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Hi Arvydas,
We've judged the lifetime of our confocals by how long the manufacturer is willing to repair it. Our old confocal (purchase 2000) kept going for 14 years, but eventually could no longer be repaired. In the interim, our new confocal (purchase 2012) had way more features and of course people switched to it.
We managed to convince the powers that be that a maintenance contract was essential, and this has been very worthwhile - couple of lasers replaced already, and we can call the engineers any time for repairs or to realign components, etc. We can expect this instrument to be serviced by the manufacturer up to about 2024.
However, the writing is on the wall so we have to start lobbying for a new instrument, because it takes 2-3 years for powers that be to fund instruments, then at least a further year before the tenders are complete and an instrument is purchased.
I know of one facility that kept at least one quite ancient and highly used confocal going for 20 years before mothballing it.
That's how we operate. I hope this helps a bit. Those rules of thumb about confocal lifetime are very rubbery, some confocals are great and go a long time without needing much attention, some are not so great. Just like cars...
cheers,
Rosemary
Dr Rosemary White
CSIRO Black Mountain
GPO Box 1700
ACT 2601, Australia
M: 61-0468966713
E: [log in to unmask]
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From: Confocal Microscopy List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Arvydas Matiukas [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, 23 September 2019 9:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Confocal lifetime question
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Hello Andreas,
thanks for interesting thoughts. On the practical side my concern is related to the two sides or steps of the research equipment replacement/upgrade process in Core facility:
1) CONFOCAL PERFORMANCE DEGRADATION. I assume it was not a coincidence that shortly after the manufacturer ended support of our 13 year old confocal its performance degraded to such level that it could not longer support some imaging applications. Then most users switched to the newer generation confocal that experienced 2x increase in usage, and even by some magic the performance would be restored I doubt that users would switch back because they already "got taste" of newer technology. Here the conclusion that useful lifetime of confocal (in research environment) is about 10 years or 20k hours (whichever comes first), and after that the instrument needs to be replaced. The old confocal serves only as a last option backup.
2) CONFOCAL REPLACEMENT/UPGRADE CYCLE. My main concern is how much time is left to prepare and complete the replacement, i.e. how long current confocal will last being used 4000hrs/year on top of already accumulated 10k hours. Manufacturer
maintenance is expected, however I strongly doubt that the useful lifetime could reach 50k hours (13 years x 4k), because not all replaced parts will be new, and field servicing does not equal factory.
Regarding the comparison with car lifetime/maintenance. My second car is 16 years old with 180k mileage, and it is still good to drive locally and ocassionally. However research (and especially winning grant awards) is like a race so reseachers cjoose to drive a Ferrari, not Kia.
Best wishes,
Arvydas
>>> Andreas Bruckbauer <[log in to unmask]> 09/22/19 12:05 PM >>>
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Dear Arvydas,
As you are comparing microscopes with cars, it might be interesting that some (German) car companies used to give the owner a golden medal after 500,000 kilometers which the proud owner could fix on the radiator grill (this was long ago), you can still find them on eBay. There are also anecdotes about cars which made 1 Mio km.
We have one microscope which after 11 years and about 14,000 hours had a lot of repairs, but is still going strong now after 13 years and higher workload. With 4000 hours/year, a maintenance contract would make sense, I guess you will go through a lot of lasers which otherwise will be costly to replace, other movable parts like the scanner and even electronics like AOTF controllers or power supplies also seem to fail after some years. But when replacing all these parts (with considerable downtime) it should be possible to run a system with high workload for 15 years or longer. You might want to get a new set of objectives though. The question is, if you really want to wait so long to replace it, as technology constantly improves. Especially detectors and electronics will be better for a new microscope and the users will miss out on these improvements.
One point to consider is that after a microscope model has gone out of production, there will be only a limited time when for spare parts and maintenance contracts to be available, maybe 6 - 10 years. With product cycles becoming shorter, we might not even be able to run a microscope for 10 years, especially when it was bought at the end of its cycle.
best wishes
Andreas
-----Original Message-----
From: Arvydas Matiukas <[log in to unmask]>
To: CONFOCALMICROSCOPY <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sun, 22 Sep 2019 2:55
Subject: Confocal lifetime question
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Dear Microscopists,
I am worried that high usage volume over 4000hrs/year that started two years ago and likely will continue can shorten useful lifetime of our confocal (in terms of service years or hours).
I expect properly maintained confocal to last about 10 years or 20,000 hrs. Similarly, a car is expected to last 10 years or 100k miles, however sometimes it drives 100k in 3 years ending at the intermediate condition and value. Please share your experience after how many hours or years of usage Core should start planning the replacement of the heavily used confocal.
Thanks,
Arvydas
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Arvydas Matiukas, Ph.D.
Manager of NRB Shared Equipment
Director of Confocal&Two-Photon Core
SUNY Upstate Medical University
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