what's crazy is that there are definitely other microscopes that have come and gone that are probably as good or better. usually a lot larger though...
@@projectsinflight RUclips decided to grace my feed with your presence, and I couldn't be happier! I absolutely love long repair videos made about super technical lab equipment. Keep it coming.
I've always wondered if SEM/STEM would benefit from some of the same algorithms used in astrophotography. With AP we usually have to take many long exposures, then combine them in software to get a SNR that's remotely decent. It gets even more complicated when you use filters and a monochrome camera. Also, the software usually has functionality to align the images based on the detected stars in the image, and the more advanced algorithms can even stretch and squish your images to account for things like sensor tilt, optical distortions, etc. That part would be more difficult with SEM images, but it's certainly doable, and you don't have the problem of a moving target. Since you're only scanning at one beam energy level at a time, I wonder if it'd be possible (or even sensible) to take the same image at different beam energies, then treat those like RGB channels. These are just idle thoughts, I doubt they're very original and likely other people have already attempted it, but it's the sort of thing I'm interested in.
Considering that a SEM image is still nothing more than a Matrix of intensities, it is generally possible to apply all the same CV algorithms for things like feature detection, stitching or similar. It should be noted, though, that stuff like calculating homographies (e.g. for panorama stitching) gets harder, the smaller the imaged area is, obviously. So if you go with a higher magnification, many algorithms need to be more sophisticated. Would be an interesting project to implement a bit of CV sugar with the SEM!
Interesting idea... I suspect that it would be useful to overlay different images, but only at the same beam energy. I do not know if it would be useful to do it at different beam energies. The reason is that at different beam energies, the amount of surface detail actually changes, and so at lower kV you see more detail, but have more chromatic aberrations in the lens. so you'd be trying to overlay different but equally valid images. It's a really intriguing idea and kinda makes my brain hurt thinking about exactly how you'd go about solving that one. I should definitely look this one up to see if others have tried
@projectsinflight I'd be willing to spend some time messing with it if I had some of your images. I've been tinkering with some of the Python libraries out there for this sort of thing for astro so I can build my own software for automatically importing, organizing, calibrating, and doing a "first pass" processing before I bring it into tools I know are beyond my skill to replicate. I'd have to put together a plan of what to capture to be truly able to tell if it improves image quality, but I also wouldn't be surprised if better software already exists. SEM image processing isn't exactly something I've come across in my career as a software developer. It'd also be a lot of work on your end to capture a bunch of different exposures, and you may be happy with the quality you already have. Astrophotography is a masochistic hobby so I wouldn't mind doing it, but that's not universally considered fun.
Quite a lot of the algorithms for SNR increase used in astrophotography are already used in modern EMs. There are even more advanced techniques avalible for electron microscopes when compared to astrophotography. At lest compared to advanced amature astrophotography.
Heya, awesome project! The old computer probably still has a harddrive in it (spinning rust), which tends to significantly degrade over time. I'd highly recommend to make a backup and/or transfer the drive onto a modern disk/SSD
good news, i have imaged the disk! though i'd really like to replace the computer with a more modern one or make my own capture device. this thing is really clunky lol
I did a course in SEM and X-ray refraction at uni. Such cool machines. I love how the fixes were generally simple things. Old transformer, kinked wires, dirty contacts. Great to see you got it going. 👍
It's amazing to see this old tech running again! I would love to see more videos about improving the SEM. I bet you could hook into the scanning logic and turn it into an electron beam lithography writer. Breaking Taps had success with using regular acrylic as a resist.
Find a better shielded matching set of AV cables, I suspect there is a leakage with the black/yellow video cable you added, makes sure the PC and PSU fans are clean, maybe noise being generated by failing capacitors, or CPU thermal throttling and activating the fans, I recommend a fan-less heatsink
@@projectsinflight A guitar shop is the bets place for real cables, real copper and proper shielding, online is a joke, bring a magnet and test your wires, trust no shop either lol
If you ever need a complex part machined for this SEM project, please DM me! I own a small 1 man, 5 axic cnc machine shop and I would love to help out this or any other similary cool projects.
Thank you! That is really generous. I definitely have at least one thing I need to make for it soon! feel free to email me (channel name + gmail) if you'd like
Great work. I almost bought an electron microscope for hobby use a while back, but it was a tunneling microscope instead of scanning, and the tunneling would have degraded the sample I was hoping to use it for. For vibrations, you can get air cushions for the vacuum pump, but something that is also done is to get a 5gal bucket, fill it with concrete, and put a U shaped stainless tube it. With this between the roughing pump and the SEM it will absorb vibrations from the mechanical pump. The further away the mechanical pump is the better too.
Oh yeah- I definitely want to make that (or the hockey puck metal version). I also need to figure out how to reduce the flow rate of the chiller as well...
Congrats on getting it running and honestly can’t wait to see what you do with it. Also the “Cards” are likely the Cardinals though Baseball vs Football is up for debate.
Incredible fix, quality production value and thank god all the elbow grease did lead to great result. I would strongly recommend you backup(raw dump) the hard drives in that companion PC and verify if everything can be restored to another disk, in case the old spinner decided to bite the dust. Including testing the software, to make sure the software doesn't have strict DRM. (i.e. license tied to the exact hard drive or motherboard serial number)
I imaged the hard drive thankfully. I don't know if it's tied to the MB. definitely something I should check on. The software is pretty ancient and clunky, so i am actually hoping to reverse engineer it and make my own capture device.
word of warning, be careful with the window of the EDX (Energy Dispersive X-Ray spectrometer) window. Its only a few micrometers thick and usually made of either beryllium or a polymer (such as formvar). This window isolates the vacuum in the detector and Dewar from that of the SEM in order to allow sample changes without turning the detector into an Icicle. You will also likely need to recalibrate the detector when you first use it, haven't used that model in a while but in general, you put in a pure piece of copper, polished if possible, normal to the beam, then use the K and L peaks to set gain and offset. Also, the cathode in that model of SEM should last between 20 and 200 hours. its a Type K cathode if i recall correctly. Congrats on the microscopes first light. Also, if you haven't been told yet, keep the electron gun and its components spotlessly clean. Use a very weak abrasive slurry and cotton to polish the parts. There are various compounds that are suited and many that aren't. There is a Scouring agent in Germany made by Sidol which i recommend to new users, as its difficult to fubar a Wehnelt or anode with it, but it takes a bit longer to clean then using diamond or aluminum oxide polishing compounds. Basically, you need to be able to get everything off the Wehnelt and anode and keep the gun exceptionally clean.
Cool! I start in January on my SEM, an AMR model 1000A which has been used for the last time about 10y ago. Curious how long that's going to take considering I know really zip about sems...
Thank you very much for your videos, I absolutely love how you make it easy to understand for everyone ! As a beginner in analog design, I think semiconductor fabrication process is interesting but often hard to approach without the necessary background.
Yeah, being honest here its probably not something I'd recommend to everyone. It's brutally difficult and time consuming at the current time. We need a lot of people to do some more open-source work to get the hobby to the state where it's easier
Well done and great job on the restoration, great video, I have seen something by you before but this sort of content is worth a sub from me. A pro-tip with torroidal transformers, you can add turns to the primary by simply winding insulated wire through the core. Add 10 turns and see how the output changes. On the output you can do the same, use a thick enough wire and you can add or subtract voltage by connecting the extra turns in or out of phase. Do not 'subtract' turns from the primary as you may saturate the core. I missed buying a SEM on a local auction. I had no place to store it at the time but gambled EUR800 and it sold for EUR810 so someone else was the luky new owner. It was a generation older JEOL unit, very similar though. Have a basement with garage access now si I have a chance to install one and always keep an eye out on auction sites. The problem is that even a scrap unit will usually sell for EUR1000 or so as the pumps and accessories or spare modules are worth about that much sight unseen. Then there is the cost of moving to consider if it is further afield. Very few come up for sale in Finland and I may have to find one in Europe one day and rent a van for a road trip as I like the idea of having one.
you might have some luck on surplus sites, or honestly maybe you could just get your foot in the door asking labs or educational institutions directly. you never know...
Congratulations! It reminded me of my microscopes. The last one is a Nikon Microphot, which I bought in very bad condition, but with some effort, it's a great equipment now. There isn't any screw in it, which I didn't remove once. My dream was the DIC, and I got a proper set in the beginning of the year. I'm happy because, for me, this is the maximum I can reach in microscopy, I don't have to look over the used ones on the internet. Maybe one day a confocal one... :))
I have no words to describe how incredible this work was, congrats! And congratulations especially to the Discord community, who were certainly crucial to the success of the project.
13:00 "... in percent instead of an _actual_ pressure unit, like torr" I can accept your insult of bar and pascal if you can explain what the difference between torr and mmHg is. And if you then can repeat that statement from the video without laughing out loud ;) Edit: awesome work on the SEM, good video!
For whatever reason, most of the components and stuff involving vacuum that i've seen deals with Torr rather than Si units. Probably a legacy thing. Honestly I prefer it at this point, kinda like how I still measure the temp in F when dealing with weather and baking, even though I use C for everything else.
That must have been a whole lot of an incredible experience, living your life and watch how all those parts of the machine are steady getting functional again. You have some very unique set of quite useful skills, which i have NOT seen distributed among our population in larger numbers, especcially not very often in this combination, beside the regular look into the mirror. I wish i could add a larger desktop microscope to my toolbox, but i don't see any possibility right now. Maybe there is someone in Germany, who wants to donate their beloved microscope into a better future, where it will archiv|e uncounted interesting new experiencea. Just drop me a note and make my days even more beautiful. I hope that everyone will allways try to learn new skills and will be finally able to review these experiencea with a big smile. ❤
Well, I know for sure that the RP protection valve is working correctly, as I have definitely crashed the vacuum several times and it has protected the diffusion pump. Regarding the X-ray shielding... I have done some rudimentary testing with a pancake geiger counter that *should* be capable of detecting low energy X-rays, but I am looking to borrow a X-ray spectrometer to get a more definitive answer.
I dreamed about one too for over 10 years- you'll get there! In the meantime, if you've got something you'd really like to image, shoot me an email or comment! (email is the same as channel name + gmail dot com)
Great video. It's such a shame that a project that is so long only justifies such as short video about it. I wondered if you couldn't use standard 120 Transformers and the convert it to a 120 machine or is the 100 V somewhere used directly?
oh don't worry, i've got more plans and more videos in the works. there's much to be done. regarding the 120v question- I could replace transformer T1 as well, which would allow all the DC supplies to run off 120V instead of 100V, but there are actually several items such as motors that run off specifically 100V and would not be replaceable easily, so i kept the 100V. I definitely considered it though...
Wow. You did what I am dreaming of doing; Not for microscopy but electron lithography, though. I really, REALLY enjoyed this video. Only after watching I realized how small your channel still is, so you got a new Patreon now! Already looking forward to your next Video!
Nice, looks like you can probably use the video out to actually do video capture directly from the microscope... But it will probably not be a standard NTSC format...
the old pump actually fits exactly inside the SEM and so there was a lot of motivation to make it work for that reason alone. plus it's actually remarkably quiet. but yeah... i probably shouldn't have wasted so long on it lol
For anyone wondering, to capture the slow scan mode images there were rigs to hold cameras meant to capture the image on the CRT screen. So youd turn all the lights off, expose the film, and let it slowly scan capturing the higher res image onto a film frame. Ben over on Applied Science has a video on his SEM revival where he rigged up a similar set up. Also, GOD DAMMIT IM JEALOUS AS FRIGG FREE ELECTRON MICROSCOPE YOU SUCK YOU LUCKY DUCK!!!! Also also, Ive heard you can read data from ICs or pieces of HDD platter with a SEM. Maybe take a look at that? Thad be neat to see!
That's amazing. SEMs don't have to be that large anymore, though. There is such a thing called tabletop SEMs. Still tens of thousands of dollars but compared to the typical half a million they're ALMOST affordable. Like, if you were not planning on buying a new car in the next 10 years, you could get a Phenom or a Hitachi tabletop. The guy from the Breaking Taps channel does his SEM images on a Phenom tabletop IIRC. The Chinese are just getting into that market. Maybe one of these days we'll see just like with the mini lathe and mini mill a mini SEM for less than ten thousand. I imagine it actually might be possible. In the most basic sense you need a vacuum chamber, a roughing pump, a high vacuum stage, an electron gun and an imaging detector. All of these components in themselves could be acquired for about a thousand each. So, a mini SEM could be viable for less than ten, if you're not planning on making any profit, ha.
Yep, as each of the components becomes a commodity item used in large volumes the price drops. The availability of control hardware, I/O and software has plummeted and no longer needs to be fully custom designed saving a lot of money for new startups. Also the patents are expired and the theory is pretty much well understood letting smaller companies try to compete. I love the way China is prepared and able to build to a price when the technology is mature. Modern SEM gear is phenomenal and some let you image at higher pressures so you can do biological samples with less preparation and obviously higher resolution and all the XRF stuff. This means the basic equipment is no longer of much interest to thebig players and there is a market opening for new 'budget' SEMs. I look forward to them flooding the market and reaching the used market.
Really great video, so interesting . and btw. I really like the video format, hope you didn't use to much time for the percentage to pressure conversions ;) And congrats on the SEM! :)
I wrote the comment before I completely watching your video, if you haven't already watched "breaking taps" I highly recommend the channel, he does a lot of semiconductor things, and does a lot of SEM shots, maybe future inspiration? (I do not know if this is possible) i would love to see particles of cyclodextrins, they are macro-molecules, maybe you can see something interesting on your SEM? maybe not?
Make sure to clone the hard drive of that PC! If it's using an ATA or SCSI hard drive you can get adapters that will let you use a (relatively) modern SSD instead.
there are special types of SEMs that have a cryo cooled stage which could probably image a superconductor at superconducting temperatures. or did you mean just image a superconductor at room temp? i could definitely to that
@@projectsinflight My thought was rather to cool down a as high as possible Temperature super conductor down as much as possible, before putting it in in hopes that it stays cold enough until the scanning can begin.
Hmm... I see one potential issue. The protective plastic layer on the top would need to be removed first, since it would block the electron beam. Not sure how to remove it without damaging what's underneath...
@@projectsinflight Warm paint-striper (DCM should be used in a fume hood or outside) jetted onto the lacquer (printed) side should leave you with a aluminised stamped disk on a CD if all goes well Not sure if this can be done on a DVD.
Great work and video! I also own a SEM (Cambridge instruments Stereo scan 260) that I'm working on. Is it possible to get an invite to the discord server somehow?
That requires a beam blanker. This machine dose not have one. The gun alignment coils could be misused for that purpose though. But it can and likely will burn them up with long write cycles. It can be done but i do not recommend it.
28:35 🎉 I gasped seeing that! Beautiful! 4:20 But OF COURSE there is such a discord 😂 Honestly, of all things the internet brought us, communities about niche and nerdy topics is the best.
Hello, I am in the painful process of trying to restore an old JSM6400 I saved from the scrapyard. It is quite stubborn and not willing to boot. I would like to join the Discord server you mentioned. I am quite new to Discord. I guess I need to be invited to join? Thank you for your advice!
15:30 I think you are mixing up diffusion pump and turbo pump. Having a diffusion pump exposed to atmosphere does nothing. On a turbo on the other hand, it can get expensive.
crazy how everything was broken this machine must have been used half broken before it was fully broken or could just be that it was stored too long after one part broke the machine
based on the info I got from the Lab and directly from the JEOL service reps, it seems that the unit "slowly lost contrast over time" which makes me think that the transformer issue might have been inflicted during the possible repair attempts. If that's the case then it means that the original thing that did the unit in was possibly just the issue with the cable, which is kinda hilarious. A $5 part took down a $100k machine...
I've actually seen a fair number of SEM's that are ostensibly in working condition for sale but rarely the 5200s for some reason, even though they used to be very common. Either they break before they are old enough to sell off, or they are still being used lol
@projectsinflight I am trying to self justify it for my mycology lab ( jk it is more for the huge side interest of looking at the fractal toroidal implosion imprints of implosion devices(ultrasonic bubble cavitation), check out Martin Fleishman memorial project)
@@projectsinflight What is special about the JSM5200 besides having a DIY user base now? I have seen older ones come up for sale and have wondered at what point the cincreased omplexity makes repair harder than the age of the units?
@@projectsinflightdepends on your resolution goal. Easiest would be a 1 condensor 3 image lens TEM. Also be warned that sample thickness must be below 100nm to even be able to see anything with reasonably low voltages (
it's insane how these days we have tiny desktop SEMs that are also faster and more accurate.... too bad they break all the time and are unrepairable.... (i had a bad experience with a phenom proX)
I actually had to run an extension cable and put the machine on two separate circuits because of how much power this thing uses: Diffusion pump: 500W Chiller: 500W Rotary pump: 500W SEM (other electronics): 200W Computer: 300W It's a lot...
Good lord that's cool. I'd love to see some failure analysis if you happen to have things that break. But I'll admit that I'm currently enamored of material engineering. That said, your next big goal should be to design and fab an ASIC to handle the video signal. (Kidding not kidding.)
@@projectsinflight If I had to guess someone may have done something in MatLab or LabView already. At slow scan the demands of the capture device are very modest. Even a PRO Audio ADC with lots of bits would do the job and all you have to do is figure out how the synchronisation is done or recover it from the video signal with fuzzy logic.
@@KallePihlajasaari Yeah. The standard scan rate seems pretty trivial. But getting the hardware to gracefully handle a variety of different scan rates (especially if it's a continuum rather than several discrete rates) would be a fun problem.
@@projectsinflight you could put a relay in place where the old transformer was connected, and use that to turn on power to the new transformers. But as you already have everything done, this may be just advice for someone with a similar problem.
Yeah, they are very tempting. However, they typically don't go up for sale often, and when they do they sometimes are broken in ways that are impossible to fix. It actually seems more likely to find a decent full size sem.
I plan to upgrade the computer capture device first. Other than that I want to upgrade some of the board-level components to fix the noise issue, but I don't have any long term plans to do any other updates
To be honest, i had some mixed feelings about it. I think they did their best to try and get it working, but also I don't really think they took great care of it, nor did they dedicate enough time to actually trying to fix it. basically what happened was they tried for a while, and gave up. They probably didn't know how much time it would take to repair and decided it just wasn't worth the risk of being a money pit. good thing my time wasn't as valuable lol
@@projectsinflightbe careful, if you dont have a beam blanker, and intend to use the beam alignment coils for blanking, then be careful as you can burn them up with relative ease.
big nostalgia from when applied science started showing his EM
Ben definitely had a huge impact on my desire to get my own SEM!
That’s wild! Congrats on the Craigslist score of a lifetime!
what's crazy is that there are definitely other microscopes that have come and gone that are probably as good or better. usually a lot larger though...
Videos on this channel are my favorite TV Show now, definitely.
Thanks, it means a lot that people like the videos i've made :)
@@projectsinflight RUclips decided to grace my feed with your presence, and I couldn't be happier! I absolutely love long repair videos made about super technical lab equipment. Keep it coming.
I've always wondered if SEM/STEM would benefit from some of the same algorithms used in astrophotography. With AP we usually have to take many long exposures, then combine them in software to get a SNR that's remotely decent. It gets even more complicated when you use filters and a monochrome camera. Also, the software usually has functionality to align the images based on the detected stars in the image, and the more advanced algorithms can even stretch and squish your images to account for things like sensor tilt, optical distortions, etc. That part would be more difficult with SEM images, but it's certainly doable, and you don't have the problem of a moving target.
Since you're only scanning at one beam energy level at a time, I wonder if it'd be possible (or even sensible) to take the same image at different beam energies, then treat those like RGB channels.
These are just idle thoughts, I doubt they're very original and likely other people have already attempted it, but it's the sort of thing I'm interested in.
Considering that a SEM image is still nothing more than a Matrix of intensities, it is generally possible to apply all the same CV algorithms for things like feature detection, stitching or similar. It should be noted, though, that stuff like calculating homographies (e.g. for panorama stitching) gets harder, the smaller the imaged area is, obviously. So if you go with a higher magnification, many algorithms need to be more sophisticated.
Would be an interesting project to implement a bit of CV sugar with the SEM!
Interesting idea... I suspect that it would be useful to overlay different images, but only at the same beam energy.
I do not know if it would be useful to do it at different beam energies. The reason is that at different beam energies, the amount of surface detail actually changes, and so at lower kV you see more detail, but have more chromatic aberrations in the lens. so you'd be trying to overlay different but equally valid images. It's a really intriguing idea and kinda makes my brain hurt thinking about exactly how you'd go about solving that one.
I should definitely look this one up to see if others have tried
@projectsinflight I'd be willing to spend some time messing with it if I had some of your images. I've been tinkering with some of the Python libraries out there for this sort of thing for astro so I can build my own software for automatically importing, organizing, calibrating, and doing a "first pass" processing before I bring it into tools I know are beyond my skill to replicate.
I'd have to put together a plan of what to capture to be truly able to tell if it improves image quality, but I also wouldn't be surprised if better software already exists. SEM image processing isn't exactly something I've come across in my career as a software developer. It'd also be a lot of work on your end to capture a bunch of different exposures, and you may be happy with the quality you already have. Astrophotography is a masochistic hobby so I wouldn't mind doing it, but that's not universally considered fun.
Quite a lot of the algorithms for SNR increase used in astrophotography are already used in modern EMs. There are even more advanced techniques avalible for electron microscopes when compared to astrophotography. At lest compared to advanced amature astrophotography.
So satisfying to see it working in the end, let's see what you do with it!
I have so much planned! First up is gold nanoparticles
Heya, awesome project! The old computer probably still has a harddrive in it (spinning rust), which tends to significantly degrade over time. I'd highly recommend to make a backup and/or transfer the drive onto a modern disk/SSD
good news, i have imaged the disk!
though i'd really like to replace the computer with a more modern one or make my own capture device. this thing is really clunky lol
Congrats! You certainly worked for that outcome, much respect!
Thank you! I've got so much interesting stuff planned for the sem!
great effort, hats off mate
thanks for watching :)
Thank you for sharing this
Very happy to share! I've wanted one for so long and I wanted to show people it was possible (with some luck and help)
I did a course in SEM and X-ray refraction at uni. Such cool machines. I love how the fixes were generally simple things. Old transformer, kinked wires, dirty contacts. Great to see you got it going. 👍
"go cards" likely refers to the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team in STL Missouri USA : )
It's apparently actually the University of Louisville!
It's amazing to see this old tech running again! I would love to see more videos about improving the SEM. I bet you could hook into the scanning logic and turn it into an electron beam lithography writer. Breaking Taps had success with using regular acrylic as a resist.
Oh that is definitely on my list!
Great video and good results! It's nice that you found our SEM group early :)
Thanks! I really appreciate all the support I've gotten from the group. It definitely cut out a lot of time i'd have spent spinning my wheels
Nice machine, is wonderful that you give it a second live
I hope it works for many years to come!
Fascinating. Well done mate. Looking forward to the next video
Me too! I've got so much interesting stuff planned!
27:38
There are actually conductive pads you can apply to broken membrane switches to fix them, but this is also a nice method
This is an awsome project you got yourselve there. Even getting it running is a big acomplishment and I am thrilled to see what you will do with it.
Thank you! I have so many interesting things planned for it!
pls do some e-beam litho, in labs they do features with a few nm resolution using SEMs. :)
I will definitely be trying to do e-beam when I get some more information on how exactly to drive the beam externally
great job! One day i'lll have my own as well
Check the allsurplus website if you are interested. I see a lot of interesting prospects there.
Find a better shielded matching set of AV cables, I suspect there is a leakage with the black/yellow video cable you added, makes sure the PC and PSU fans are clean, maybe noise being generated by failing capacitors, or CPU thermal throttling and activating the fans, I recommend a fan-less heatsink
working on it! I don't really know where i'd find better ones though
@@projectsinflight A guitar shop is the bets place for real cables, real copper and proper shielding, online is a joke, bring a magnet and test your wires, trust no shop either lol
@@projectsinflight Noctua NH-P1, Passive CPU Cooler
If you ever need a complex part machined for this SEM project, please DM me! I own a small 1 man, 5 axic cnc machine shop and I would love to help out this or any other similary cool projects.
Thank you! That is really generous. I definitely have at least one thing I need to make for it soon! feel free to email me (channel name + gmail) if you'd like
Great work. I almost bought an electron microscope for hobby use a while back, but it was a tunneling microscope instead of scanning, and the tunneling would have degraded the sample I was hoping to use it for.
For vibrations, you can get air cushions for the vacuum pump, but something that is also done is to get a 5gal bucket, fill it with concrete, and put a U shaped stainless tube it. With this between the roughing pump and the SEM it will absorb vibrations from the mechanical pump. The further away the mechanical pump is the better too.
Oh yeah- I definitely want to make that (or the hockey puck metal version). I also need to figure out how to reduce the flow rate of the chiller as well...
This is incredibly cool. Congrats for bringing this beauty back to life!!
I'm really interested on stuff you would do with this SEM. Excited for future projects!!
Congratulations this is awesome!
Congrats on getting it running and honestly can’t wait to see what you do with it.
Also the “Cards” are likely the Cardinals though Baseball vs Football is up for debate.
That was my first thought, but i think it is actually the team from the university of Louisville
Very good. Bravo.
Dude, the journey is fantastic.
Incredible fix, quality production value and thank god all the elbow grease did lead to great result.
I would strongly recommend you backup(raw dump) the hard drives in that companion PC and verify if everything can be restored to another disk, in case the old spinner decided to bite the dust. Including testing the software, to make sure the software doesn't have strict DRM. (i.e. license tied to the exact hard drive or motherboard serial number)
I imaged the hard drive thankfully. I don't know if it's tied to the MB. definitely something I should check on. The software is pretty ancient and clunky, so i am actually hoping to reverse engineer it and make my own capture device.
word of warning, be careful with the window of the EDX (Energy Dispersive X-Ray spectrometer) window. Its only a few micrometers thick and usually made of either beryllium or a polymer (such as formvar). This window isolates the vacuum in the detector and Dewar from that of the SEM in order to allow sample changes without turning the detector into an Icicle. You will also likely need to recalibrate the detector when you first use it, haven't used that model in a while but in general, you put in a pure piece of copper, polished if possible, normal to the beam, then use the K and L peaks to set gain and offset.
Also, the cathode in that model of SEM should last between 20 and 200 hours. its a Type K cathode if i recall correctly. Congrats on the microscopes first light.
Also, if you haven't been told yet, keep the electron gun and its components spotlessly clean. Use a very weak abrasive slurry and cotton to polish the parts. There are various compounds that are suited and many that aren't. There is a Scouring agent in Germany made by Sidol which i recommend to new users, as its difficult to fubar a Wehnelt or anode with it, but it takes a bit longer to clean then using diamond or aluminum oxide polishing compounds. Basically, you need to be able to get everything off the Wehnelt and anode and keep the gun exceptionally clean.
What a satisfying video. I enjoyed the walkthrough of each troubleshooting step.
Glad you enjoyed it! I wish i could have gone into even more detail- there was a lot left out
Cool! I start in January on my SEM, an AMR model 1000A which has been used for the last time about 10y ago. Curious how long that's going to take considering I know really zip about sems...
if you want access to the SEM discord, message the admin (@nmz787). Definitely recommend joining and being part of this community :)
Thank you very much for your videos, I absolutely love how you make it easy to understand for everyone ! As a beginner in analog design, I think semiconductor fabrication process is interesting but often hard to approach without the necessary background.
Yeah, being honest here its probably not something I'd recommend to everyone. It's brutally difficult and time consuming at the current time. We need a lot of people to do some more open-source work to get the hobby to the state where it's easier
Well done and great job on the restoration, great video, I have seen something by you before but this sort of content is worth a sub from me.
A pro-tip with torroidal transformers, you can add turns to the primary by simply winding insulated wire through the core. Add 10 turns and see how the output changes. On the output you can do the same, use a thick enough wire and you can add or subtract voltage by connecting the extra turns in or out of phase. Do not 'subtract' turns from the primary as you may saturate the core.
I missed buying a SEM on a local auction. I had no place to store it at the time but gambled EUR800 and it sold for EUR810 so someone else was the luky new owner. It was a generation older JEOL unit, very similar though.
Have a basement with garage access now si I have a chance to install one and always keep an eye out on auction sites.
The problem is that even a scrap unit will usually sell for EUR1000 or so as the pumps and accessories or spare modules are worth about that much sight unseen. Then there is the cost of moving to consider if it is further afield.
Very few come up for sale in Finland and I may have to find one in Europe one day and rent a van for a road trip as I like the idea of having one.
you might have some luck on surplus sites, or honestly maybe you could just get your foot in the door asking labs or educational institutions directly. you never know...
Congratulations! It reminded me of my microscopes. The last one is a Nikon Microphot, which I bought in very bad condition, but with some effort, it's a great equipment now. There isn't any screw in it, which I didn't remove once. My dream was the DIC, and I got a proper set in the beginning of the year. I'm happy because, for me, this is the maximum I can reach in microscopy, I don't have to look over the used ones on the internet. Maybe one day a confocal one... :))
She’s a beautiful machine.
I really like the green CRT :)
I have no words to describe how incredible this work was, congrats! And congratulations especially to the Discord community, who were certainly crucial to the success of the project.
13:00 "... in percent instead of an _actual_ pressure unit, like torr"
I can accept your insult of bar and pascal if you can explain what the difference between torr and mmHg is. And if you then can repeat that statement from the video without laughing out loud ;)
Edit: awesome work on the SEM, good video!
For whatever reason, most of the components and stuff involving vacuum that i've seen deals with Torr rather than Si units. Probably a legacy thing. Honestly I prefer it at this point, kinda like how I still measure the temp in F when dealing with weather and baking, even though I use C for everything else.
Amazing work and video!
Wow those images on the PC!
I'm hoping to improve the image capture and get even better images!
That must have been a whole lot of an incredible experience, living your life and watch how all those parts of the machine are steady getting functional again. You have some very unique set of quite useful skills, which i have NOT seen distributed among our population in larger numbers, especcially not very often in this combination, beside the regular look into the mirror.
I wish i could add a larger desktop microscope to my toolbox, but i don't see any possibility right now. Maybe there is someone in Germany, who wants to donate their beloved microscope into a better future, where it will archiv|e uncounted interesting new experiencea.
Just drop me a note and make my days even more beautiful.
I hope that everyone will allways try to learn new skills and will be finally able to review these experiencea with a big smile. ❤
Nice acquisition. One concern I'd have is whether the shielding is still fully reliable and all the safety interlocks worked correctly.
Well, I know for sure that the RP protection valve is working correctly, as I have definitely crashed the vacuum several times and it has protected the diffusion pump.
Regarding the X-ray shielding... I have done some rudimentary testing with a pancake geiger counter that *should* be capable of detecting low energy X-rays, but I am looking to borrow a X-ray spectrometer to get a more definitive answer.
followed your progress on the discord for a while already and this is such an amazing summary of all the stuff you had to fix. Great job!
i was sad to have to leave so much out, but the video was already so dang long lol
Absolutely fascinating, always dreamt about a SEM myself...man....
I dreamed about one too for over 10 years- you'll get there! In the meantime, if you've got something you'd really like to image, shoot me an email or comment! (email is the same as channel name + gmail dot com)
Great video!
Amazing content. Bravo
Thank you for watching!
That was a big ass fly.
oh yeah he was huuuuge. I actually need a smaller one so i can fit it on the screen lol
Great video. It's such a shame that a project that is so long only justifies such as short video about it.
I wondered if you couldn't use standard 120 Transformers and the convert it to a 120 machine or is the 100 V somewhere used directly?
oh don't worry, i've got more plans and more videos in the works. there's much to be done.
regarding the 120v question- I could replace transformer T1 as well, which would allow all the DC supplies to run off 120V instead of 100V, but there are actually several items such as motors that run off specifically 100V and would not be replaceable easily, so i kept the 100V. I definitely considered it though...
You know what be interesting to see, Nitinol atoms experiencing a phase change (shape memory alloy) under the SEM.
ooh that is a really good idea- i'm putting this on my list
Wow. You did what I am dreaming of doing; Not for microscopy but electron lithography, though.
I really, REALLY enjoyed this video. Only after watching I realized how small your channel still is, so you got a new Patreon now!
Already looking forward to your next Video!
Thank you for the support! I hope to grow the channel over time :)
This is pretty awesome
Thanks for watching! I hope to make more videos about it
Thanks! I have so many plans for this thing!
Nice, looks like you can probably use the video out to actually do video capture directly from the microscope... But it will probably not be a standard NTSC format...
Would you mind showing the diagram of the vacuum system? I can't figure out how it achieves all the configurations described using two valves.
message me on gmail- same as my youtube channel name
It will be nice if you can go through the boards and comment abot circuits and IC used. I think there will be nice AD picoamps amplifiers and BB DACs
TBH i haven't done a ton of evaluation of the amplifier circuits yet. I need to though, since there is clearly some issue with them causing noise
I'm watching you take apart that old pump and screaming - new rotary vane pumps are like $100!! Lol - great work man, very cool stuff!
the old pump actually fits exactly inside the SEM and so there was a lot of motivation to make it work for that reason alone. plus it's actually remarkably quiet. but yeah... i probably shouldn't have wasted so long on it lol
For anyone wondering, to capture the slow scan mode images there were rigs to hold cameras meant to capture the image on the CRT screen. So youd turn all the lights off, expose the film, and let it slowly scan capturing the higher res image onto a film frame. Ben over on Applied Science has a video on his SEM revival where he rigged up a similar set up.
Also, GOD DAMMIT IM JEALOUS AS FRIGG FREE ELECTRON MICROSCOPE YOU SUCK YOU LUCKY DUCK!!!!
Also also, Ive heard you can read data from ICs or pieces of HDD platter with a SEM. Maybe take a look at that? Thad be neat to see!
That's amazing. SEMs don't have to be that large anymore, though. There is such a thing called tabletop SEMs. Still tens of thousands of dollars but compared to the typical half a million they're ALMOST affordable. Like, if you were not planning on buying a new car in the next 10 years, you could get a Phenom or a Hitachi tabletop. The guy from the Breaking Taps channel does his SEM images on a Phenom tabletop IIRC.
The Chinese are just getting into that market. Maybe one of these days we'll see just like with the mini lathe and mini mill a mini SEM for less than ten thousand. I imagine it actually might be possible. In the most basic sense you need a vacuum chamber, a roughing pump, a high vacuum stage, an electron gun and an imaging detector. All of these components in themselves could be acquired for about a thousand each. So, a mini SEM could be viable for less than ten, if you're not planning on making any profit, ha.
Yep, as each of the components becomes a commodity item used in large volumes the price drops. The availability of control hardware, I/O and software has plummeted and no longer needs to be fully custom designed saving a lot of money for new startups. Also the patents are expired and the theory is pretty much well understood letting smaller companies try to compete.
I love the way China is prepared and able to build to a price when the technology is mature. Modern SEM gear is phenomenal and some let you image at higher pressures so you can do biological samples with less preparation and obviously higher resolution and all the XRF stuff. This means the basic equipment is no longer of much interest to thebig players and there is a market opening for new 'budget' SEMs.
I look forward to them flooding the market and reaching the used market.
I am convinced that in the near-ish future a new SEM will be at or below the price of a new car (and not just a Lamborghini lol)
Really great video, so interesting . and btw. I really like the video format, hope you didn't use to much time for the percentage to pressure conversions ;) And congrats on the SEM! :)
I wrote the comment before I completely watching your video, if you haven't already watched "breaking taps" I highly recommend the channel, he does a lot of semiconductor things, and does a lot of SEM shots, maybe future inspiration? (I do not know if this is possible) i would love to see particles of cyclodextrins, they are macro-molecules, maybe you can see something interesting on your SEM? maybe not?
Make sure to clone the hard drive of that PC! If it's using an ATA or SCSI hard drive you can get adapters that will let you use a (relatively) modern SSD instead.
Already taken care of! I should probably replace the HDD though...
pretty awesome
I definitely agree!
This is incredible!!!😁
Thank you! I worked really hard on this one!
Very neat!
Thanks! glad you enjoyed it!
Cool!
Thanks for watching!
Omg he finally got one
Life goal achieved!
Now I want a better one lol...
Can you use it on micro processeur it will Nice
That's one of the things on my list to image when I can!
I haven't even watched the entire video yet, but e-beam lithography when?
as soon as I can figure out how to drive the beam externally!
Super cool!
Thanks! I have lots of interesting plans for this machine :)
Would love to see cell components: nucleus, ribosomes, etc.
It seems like it is possible, but requires a LOT of extra sample prep. I am working on it though, and hope to make a video about it sometime soon
It would be interesting how a super conductor would look like.
there are special types of SEMs that have a cryo cooled stage which could probably image a superconductor at superconducting temperatures. or did you mean just image a superconductor at room temp? i could definitely to that
That is interesting. With the XRF attachment (Big Dewar on the left in some pics) it should be possible to analyse grain boundaries and such.
@@projectsinflight My thought was rather to cool down a as high as possible Temperature super conductor down as much as possible, before putting it in in hopes that it stays cold enough until the scanning can begin.
This makes me want to do the same thing
If you live in the US, allsurplus dot com has a decent influx of old SEMs
Great; thanks!
Thanks for watching!
wow and peace be upon you sir from me
Thanks for watching!
Great work 👍😃 what about testing a piece of blue ray DVD! 😉
Hmm... I see one potential issue. The protective plastic layer on the top would need to be removed first, since it would block the electron beam. Not sure how to remove it without damaging what's underneath...
@@projectsinflight Warm paint-striper (DCM should be used in a fume hood or outside) jetted onto the lacquer (printed) side should leave you with a aluminised stamped disk on a CD if all goes well Not sure if this can be done on a DVD.
LOL that pump is 3 months younger than me.
hehe
Great work and video! I also own a SEM (Cambridge instruments Stereo scan 260) that I'm working on. Is it possible to get an invite to the discord server somehow?
New bro setup
Thank you for watching!
Try to do some E-Beam lithography with it.
That requires a beam blanker. This machine dose not have one. The gun alignment coils could be misused for that purpose though. But it can and likely will burn them up with long write cycles. It can be done but i do not recommend it.
I will probably do some at some point soon, but very rudimentary, as mentioned earlier I don't think I can do beam blanking
28:35 🎉 I gasped seeing that! Beautiful!
4:20 But OF COURSE there is such a discord 😂
Honestly, of all things the internet brought us, communities about niche and nerdy topics is the best.
I am super glad there is a place for every niche on the internet
There are also about 3 or 4 high vacuum discords that I know of. :)
@@stamasd8500 Please share when you have a spare moment.
Hello, I am in the painful process of trying to restore an old JSM6400 I saved from the scrapyard. It is quite stubborn and not willing to boot. I would like to join the Discord server you mentioned. I am quite new to Discord. I guess I need to be invited to join? Thank you for your advice!
message user nmz787 on discord to be added
Amazing
Glad you liked it!
Enhance. Enhance.
I've made the same joke so many times while using this machine lol :)
Hi nice vid,
Was wondering in what website is that "SEM Hackers" group located?
if you have a SEM or are interested in joining the discord message the admin (nmz787)
He mentioned Discord
15:30 I think you are mixing up diffusion pump and turbo pump. Having a diffusion pump exposed to atmosphere does nothing. On a turbo on the other hand, it can get expensive.
if you expose a hot diffusion pump to atmospheric pressures the oil will react and get ruined
crazy how everything was broken
this machine must have been used half broken before it was fully broken
or could just be that it was stored too long after one part broke the machine
based on the info I got from the Lab and directly from the JEOL service reps, it seems that the unit "slowly lost contrast over time" which makes me think that the transformer issue might have been inflicted during the possible repair attempts. If that's the case then it means that the original thing that did the unit in was possibly just the issue with the cable, which is kinda hilarious. A $5 part took down a $100k machine...
how do you not have more subs????
Hopefully it's just a matter of time :)
Hey, i just saw one of these for sale near me in northern bc..
I've actually seen a fair number of SEM's that are ostensibly in working condition for sale but rarely the 5200s for some reason, even though they used to be very common. Either they break before they are old enough to sell off, or they are still being used lol
@projectsinflight I am trying to self justify it for my mycology lab ( jk it is more for the huge side interest of looking at the fractal toroidal implosion imprints of implosion devices(ultrasonic bubble cavitation), check out Martin Fleishman memorial project)
@projectsinflight I think it was amray amr 1000
@@projectsinflight What is special about the JSM5200 besides having a DIY user base now? I have seen older ones come up for sale and have wondered at what point the cincreased omplexity makes repair harder than the age of the units?
Comment for the comment gods. Amazing vid!
Thank you for watching!
Honestly would be cool if you could build one from scratch. Maybe after your chip project.
I have actually looked into building my own TEM. It would be very challenging to make the magnetic lenses... but not impossible.
@@projectsinflightdepends on your resolution goal. Easiest would be a 1 condensor 3 image lens TEM. Also be warned that sample thickness must be below 100nm to even be able to see anything with reasonably low voltages (
it's insane how these days we have tiny desktop SEMs that are also faster and more accurate....
too bad they break all the time and are unrepairable....
(i had a bad experience with a phenom proX)
Yeah i actually saw a phenom for sale but heard they were kinda garbage so i passed.
@@projectsinflight we mostly used it for the element identification features, worked quite well between failures.
That's just bloody unbelievable bro! Well done that you got the old girl back to life! 👏👏👏 What's her name? I'm assuming it's a girl 😂
Oh the switch repair! That was genius! Great video again mate. I was cheering by the end each time something got fixed. Awesome stuff
Do you have your own power plant? lol
I actually had to run an extension cable and put the machine on two separate circuits because of how much power this thing uses:
Diffusion pump: 500W
Chiller: 500W
Rotary pump: 500W
SEM (other electronics): 200W
Computer: 300W
It's a lot...
Good lord that's cool. I'd love to see some failure analysis if you happen to have things that break. But I'll admit that I'm currently enamored of material engineering.
That said, your next big goal should be to design and fab an ASIC to handle the video signal. (Kidding not kidding.)
I'd definitely like to build my own capture device if i can! The software that comes with that PC is abysmal!
@@projectsinflight If I had to guess someone may have done something in MatLab or LabView already. At slow scan the demands of the capture device are very modest. Even a PRO Audio ADC with lots of bits would do the job and all you have to do is figure out how the synchronisation is done or recover it from the video signal with fuzzy logic.
@@KallePihlajasaari Yeah. The standard scan rate seems pretty trivial. But getting the hardware to gracefully handle a variety of different scan rates (especially if it's a continuum rather than several discrete rates) would be a fun problem.
11:00 or you could have powered the new transformers straight from the wall instead of through the variac.
the original transformer is behind some fuses and power sequencing relays, and would have been a bit of a headache to separate those out
@@projectsinflight you could put a relay in place where the old transformer was connected, and use that to turn on power to the new transformers. But as you already have everything done, this may be just advice for someone with a similar problem.
Electron Microscopes are becoming smaller. Some are desktop size.
Yeah, they are very tempting. However, they typically don't go up for sale often, and when they do they sometimes are broken in ways that are impossible to fix. It actually seems more likely to find a decent full size sem.
I would Suggest you to upgrade the machine.....adding advance parts.. and make the overall design modern.
I plan to upgrade the computer capture device first. Other than that I want to upgrade some of the board-level components to fix the noise issue, but I don't have any long term plans to do any other updates
Rip to the people who lend you this machine for free out of exhaustion of not being able to repair by themselves!
They gifted it not loaned
@bgold2007 🤣sry, poor choice of words from me there🤡!
To be honest, i had some mixed feelings about it. I think they did their best to try and get it working, but also I don't really think they took great care of it, nor did they dedicate enough time to actually trying to fix it.
basically what happened was they tried for a while, and gave up. They probably didn't know how much time it would take to repair and decided it just wasn't worth the risk of being a money pit.
good thing my time wasn't as valuable lol
you should try ebeam lithography :D
Definitely on the short-list of things i want to do!
@@projectsinflightbe careful, if you dont have a beam blanker, and intend to use the beam alignment coils for blanking, then be careful as you can burn them up with relative ease.
23:21 that would still be 1 mTorr?
0.1 mTorr
Nice thing that only the simple parts were broken! Awesome!
I mean… The friggin' membrane switches? Really? 😀
this was the first time i've ever seen membrane switches wear out lol