Olympus has introduced the BX3 range of upright clinical microscopes featuring the BX43 system microscope and the BX46 ergonomic screening microscope for clinical microscopy applications.
The BX3 clinical microscopes incorporate the Olympus UIS2 optical components, and are adaptable, ensuring a high level of imaging flexibility and ergonomic operation.
In combination with numerous motorisation and contrast options, intuitive Labsens software and the Olympus digital imaging camera range, the BX3 microscopes are digital documentation and future-lab-ready, enabling microscope systems to adapt in line with changing workflow requirements.
The true-colour LED illumination system is said to have a unique wavelength profile, which provides a colour rendering index matching that of a halogen bulb with a daylight filter.
This makes it ideal for high colour clarity across the entire range of bright-field stains.
The true-colour LED system is controlled by the Light Intensity Manager (LIM), which automatically adjusts the intensity to user-defined levels on each objective change, therefore removing the need for manual adjustment and making screening more efficient.
As well as offering this true-colour capability, users also benefit from the approximately 20,000-hour life-span and minimal power consumption associated with LEDs, providing low running costs and reduced downtime.
In addition to the 'ergo-tube', the BX3 microscopes are available with a tilting/lifting observation tube that provides adjustment in three dimensions: eyepiece tilt -3deg to +27deg), tube extension (backwards/forwards) of 55mm, and lifting of 45mm.
The BX46 also features an ultra-low (only 128mm above the desk surface) fixed low-torque stage with ergo-grip controls.
This ensures that the movements and force required by the operator are minimised as their arms can remain on the desk at all times - even placing a sample on the stage requires very little effort, according to Olympus.
As a result of these features, each user can set up the microscope to match their ideal, ergonomically correct posture, rather than adapting themselves to the microscope.
This increases screening efficiency as the microscope is more comfortable to use and therefore induces less musculo-skeletal stress on the user.
As well as integrating UIS2 optical components, the BX3 range has also been optically optimised to improve workflows.
For example, the wide-range condenser accommodates magnifications from 2-100x without requiring a swing-top lens.
This cuts out one of the common and time-consuming steps of microscope screening, offering efficiency improvements.
The BX3 range also features coded nosepiece and mirror turret modules, enabling users to automatically record and share microscope magnification and setting information for comparing, measuring and scaling images.
This readout provides the correct metadata automatically to the Olympus Labsens software packages, as well as the standalone DP21 digital imaging camera, ensuring no mistakes or scaling errors are made when documenting images.
Olympus said the BX3 range of clinical microscopes is ideal for covering all the current clinical requirements and protocols.
More importantly, it is also future-proof.
The modular nature of BX43 ensures that it can facilitate multiple capabilities, including good fluorescence imaging, for which the incorporation of a fly-eye lens system provides superior illumination homogeneity.
The full range of Olympus digital imaging cameras is available for the BX3, enabling every imaging requirement to be met.
In addition, a series of motorisation options, combined with the Labsens software packages, ensure that the user can automate the features they want to.
Olympus also offers customisable, dual-observation and multi-discussion units for laboratory conferencing.
In addition, if fitted with a digital imaging camera and the Labsens software, the BX3 microscopes can essentially act as a netcam.
Using standard TCP/IP protocols, the Labsens netcam solution enables the transfer for live and stored images throughout the network from one source to any number of destinations for teaching, mentoring or supervision.
The BX3 clinical microscopes form part of the broader range of Olympus BX3 upright microscope systems, with the research-focused BX53 and the fully motorised BX63.
In addition, the VS110 provides advanced virtual slide capabilities, scanning entire slides at high resolution in X, Y and Z and enabling them to be navigated on screen as if actually reviewing the original slide.
