The cutter / welder looks interesting. What make / model is it?

I have been scoping out a filament printer for the past couple of months and have one in mind. However, I did not look at the MarkForged ones, but will do. They are about 25% cheaper too!

Another thumbs up for Dualit toasters from me.  We bought one sometime around 2004 or 5 and it is still making superb toast.  The thing that impressed me when we got it was that if the elements go kaput, you can replace them.  This is something I had to do just recently. One of them had failed and thinking I might as well change the lot, I bought enough replacements to make the full set.  It was a simple job, needing just a screwdriver.  

Now I realise that this is going to be of absolutely no interest to anyone else on here, but I was excited about this arriving by DHL this morning so you're going to have to suffer anyway!

This is a rotary stage for a Wild M20 microscope. Okay, it is not the calibrated polarisation stage they also made, but they are very, very, very hard to get hold of (this was just very, very hard!), and mind-numbingly expensive; more than a decent M20 in fact.

The M20 is a classic microscope, but still extremely good in terms of optical performance. I have a few of them (as you do) and two main ones in the UK. One is set up for incident illumination and viewing and the other for transmitted (with a wide range of condensers and objectives). I actually have another M20 arriving later this week here in Germany that a gentleman in France was selling. I didn't really need another, but it has the incredibly rare (and effective) PZO (from Poland) phase contrast system fitted that allows you to choose bright-field or dark-field contrast (most other phase contrast systems are bright-field only). This is interesting for me as, apart from the microscopes and their accessories, I also have a collection of (mainly) Victorian slides of diatoms and dark-field phase contrast is useful for them although not quite as useful as interference contrast (IC), which is tricky with the M20 and you need a much bulkier system to use that. I do have several IC systems at work and one here in Germany, but no room for one at home in the UK - mind I don't use the dining that much!

You can't possibly have space for any more equipment!

Do you want to make a bet?! 

Apologies: I know many of you have had a sleepless night in anticipation of the photograph I promised yesterday, but you can rest easy now!

As 'promised' (threatened?), here are a couple of pictures of the Reichert MeF2 I have here. It is an inverted microscope - you view the specimen from below and not above as is more usual - and was developed as their flagship materials microscope and this one dates from the late 70s / early 80s. These usually came mounted to a massive console that contained all of the power supplies. etc and alignment rails and drawers designed for all of the various attachments and accessories. They also made stand-alone units. This is not one of those, but one that started life on a console, but that wasn't with it. In some ways that is a shame and I thought at the least I would need to make some alignment rails for the incident lighting system (the bit to the left), but in the end it proved simple to align and unnecessary (and it would have been near impossible to get the console up into the studio). It did come with loads of optics and I later bought a scrap one (from which only a few levers and knobs were salvageable) and another complete unit from which the, rather rare, transmitted lighting unit came (the bit on the top). These microscopes were often used for metallurgy and I have the micro hardness testing unit and the scales etc are calibrated and so it can be used for measuring as well. It has normal bright-field illumination plus dark-field, polarised lighting and differential interference contrast (DIC) and various semi-oblique lighting options.

It came with a bunch of analogue cameras and the metering and control systems for them plus the side port for video / cine (and additional stills equipment). Although you can see I have a Sony camera mounted on the large format unit on the front (and have adapters to allow PhaseOne imaging back to mount as well, and of course film) I mainly insert a CCD unit into the side port and the low resolution one is mounted in the picture.

As an illustration I have set the instrument up in polarised transmitted mode and put a calibration slide on the stage and fitted a X16 objective. This is imaged on the screen beside it and the small units shown are 10 µm. The highest magnification objectives for this microscope are X160, but are used under oil immersion and it would have been no use for this illustration.

Aside from the second (and scrap) MeF2 I also have in the UK a fully equipped Reichert Zetopan (transmitted and incident with conventional and UV illumination) and a Reichert Biovert. The latter is also an inverted microscope, but one geared towards biological specimens and I have been using these two instruments professionally since the early 80s: the Biovert has a superb Nomarski (differential) interference contrast system on it. They don't get used in anger much these days as we do not do as much microscopy and they are complex instruments and the more modern Nikon, Leitz and Leica units are easier to use (kids these days Eh?!).

You often find these things on eBay these days for quite reasonable prices although things like DIC fetch high prices. Back in the day you could get quite a nice 3-bedroomed house for the price of a MeF2 on its console, My first was bought on eBay for €1600 and the second came from someone who salvaged it from the microscopy department of British Aerospace when he left at the end of the 90s: he couldn't fit the console into his car!

Reichert MeF2







And just because this is a HiFi forum I thought this might be appropriate (taken on MeF2 a while back before I had mounted the CCD). Can you name the tune?

I recognise those wiggles!

They're NOT the Telarc 1812 Overture which is famously virtually unplayable.

And it's not short of knobs to twiddle and levers to pull either!