I found this comment quite informative.  Would you be willing to
expound on how you deal with live cell chambers and keeping the temp
stable?  I am about to start doing some work along these lines and
would like to avoid the expense and hassles of an objective heater.
I especially don't want to dedicate my 60x water objective to being
constantly heated but I don't see how you could avoid that without
constantly stressing the objective with warm up and cool downs if you
were using it both live cells and regular section viewing.  Your
comment just reinforced my worries.  Thanks.  tom

>   Bioptechs developed the
>  first and we believe the best commercial objective heating system.  We
>  are able to regulate the objective within 0.1 degree C without any
>  excessive heat radiating from the objective or heater.

As a purchaser of one of these heaters - my only comment is that
we purchased the bioptics objective heater a few years ago and
have refrained from using it. If you don't preheat the objective the
heater rapidly tries to take the objective to what ever temperature
you select (say 37 and mine at least rises at a very rapid rate -
something you do not want to do with an objective.  I was not
impressed with the controller, and the bands that hold the objective
were not well designed either. Well this is my own experience.
regards
paul robinson
J.Paul Robinson, PhD             PH:(765)4940757
Professor of Immunopharmacology
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Purdue University          FAX:(765)4940517
EMAIL:[log in to unmask]
WEB: http://www.cyto.purdue.edu [log in to unmask]
--
Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Director, Molecular Cytology Core Facility

3 Tucker Hall
Division of Biological Sciences
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211-7400
(573)-882-4712 (voice)
(573)-882-0123 (fax)