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Hi

I agree on the 30 min limit for the HG lamp.  One exception is at the
beginning of its life when, I believe, it is better to leave it burn in
for the whole day.

Regarding the laser:  We have been told by the service engineers that
switching off and then the laser equals (in terms of wear) to about 3
hrs at standby.  They have not been able to substantiate this with any
data, but we are following their recommendation and only switch the
laser off if there is more than 3 hrs gap between users.

I'd like to hear what other users do on this issue.

Regards,

--
Dr Stamatis Pagakis
Confocal microscopy and Image Analysis Laboratory
National Institute for Medical Research
The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA
Tel: +44 (0)20 89593666 x2621  or x2622
FAX: +44 (0)20 89064477
Mob: +44(0)7900 988150


> Boris Joffe wrote:
>
> Dear Confocalisters,
>
> We have a confocal and users tend not to switch it off because they or
> somebody else are going to use it later. The result is that UV lamp
> (for routine fluorescence microscopy) runs hours without being used.
> Unfortunately, we have a very old system and if the lamp had been
> switched off, an attempt to switch it on again later will crush the
> computer. Accordingly, either all the system runs, or all the system
> should be switched off.
>
> I tend to advice to switch off the system if the idle period is going
> to be longer than 30-40 min. Is this indeed a reasonable treshold ?
>
> Boris Joffe