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Hi Josh,
The $1000 service charge is more or less like a flat fee. In my past life
as a postdoc, we had a similar problem in our group where we had 2 Andor
EMCCD cameras that lost its vacuum just past the 5 year warranty period and
we ended up paying about $2k to fix each camera. We were also charged a
$1000 initial assessment fee which was credited towards the cost of fixing
the vacuum seal when we decided to repair the camera (it was cheaper to fix
an EMCCD camera than to buy two new ones).

On a related note, I recently (early 2018) had a similar condensation
problem with an ORCA Flash 4 LTE . In my case, the camera was 3 years old
and I did not have any extended warranty. Moreover it was not a direct
purchase from Hamamatsu (it was bought through Zeiss as part of a
microscope purchase). Hamamatsu said that they have lifetime warranty on
their seal and I got a brand new replacement free of charge. I only had to
pay shipping for the old camera, There was no mention about backfill (not
sure if it applies to the ORCA Flash).

Hope this helps.

Sripad





On Tue, Jan 15, 2019 at 11:36 PM Joshua Vaughan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Dear camera gurus,
>
> our Andor Zyla 5.5 sCMOS camera shows condensation on the chip when we
> cool it. Andor told us this might be caused by a backfill issue and it
> costs ~$1,000 to take a look, possible 4-6weeks turnaround and probably
> more money to fix the problem.  I have a couple questions and I am also
> looking for a little advice.
>
> 1. I remember hearing a little bit about cameras holding vacuum, but not
> about this backfill problem. Anyway, what is backfill and how does it go
> wrong? Is it some kind of an inert, dry gas around the sensor that may now
> have some moist air in it? How is it possible to get a backfill problem
> without the seal on the vacuum also breaking? Interestingly, I believe I
> saw online that the (pre-2016) Andor warranty is 5years on the vacuum and
> 3years on the backfill.
>
> 2. If we have to spend ~$1k to have Andor take a look and then, assuming
> it is repairable pay more money (not sure how much, but I'd guess at least
> $1-2k), I wonder whether we might be better off just getting something new.
> Most recently, we had been using the Zyla on a spinning disc, though it
> might have been overkill there. Does anybody have suggestions for an
> alternative, such as a good and affordable CMOS camera? We're looking for
> something with >1MP, >50Hz, QE>65%, some cooling to help keep the read
> noise low, a fire signal for synchronization, and compatibility with
> Micromanager.
>
> Related to 2, here is a little info on the sort of thing we are interested
> in. We recently purchased a ZWO CMOS camera for ~ $900 and it has been very
> nice on our benchtop LED/epi scope (ZWO ASI 174 Cooled). It gives
> surprisingly good performance for the price. The specs state 2.4MP, 5.9um
> pixels, cooled to 40C below ambient, peak QE of 79%, up to 128FPS, works
> fine with Micromanager, but *lacks* a fire signal and we think only has a
> buffer of one frame. So it is very close to what we want, but we need
> really need a fire signal for synchronization on our spinning disc and we
> think a bigger buffer would probably also be important.
>
>
> https://optcorp.com/products/zwo-asi-174-cooled-monochrome-cmos-telescope-camera
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Best regards,
> Josh
>
> --
> Joshua C. Vaughan
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Chemistry
> Box 351700
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
> 206-543-4644
>