Michael Hooker Microscopy Facility (MHMF.ORG)

Known Bugs: Zeiss 510 Meta

Zeiss 510 Confocal Users,

With the implementation of this new instrument, several software/hardware bugs have already been identified. Please be patient with this instrument while we attempt to alleviate bugs as they are discovered.  If you think you have identified a new bug, please bring it to the attention of Michael. 

For new users it is important to follow the "Instructions for first-time use of the Zeiss LSM510 software", posted on the Hooker Microscopy website, in order to customize user-specific settings to your individual preferences and alleviate immediately one of the bugs already identified (the bug associated with unwanted objective changing).

So far the following bugs have been identified together with comments on them from Elise Shumsky at Zeiss:

-Machine exhibits massive defocus when changing between certain modes eg between VIS/LSM and vice versa.

One can temporarily fix this by keeping the microscope control window open when switching from LSM to VIS and if the tube lens does not switch to 1X - then change it manually.

This bug has is caused by the inability of the software to correctly track the status of a 1X lens that must be added for VIS and removed for LSM Scan. Keep an eye on the microscope dialog, in which you can see the current status of the tube lens. The work around as follows: if the tube lens config does not correctly match the VIS/LSM mode, then change it before you mess with the focus knob.

-Unwanted substitution of lenses when switching between multitrack and single track. (fixable, see above)

Attached you will find "Instructions for first-time use of the Zeiss LSM510 software" which contains setup of default values for new users. IF you don't turn off the "objective" check box in "recordings/reuse tab then the objective that happened to be in place when that configuration was stored will move into place. This is easily corrected but must be set in the default one time for EVERY new user you create. Please use the above instruction to set these default setting for each user to have smooth operation of the system.

-Unwanted resizing of image between almost every successive start-stop of scanning.

This is a known issue if you open a new image window. Make sure you keep the same image window unless you are storing and it won't resize.

-Does not remember last anchor set point for many dialog boxes.

Function of windows 2000.

-Anchor points for many dialogs are annoyingly fixed and unmovable (eg meta channel settings dialog), or else are linked to the anchor point of another dialog e.g. the meta channel settings dialog anchor point is somehow tied to position of the configuration control dialog in some strange and unpredictable way.

They are aware of this and will make this more flexible in future release. Sebastian our product manager for meta has commented on this quite extensively to Germany.

-Configuration pull-down in Single track mode displays the top of the list entry, not the current default config. This is confusing to the user who may think that his config choice has not been implemented. Furthermore, nowhere on the user interface does it display the name of the current config.

This complaint has been voiced to Zeiss and they are considering implementing a change in the software to correct it. In the meantime it is also useful to know that the current single track config is correctly displayed if you look in the multitrack config!!

		Copyright 2001-2014  Dr. M. Chua, Program in Molecular Biology & Biotechnology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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