Bought a microscope, what supplies should I buy?

[matt_m]

I bought this over the weekend. I know next to nothing about microscopes but its a Swift 3200 with 10x eyepieces and 4x, 10x, and 40x objectives. I figured it was worth the risk at $106 including tax and shipping. Now I need to order supplies. I know I need a hemocytometer and methylene blue. On the hemocytometer, I've read "buy a good one", anyone have a recommendation? I see White Labs has a kit which is about $165 delivered that includes both and a number of other items, not sure if that's good or not?

 

[GrowleyMonster]

I bought a cheapie hemocytometer kit with the dyes included, and I have the microscope I use for my straight razor honing, with USB eyepiece and other eyepieces and objectives that can take me up to a barely usable 2000x optical magnification. I do know that 400x is the standard magnification for cell counting, so you are covered, there. Quality is probably nice in the hemo kit but not as important as just getting your hand in the game. Maybe I am speaking out of turn here since I haven't even done my first cell count yet. Soon, very soon. If you have deep pockets, get the good setup. If you are poor like me then go cheap or skip the whole thing. I will post when I have done a count or two. Right now I am super busy trying to get one house ready to move into and the other house ready to rent out, and refitting my 45 year old boat, and getting my razor business going again, and keeping two cranky clanky old vehicles going, and trying desperately to catch up enough so that I can go fishing or hunting or just sleep all day. It sucks being retired cause you never get days off anymore. Anyway I just wanted to get subscribed here and see where this thread goes.

 

[passedpawn]

I bought my haemocytometer off ebay. It's perfect I think. Counting lines are very visible under the scope. If I can find a link to the one I bought, I'll post here (it was 10 yrs ago though!)

 

[passedpawn]

I bought this over the weekend. I know next to nothing about microscopes but its a Swift 3200 with 10x eyepieces and 4x, 10x, and 40x objectives. I figured it was worth the risk at $106 including tax and shipping. Now I need to order supplies. I know I need a hemocytometer and methylene blue. On the hemocytometer, I've read "buy a good one", anyone have a recommendation? I see White Labs has a kit which is about $165 delivered that includes both and a number of other items, not sure if that's good or not?

View attachment 757983

BTW, if you didn't already see it, I made a thread a while ago about some of my microscope experiences. Lots of info there, take a look:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/pics-of-yeast-under-my-new-microscope.273342

 

[matt_m]

This seems way too cheap but the reviews are good so I just ordered one.
https://www.amazon.com/Rs-Science-I...d6oP&pd_rd_i=B076ZT949V&psc=1#customerReviews

 

[Argyll Gargoyle]

You likely also need a way to prepare accurate dilutions. I bought a autopipet to help with this, but there are cheaper ways too.
Edit: it was a cheaper Onilab unit, think I paid about $35

 

[matt_m]

Googled autopipet. What are the cheaper ways?

 

[Argyll Gargoyle]

You could get a manual pipette - that could be a glass one + a rubber bulb, or they have disposable plastic ones. Maybe others can comment on this - I’m not much of a biology guy to tell the truth

 

[PCABrewing]

I bought this over the weekend. I know next to nothing about microscopes but its a Swift 3200 with 10x eyepieces and 4x, 10x, and 40x objectives. I figured it was worth the risk at $106 including tax and shipping. Now I need to order supplies. I know I need a hemocytometer and methylene blue. On the hemocytometer, I've read "buy a good one", anyone have a recommendation? I see White Labs has a kit which is about $165 delivered that includes both and a number of other items, not sure if that's good or not?

View attachment 757983

Nice, I've been looking too. That seems like a decent price.
There is a "violet" dye that I have read about. It's supposed to be better at differentiating live and dead or dying yeast.
Maybe get some spare plain slides and cover-slips. You might want to do other stuff than just yeast counts.
How is the stage height adjustment, is it smooth?

 

[matt_m]

How is the stage height adjustment, is it smooth?

Still on its way so we will see.

 

[passedpawn]

Nice, I've been looking too. That seems like a decent price.
There is a "violet" dye that I have read about. It's supposed to be better at differentiating live and dead or dying yeast.
Maybe get some spare plain slides and cover-slips. You might want to do other stuff than just yeast counts.
How is the stage height adjustment, is it smooth?

I've used the crystalline violet. Seemed to work same as blue. I got mine directly from White Labs.

 

[PCABrewing]

I've used the crystalline violet. Seemed to work same as blue. I got mine directly from White Labs.

The violet I read about is Alkaline Methylene Violet. It is supposed to provide a more reliable and faster penetration of the cell and shades differently for weakened cells.
I don't know if the form is crystalline or not. They use the two in tandem apparently.

 

[passedpawn]

The violet I read about is Alkaline Methylene Violet. It is supposed to provide a more reliable and faster penetration of the cell and shades differently for weakened cells.
I don't know if the form is crystalline or not. They use the two in tandem apparently.

Frankly, I don't recall how I used it. Here's what I have.

 

[Culinarytracker]

I"d recommend a 12 well spot plate to do serial dilutions. I went with a fairly cheap hemocytometer and have been quite happy with it.

 

[matt_m]

Any recommendations on measurement tools to do the dilutions?

 

[Culinarytracker]

Any recommendations on measurement tools to do the dilutions?

I just use the disposable plastic pipettes and measurements in units of "drops".

I do make sure to draw the samples while the stir plate is going, and I draw a couple full droppers full and put into a small glass bowl, then I work out of that, using the pipette to stir well before doing the dilution. I have really small pipettes that I use for the drop plate, and bigger ones to draw samples.

I have done dilutions using larger samples, and I did that in my small centrifuge tubes that I use for wild yeast experiments. I just set them up in the tube rack and used them the same way as the drop plate. For that I just used the mL markings on the pipettes. If I did this every day I would definitely invest in a better lab pipette system, but for what I do the disposables work just fine.

 

[matt_m]

Well this didn't go so well. The microscope I got isn't even the one pictured. Seller included a photo of the serial number, I got the next one which isn't clean or working or even complete. And that Hemocytometer kit, while it did include a German made hemocytometer, its all scratched up. I suspect it may be a second.

 

[Culinarytracker]

Well this didn't go so well. The microscope I got isn't even the one pictured. Seller included a photo of the serial number, I got the next one which isn't clean or working or even complete. And that Hemocytometer kit, while it did include a German made hemocytometer, its all scratched up. I suspect it may be a second.

That sucks! Do you have any recourse to get your money back?

 

[matt_m]

That sucks! Do you have any recourse to get your money back?

On the microscope Ebay automatically gave me a return label and its on its way. I confident they will see it gets taken care of and if they don't I expect my credit card company will. I'm not at all worried about the serial number, claim I perused the internet until I found the next adjacent serial number to pull a bait and switch is ludicrous.

On the hemocytometer, Amazon already had UPS pick it up and I expect I'll see a refund before the end of the day.

 

[Culinarytracker]

On the microscope Ebay automatically gave me a return label and its on its way. I confident they will see it gets taken care of and if they don't I expect my credit card company will. I'm not at all worried about the serial number, claim I perused the internet until I found the next adjacent serial number to pull a bait and switch is ludicrous.

On the hemocytometer, Amazon already had UPS pick it up and I expect I'll see a refund before the end of the day.

That's good. For what it's worth I bought my scope (Amscope B490) for $250 on Amazon. It's been a fantastic scope for yeast projects. So even new ones aren't too stupid expensive. If I had it all to do over again I would probably get the tri-ocular type for a USB camera as well as optical. I find myself taking lots of bad photos with my cell phone hovering over the eyepiece because it's a lot easier to count cells from an image in photoshop where I can make a new layer and put red or blue marks over living or dead cells then count marks.

Anyway if you're really in to the whole yeast thing I hope this doesn't slow you down.

 

[passedpawn]

That's good. For what it's worth I bought my scope (Amscope B490) for $250 on Amazon. It's been a fantastic scope for yeast projects. So even new ones aren't too stupid expensive. If I had it all to do over again I would probably get the tri-ocular type for a USB camera as well as optical. I find myself taking lots of bad photos with my cell phone hovering over the eyepiece because it's a lot easier to count cells from an image in photoshop where I can make a new layer and put red or blue marks over living or dead cells then count marks.

Anyway if you're really in to the whole yeast thing I hope this doesn't slow you down.

Completely agree on the trinocular.

 

[Argyll Gargoyle]

They make a plastic phone holder gizmo that can allow you to take a picture through the eyepiece without needing a triocular. I think it’s called a microscope lens adapter.

 

[Culinarytracker]

They make a plastic phone holder gizmo that can allow you to take a picture through the eyepiece without needing a triocular. I think it’s called a microscope lens adapter.

Yea I've thought about that. There are decent usb cameras that will slide in in place of one of the oculars too.

 

[matt_m]

I'll have to look into those options. My vision wasn't the best to start with and my late 40's have only made it worse. Being able to look at it on a monitor would help.

 

[passedpawn]

They make a plastic phone holder gizmo that can allow you to take a picture through the eyepiece without needing a triocular. I think it’s called a microscope lens adapter.

I've got one of those. I also have a SLR camera mount that will slide in there (Amscope makes that). It's all a bit of a kludge compared to the ones with the USB camera mounted in the 3rd position.

 

[McMullan]

I use a usb camera on my microscope. Technology has got so affordable even something cheap is going to capture surprisingly high quality images.

I use an old offline laptop so can’t upload any images right now, but I’ll pull one next time I’m on there.