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Hi Pat,

not sure if you're reading thes replies from this list, but someone has to
state the obvious.
You don't send a confocal laser scanning microscope for service, rather the
vendor technician comes and does the preventive maintenance or repair on
site.
You don't generally call service for cleaning lenses, that's a routine you
perform yourself (cleaning the immersion oil off of a dry lens is not easy,
but what you need the most is patience).

Note, that most folks on this list use confocals for imaging fluorescence -
that's quite forgiving in terms of unwanted reflections. For imaging
surfaces (reflection mode), any internal reflection or light scattering has
detrimental effects; this pretty much rules out spinning disk confocals.

That being said, dirt in the microscope or on the lens, or less than
optimal microscope setting may show up as blurr, haze or stripy
interference pattern. It's hard to guess where a leopard pattern could come
from, but we microscopists tend to blame the sample preparation. The exact
details of how the surface of your sample is prepared, or any contamination
(e.g. patches of oil on the metal surface) will all affect reflectivity to
a great extent.

Best, zdenek

On Thu, Sep 1, 2022 at 9:46 PM surbhi dabral <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> *****
> To join or leave the confocal microscopy listserv or to change your email
> address, go to:
> https://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=confocalmicroscopy&A=1
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Hi Pat
> The system needs to be maintained properly as cleaning of the objectives is
> required very often because dust particles tend to accumulate sometimes and
> interfere with imaging the samples . You have to decide on a specific time
> when service engineers will work on servicing the instrument . This is a
> frequent exercise which should’ve followed with all type of machines
>
> Regards
> Surbhi Dabral , Ph.D
> Assistant Professor
> Amity University
> Noida , Uttar Pradesh
> India
>
>
> On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 at 6:22 PM, Pat Scallion <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > *****
> > To join or leave the confocal microscopy listserv or to change your email
> > address, go to:
> > https://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=confocalmicroscopy&A=1
> > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your
> posting.
> > *****
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am new to the list, and am the support person for a confocal laser
> > microscope. It is used in a university setting for analysis of metallic
> and
> > ceramic materials, for surface roughness, layer thickness, images, etc.
> >
> > I had two concerns. The first is how often a system such as this needs to
> > be sent off for maintenance of the unit, as in cleaning? It was acquired
> in
> > October 2018. Is the cleaning of the lenses all that is performed in
> situ?
> > I can do some of the calibration steps as described in the manual, and
> they
> > came back within spec, but I am not a day to day user.
> >
> > The second concern is that some of the students are now seeing some
> > shadowing on their images (metals) at 20x, 50x and 100x. Not all students
> > see this. I am wondering what tests might be done to determine if it is
> > sample specific or if there is dirt inside the unit. It is seen with both
> > optical and laser images. It looks like leopard spots on their sample.
> >
> > I am planning for one of our most experience users to set up a series of
> > image collection on a variety of samples to see if it is across all of
> them
> > or just this one group. This will help answer one question.
> >
> > Any support or ideas that this group may have, I would appreciate.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Pat
> >
>


-- 
-- 
Zdenek Svindrych, Ph.D.
Research Scientist - Microscopy Imaging Specialist
Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth