Cleaning a Microscope?

[Insane Reefer]

My dad is really cool. He went to an indoor "garage" sale, and found an old microscope for $1. He thought of me and my "experiments", and bought it for me. It goes to x750, which is cool for a home 'scope.

He brought it over the other day and we cleaned the battery terminals that had corroded, and cleaned it up, and it seems to be in good working order.

I'm having a spot of trouble with getting the eyepiece clean. There are a few "things" on the lens - I won't even try to name what they might be, lol. Anyway, the eyepiece is made to be taken apart, including removal of the lens, I guess for replacement. I've tried an alcohol bath to clean the lens, which has helped, but not enough.

How could I get it completely clean?

[bertoni]

I would try a lens cleaning kit for a camera. What brand of microscope is this? The major brands have good-quality cementing jobs. Is the contamination on the outside part?

There are more toxic lens cleaners. A microscope dealer in the area might be able to help.

[Insane Reefer]

Thanks for the reply, Bertoni.

This appears to be a kids/school microscope, by "Ideal". Pretty sure this isn't a high end 'scope - just something for me to look at samples with. If I can clean it, great, but if not, I think it will still have some use, at least until I find a better one; not like I'm doing genetic research or anything :)

Everything screws apart, except maybe the end heads, but I haven't messed with those as the "items" on the lens rotate when I rotate the eyepiece, so pretty sure that this is the culprit - I'd think that if the heads had been contaminated, that the "items" would stay put, no matter how much I twist the eyepiece. Who can say if it is inside or outside on the lens? By now the outside is probably the inside since it has been out of the eyepiece.

I'm not sure if a lens kit would do the job - after all, I did give it a bath in denatured alcohol and wiped with coffee filter (what I had on hand), and then again, using a q-tip.

I don't think we have a microscope dealer locally, even with 3 colleges and a university here, but will look into it.

I do have a friend with a steam cleaner used for jewelry cleaning at her work, and I have access to ultrasonic cleaners through my husbands work. Wonder if either of those might work? The lens is so tiny though - maybe 3/8", just a wee bit of glass - afraid they might drop it and loose it or something...

[bertoni]

I wouldn't use a coffee filter or any paper product (including "lens tissue") on the lens. A good lens-cleaning kit will have a micro-fiber cleaning cloth. A photo store might have the cloth or the cleaning kit, for that matter.

The ultrasonic clean might be okay for non-coated single element lenses, but I wouldn't use them on lenses with glare reduction coatings or on cemented groups.

[MThompson]

Q-tips are what our microscope guy tells us to use to clean off the dust and smudges. We have the $80-150K scopes in our labs, so I would say that they are good for your's (at least for that purpose).

Who knows how long the other stuff stuff has been on there.....kinda like an old coffee pot, the stains may not ever come out. You may need to try to find replacements.

[Insane Reefer]

I blotted with the filter, didn't wipe :)
So if I was going to go for replacement, what am I looking for? Any terms that might help me in the search for a generic replacement? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to find a replacement made for this 'scope specifically.
What I have when I break it down is basically a tiny magnifying glass - just a tiny lens. Do these have a specific name? I have calipers, so I can measure it accurately.

And the items in question seem to move around a bit when I try a bath - after the bath things are in different arrangements. I think the "damp" from the bath is helping it pick up random "things".

Hmmm...

[bertoni]

I'd try to find the manufacturer, first. The eyepiece might be interchangeable with another brand, but often they aren't. I haven't heard of a maker of generic replacement parts, although there might be one.

The small piece of glass is just called a lens or an element. Two or more connected are called a group. A collection of groups is called an objective, at the other end of the scope. Nikon has a good online set of tutorials on microscopy:

http://microscopyu.com/

I'm sure there are others, as well.

[Insane Reefer]

Cool :) Thanks for the link and terms :)

Though, like I thought, this is a really cheapo model. Still, I can look at stuff - might not be perfect, but good enough for now.