What Supplies Do You Need

We have the necessary supplies to clean the microscopes, which includes the following items:

1. Soft Lens Brush

2. Cotton Tipped Swab

3. Cleaning Cloth

4. Lens Wiping Cloth

5. Instrument Body Cleaner(Pure water or Distilled water)

6. Lens Cleaner(Mixture of Aether and Ethanol, 2:1)

7. Blower

They will greatly help you make and maintain the microscope clean, providing you the clean and clear images.

Get to Know before You Clean Your Microscope

Where need cleaning

1. Front lens of objective

2. Cover glass of camera sensor

3. Cover slip and specimen slide

4. Condenser lens

5. Other glass surfaces

Where not need cleaning

1. Filter cubes

2.All inside optics of a microscope

Different kinds of dirt

1. Loose or not permanently attached dirt

1. Glass (broken slides, cover slips, etc.)
2. Skin, dander
3. Pollen, etc.

2. Attached dirt

1. Water soluble
2. Solvent soluble
3. In practice often a mixture

Step-by-Step: How to Locate the Dirt on Your Microscope?

If you find dirt on the image, there are possible locations for the dirt: slides, microscope objective, C-mount adapter, eyepiece, the prism inside the microscope head and camera sensor surface. 

1. Put the slide on a white paperor bright background and check if any dirt on it.

2. Change the objective with nosepiece

1. If the dirt is changing accordingly with the objective, it’s on the up or bottom surface of the former objective lens.
2. If no change for the dirt, it should be on other places.

3. Rotatethe C-mount adapter and inspect the image

1. If the dirt is changing accordingly with the image, it’s on the up and down lens surface of the C-mount adapter.
2. If no change for the dirt, it should be on other places.

4. Rotatethe camera and inspect the image

1. If the dirt is changing accordingly with the image, it’s in camera.
2. If no change for the dirt, it should be on other places.

5. Rotatethe eyepiece

1. If the dirt is changing accordingly in the image, it’s in eyepiece.
2. If you can not find the dirt on the above lens surfaces, it is very likely on the prism insidethe microscope head.

Take off the eyepiece, objective or adapter, put against a white paper or bright background, and find the dirt. 

General Cleaning Microscope Procedure

1. Locate dirt

2. Inspect dirt

3. Remove dust

Use soft brush or blower to clean the dust.

Notes: When you find attached dirt on the microscope

• Never use rubbing materials, papers, microfibre cloths
• Never clean dry
• Always start to clean water soluble dirt

If grease or equivalent found, use with solvents. Make sure all solvents used for cleaning are absolutely clean.

• PA solvents (ultra pure)
• Distilled or demineralized water
• No ammonium containing glass cleaner like Sidolin, Sparkle, etc.

4. Remove water soluble dirtand solvent soluble dirt

1. Use absolute ethanol -ether mixture, Ethanol:ether=3:7 or 2:8. If can not find ether, you also can use absolute ethanol.
2. Use a cotton stick,stick should only be moist, not dropping water
3. Clean from the centre toward the edge in concentric circles
4. Inspect result, if necessary, repeat the process again

5. Inspect result

6. Repeat from 3 to 5if necessary

Aim of Cleaning Your Microscope

1. Complete elimination of dust and dirt for perfect image quality

2. No remaining residues on the optical parts

3. No damage of optical parts