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To check the stage, slide down the hatch on the front of the microscope chamber. If it is hard to see, turn on the LED by rotating the white dial on top of the chamber clockwise. You will hear a click when the switch turns on, after which the dial increases the brightness of the light. The LED can also be switched on and off using the foot switch. If you turn the dial on and see no light, try pressing down the foot switch.

The DM6 is a fixed stage microscope, which means that the objective lens nosepiece moves up and down when the focus is adjusted and not the stage. This unusual design is used for techniques where the sample must be kept very stable, such as electrophysiological experiments; where probes might be inserted into the specimen.

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Raise the microscope nosepiece

To avoid the possibility of damage to the objective lens during stage initialisation, raise the focus so the objective lens is far away from the stage. There are no focus knobs on the microscope stand itself but there are coarse and fine focus knobs on the STP8000 controller. The inner of the two focus knobs is the coarse focus.

The DM6 is a fixed stage microscope, which means that the stage doesn’t move when the focus is changed. Instead, it’s the objective lens nosepiece that moves up and down. Fixed stage microscopes are used for experiments where the sample must be kept very stable, such as electrophysiological experiments where there may be probes inserted into the specimen that could be moved or damaged if the stage moves up or down. The fixed stage configuration also allows the user to change stage types and raise or lower the stage to accommodate different sized specimens.

To prevent damage to the brightfield condenser as the stage initialises, lower the condenser by rotating its focus knob anticlockwise until the front lens is clear of the bottom of the stage.

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