In October 2017 I tried my luck on an Ebay auction and I unexpectedly won an old analog SEM, a Jeol JSM T-100.

I have never thought I could ever be the owner of one of those fascinating machines before taking part to that auction!

The seller was the UK Company Tescan who got the machine from the old owner, the Department of Chemistry of Cambridge University. The microscope was in full working condition before being pulled out.

Arranging a freight from UK to Italy wasn’t actually a joke, but I had the luck to find a very professional company, Pack&Send, who crated the whole thing onto a pallet and shipped by flight. The microscope arrived at my home in a week or so. Not cheap, but the scope arrived in good shape….. and that’s all that matters!

The good thing is that this SEM is actually quite small. The bench is just 100cm wide and the rotary pump and main AC/DC transformer can fit under the desk, so that it’s possible to fit all the parts on a standard pallet for a total weight of around 300Kg.

I had to call a truck with a crane to have the big package lifted downhill into my garage and I also had to buy a transpallet in order to move it…..

Some days after unpacking, cleaning, restoring vacuum and water cooling hoses, the first attempt to turning it on was carried out in my garage!

I had 24 meters of water pipes going back and forth to the sink in my basement…

Before pulling the machine into the basement, I had to remove the door which separates the garage from the basement and break some bricks so that the exposed part of the nitrogen trap could pass through the door…… [:MOMS AND WIVES DANGER WARNING: make sure they are out for the weekend before doing this!:].

Finally, all set up in its final location. On the right, the rotary vane pump.

Here are some specs of the microscope from the instruction manual.

More pictures of some details.

rotary pump and main transformer

oil diffusion pump

control board

specimen holder

a view in the chamber, objective aperture and secondary electron detector

vacuum control valves

SEI detector, contains the photomultiplier

high voltage tank

main circuit board

penning high vacuum gauge

pirani vacuum gauge

You can find a video of an almost identical SEM (T200) here. Instruction manual link is in at the bottom of the page. That’s the SEM that Ben Krasnow inherited from Sweden!