The Calcium Chloride dessicant I use is called Drierite and has Cobalt Chloride moisture indicator in it. When it is dry it is blue. as it absorbs moisture it turns pink at which time you bake it in the oven to redry it. I usually sticki it in a 250 degree F lab oven for a few days and it goes perfe...

I store lots of things that way and it has worked very well for me so far.

I just participated in a Hackaday project at St. Louis Arch Reactor makerspace. I was attracted to the project which was entitled "Microscope for the Internet of Things" These young men 3D printed a couple of microscopes with stepper motor focusing and also converted a Rasberry Pi "PiCam" which stri...

In addition to the fact that they go red and yellow as you dim them, the quartz halogen cycle does not work as well or at all when the lamp is dimmed. Better quality fiber optic illuminators have diaphragms or perforated disk light attenuators (although they still usually have electrical dimmers too...

My Keyence sales rep just called again and I am going to look at his gadget on November 01. I will report back and maybe have some snapshots too. I reiterated university has no money. :) I am pretty sure the "10x DOF" follows from automated stacking. The Hirox( I think it was the Hirox) also had 3 D...

That set up has Japanese looking connectors and focusing blocks. This leads me to think that the unit in question is from one of two companies: Hirox http://www.hirox-usa.com/ or Keyence https://www.keyence.com/landing/microscope/lp_vhx_micro.jsp?aw=google-kaenVH137309ee&gclid=CJGR6tmS6s8CFYIBaQodX2...

In 1980 I was product manager for a US firm that got the privilege of importing aus Jena gear from east Germany. That privilege did not last long because the USSR and Berlin wall collagpsed and Zeiss West Germany took over and broke the contract. Sales were lukewarm anyway and very few of the offeri...

I have seen a number of stands available on fleabay and almost bought various ones. There was a dealer in California called McBain instruments who had a setup to mount heavy scopes on. It had a similar crank or alternatively stepper or servo motors to drive the carriage up and down. I saw several of...

A Tessovar with the right objective and matched properly to your camera sensor is pretty close to as good as it gets even if it is built in the eighties. Some Tessovars had binocular (but not stereo, there was a splitter and both eyes got pretty close to the same image) viewing tubes. This approach ...

There is a company(Diagnostic Instruments) in Sterling Heights Michigan (suburban Detroit). They make boom stands of very high quality and price. There are three reasons why I think this stand was built by Diagnostic Instruments probably in the nineties. 1) It looks to be of the kind of quality and ...

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I have never seen a three hundred watt tungsten bulb used for a microscope and the reason is exactly what you have discovered. They put out too much infra red. There are issues of source size as well. Normally the reflection from the rear reflector should be close to the same brightness and size as ...

The M5 mk II can be run on AC but it is an expensive addition. You have to buy a double grip outfit and second battery and the AC adapter is like $80. But it us available. buy the time you buy all the parts you will be several hundred dollars lighter. But the camera is very reasonably priced to star...

WOW!!