This is description of this part:
Plastic light baffle for the microscope monocular head of the LOMO Biolam microscopes and similar models.
On microscopes of the LOMO Biolam class the monocular head sits on the microscope body on a round aluminium dovetail (). The inner opening of this mount measures about 35 mm, while the angle prism inside the head () is only 17 mm wide (about 15 mm in effective width). To prevent artefacts such as reflections (flares) or a milky image, LOMO fitted a dedicated stop into the dovetail of the head, limiting the amount of light and shaping the beam that enters the head. This is the very part offered here.
Key data of this baffle:
Function: limiting the amount of light that reaches the prism inside the monocular head
Material: plastic
Colour: black
Outer diameter: 37 mm
Diameter of the inner opening: 13,5 mm
Fitting: pushed in from below into the mount of the monocular head - the part is press-fitted, not screwed in
Very important: this glare stop is made of very thin plastic. Over the years the material turns very (!) brittle - and that is why heads without this light stop turn up so often. For the same reason, unfortunately, you have to fit the insert into the head with great care, so that the plastic does not break during assembly.
With this black baffle missing, artefacts can appear that are visible to the naked eye or when taking photomicrographs with a camera or a mobile phone.
If the baffle is missing from the monocular tube of a Lomo Biolam microscope, putting one back in can help with the following problems:
- when the image is too milky, slightly soft and low in contrast. This may be caused by exactly that: too wide a beam reaching the prism. Note: the cause may also be eyepieces with too high a magnification
- when flares, reflections or overly bright areas show up in the image, especially in its centre. The cause may be light bouncing off the bare aluminium mount (the dovetail). The black glare stop covers precisely a part of that metal element.
Note: the newest microscopes of this class, especially those built after 1990 (later examples of the Lomo Micmed-1 as well as Bresser Biolam and Lomo Biolam with illumination built into the base), have a monocular head with an angular inclined tube. All older microscopes of this class have a head with a hemispherical inclined tube. The plastic glare stop offered here fits this ROUND version of the head (see the last photo in the gallery). The newer, angular heads do not have it.
So that you can tell exactly which version of the monocular head this black insert fits, the last two photos in the gallery show:
- the complete monocular head, with an arrow showing where the baffle sits inside it
- a close-up of the dovetail itself with the light stop in place
Monocular heads of this kind, the ones LOMO originally fitted these light baffles into, can be found in the following microscopes, among others:
- Lomo Erudit (ЛОМО Эрудит)
- Lomo Biolam 70
- Lomo Micmed-1
- Lomo Biolam Д1 / Д2 / Д3 / Д11 / Д12 / Д13 (D series - portable)
- Lomo Biolam C1 / C2 / C3 / C11 / C12 / C13 (S series - for students)
- Lomo Biolam P1 / P2 / P3 / P4 / P5 / P6 / P7 / P11 / P12 / P13 / P14 / P15 / P16 / P17 (R series - working microscopes)
- the microscopes sold in Germany under the names Bresser Biolam and Bresser Erudit, including the newest ones with illumination integrated into the base
- and the same microscopes sold in the United Kingdom under the name Zenith Biolam
Some of the microscope versions listed above were originally sold with the LOMO AU-12 binocular head, yet on the second-hand market they often turn up with monocular heads. That is exactly why I have listed them here.
ЛОМО marked the series in Cyrillic letters, so the letter engraved on the microscope does not always mean what it seems to mean at first glance: Д stands for the Latin D, but the Russian C is read as S and the Russian P as R.
The same models in the notation used on Western markets:
- Lomo Biolam D-1 / D-2 / D-3
- Lomo Biolam S-1 / S-2 / S-3
- Lomo Biolam R-1 / R-2 / R-3 / R-4 / R-5 / R-6 / R-7
- Lomo Biolam D-11 / D-12 / D-13
- Lomo Biolam S-11 / S-12 / S-13
- Lomo Biolam R-11 / R-12 / R-13 / R-14 / R-15 / R-16 / R-17
You will find a comparison table of the first generation Lomo Biolam microscope models (with one digit in the model name) here: https://www.microscopeparts.eu/photo/99964-1.
You will find a comparison table of the second generation Lomo Biolam microscope models (with two digits in the model name) here: https://www.microscopeparts.eu/photo/99983-5.
What is this part needed for?
- as a service part to fit into the monocular head of a LOMO Biolam microscope, when the head you are using has no glare stop or a damaged one
