NetNotes
air in it? How is it possible to get a backfill problem without the seal on the vacuum also breaking? Interestingly, I believe I saw online that the (pre-2016) Andor warranty is 5 years on the vac- uum and 3 years on the backfill. 2) If we have to spend ∼$1k to have Andor take a look and then, assuming it is repairable pay more money (not sure how much, but I’d guess at least $1–2k), I wonder whether we might be better off just getting something new. Most recently, we had been using the Zyla on a spinning disc, though it might have been overkill there. Does anybody have suggestions for an alternative, such as a good and afford- able CMOS camera? We’re looking for something with >1MP, >50Hz, QE>65%, some cooling to help keep the read noise low, a fire signal for synchronization, and compatibility with Micro- manager. Related to 2, here is some information on the sort of thing we
are interested in. We recently purchased a ZWO CMOS camera for ∼$900 and it works very nice on our benchtop LED/epi scope (ZWO ASI 174 Cooled). It gives surprisingly good performance for the price. Te specs state 2.4 MP, 5.9 µm pixels, cooled to 40°C below ambient, peak QE of 79%, up to 128FPS, works fine with Micromanager, but *lacks* a fire signal and we think only has a buffer of one frame. So, it is very close to what we want, but we really need a fire signal for synchronization on our spin- ning disc and we think a bigger buffer is also important. Joshua Vaughan
jcv2@uw.edu
I recently posted a query about suspected condensation
and we’ve been in contact with Andor to send the camera back for refurbishing. In the meantime, I’ve turned off the camera cooling function and we have just been using the camera with the fan running. With cooling the chip temperature was -0.4°C and “bubbles” started to appear. Once I unselected the cool- ing function, the temperature rose to and held at around 20°C and the “bubbles” disappeared! Laurel Ballantyne ballantl@
queensu.ca
I would like to provide my experience with condensation
on our Andor Zyla 5.5 sCMOS. When we ran into this issue, this mailing list post was about the only information we could find outside of talking to Andor. So, thanks! Our lab at UC Davis has an Andor Zyla 5.5 sCMOS purchased in 2016. It is used primarily on an upright microscope for widefield fluo- rescence imaging. In July of 2019 we started noticing artifacts and spots in our images. I contacted Andor support and they said that it was condensation and would require us to ship it to them for repair. Te minimum fee was $1,120 (USD) and it would take 4–6 weeks to repair. We didn’t have a warranty on the camera. I think we paid around $10k for the camera initially, so we were a little hesitant to send it off for $2,000 to fix condensation. We called the Andor office and talked with the product support engineers who gave us a little more information about the design of the camera and the seal for the sensor. Tey told us that the camera is backfilled with an inert, dry gas, and that our seal had gone bad and needed to be replaced and the sensor recalibrated. We were not satisfied with that response, so we decided to disassemble our camera. I caution anyone thinking of doing this to do it in a clean-room
2020 May •
www.microscopy-today.com
or a laminar flow cabinet to prevent particles from landing on the sensor. Te cover for the sensor is held together with 4 security Torx screws that can be removed. Te cap has a ring seal and the main body of the camera has the sensor. Also, inside to our surprise were four desiccant bags attached to the cap! We think what likely happened was that the seal on the camera was not very good and to compensate desiccant bags were used to absorb moisture. Likely our bags became saturated and so all we needed to do was regenerate them. To do this, we put the front camera cap with the bags into our oven over the weekend at ∼100°C, and we leſt the main camera body sitting in the laminar flow cabinet. Te bags could also be regenerated in a vacuum oven at like 50–70°C. We then re- assembled the system while blowing a little nitrogen over the sensor to remove any particles. We tightened everything back up and it worked perfectly! We did this back in August and it is now January and the camera is still working perfectly with no condensation. While we did do all this work in a laminar flow cabinet, we did pick up a few very small particles but for our work, this is no big deal. I hope this may be of help to any- one who also runs into an issue with their camera. Roy Bainer
barrifle@gmail.com
Tanks for sharing your experience. I thought Andor had
a 5-year warranty on their vacuum seal? Is that only for their EMCCD cameras? Te presence of dessicant bags was unex- pected (but not totally surprising). In my past job, we did have problems with vacuum seals with Andor EMCCD cameras, and coincidentally the vacuum seal failed just aſter 5 years! Loss of vacuum seals also occurs with other camera brands. In our ORCA flash camera, we observed condensation aſter 4 years of use. Because of lifetime warranty on the vacuum seal we got a new ORCA flash camera at no charge. Sripad Ram (email unavailable)
Interesting information. We have had some problems with
our Andor iXon 897, but only aſter 10 years of heavy usage. Te Andor diagnosis was that the vacuum seal was compromised and aſter we sent the camera for service, the problem disap- peared. In our case the symptoms were that the NIS soſtware would show a camera temperature at 999 instead of -70°C and that would lead to soſtware crashes. It would be interesting to know what you saw in the images that made you think of con- densation so we can be aware of such aging signs. Sylvie Le Guyader
sylvie.le.guyader@
ki.se
Very nice work and description, although this is not with-
out high risk of permanent damage to the image sensor and the system. I am not defending our competitors, but condensation is always an issue in cooled scientific cameras. We also have our share of experiences, even the best possible and available “rubber” type of sealing rings, will over time let some H2
O
molecules in. If everything is proper, this may take many years. Usually, it is correct that dry inert gas is used to fill the camera heads to drive out humidity, and for the moisture that could not be removed, most manufacturers use some sort of humid- ity scavenger. Some can be removed, dried out and used again,
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