[3dem] Film magazine in the FEI Titan microscope

[Joaquin Ortega]

Dear 3DEM community,

We recently got our FEI Titan microscope installed. Yesterday, we  put  
the film magazine in the microscope for the first time and encounter  
the problem that the microscope was not able to reach enough vacuum to  
be operational. After 4 hours wait the vacuum system quit and vented  
the projection camera.

Thinking that the film may be still a bit wet (after 2 days in the  
desiccator!), we put an empty magazine with no film on it and also in  
this case the microscope did not recover the vacuum either. When we  
removed the film magazine from the projection camera the microscope  
reached operational vacuum in 30 minutes.

We also tried to put only either the upper or lower part of the  
magazine inside the projection chamber to test whether the magazine  
may be creating a leak in the piston that drives the cassette plate in  
and out of the screen. In all these cases the microscope did not  
recover vacuum.

I was wondering whether any of the Titan or FEI microscopes users in  
the community encounter a similar problem and have any suggestion on  
how to solve the issue.

Thanks for your help


Joaquin Ortega. Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
1200 Main Street West
Health Sciences Centre. Room 4H24
Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences
McMaster University
Hamilton. ON Canada L8N3Z5

phone: 905-525 9140 x22703.
fax: 905-522 9033.
e-mail: ortegaj at mcmaster.ca