything on the table and was going to use natural light coming in through the window, but by the time I had organized everything the sun had started setting, so I ended up have to use the flash.
Plus having to downsize what were 36mp images to 300k for the forum didn't do the shots any favors.

I'll retake some shots of the Polarizing and Darkfield attachments for better identification.

I've got the Vanox system catalouge in front of me.
PDF of same available from Alan Woods site.
http://www.alanwood.net/downloads/olymp ... ochure.pdf

On the first page it shows a photograph with all the Vanox components grouped together in their respective types, neither of my attachments can be seen in this photo.

On the next page it shows a schematic of the basic parts [drawings], showing which parts can be used with which other parts.
Here you can see a drawing of a polarizing attachment, but it shows more handles than my unit has, for rotating what I imagine are polarizing filters, and there's certainly no mention of a polarizing eyepiece anywhere.
On pages 19 and 20 is a detailed description of the polarizing attachments, again no sign of what I've got.
I had at one point thought that my attachment might of been designed to sit atop the Achromatic / aplanatic condenser, but it doesn't, besides why have a iris sit atop a condenser that itself has a iris.

There are two drawings in the schematic mentioning Darkfield, a Darkfield condenser which looks nothing like mine, and a immersion Darkfield condenser, which looks sort of similar but with a Vanox condenser mounting plate, which mine doesn't have.
On page 26 is the only other mention of Darkfield, and that's for use with the A-RLB vertical illuminator attachment, which I don't have anyway.
But still, nothing mentioning my Darkfield attachment or photo/drawing of anything even remotely similar in that section.
Again I thought this might of been to sit atop the standard condenser, it might, but there is nothing to hold it in place, which I doubt would be the case for a precision optical instrument.

So this is why I think these attachments are for another microscope.
But which one?

As for the Phase Contrast turret condenser in the box with objectives.
Since seeing a modded one on Ebay with a Vanox mount, I think I could fashion something similar to suit, a mounting plate that would clamp around the condenser.