Introducing the BMS 146 FLArQ LED Trinocular Microscope

Meet the BMS Microscope 146 FLArQ LED Trinocular, 230V, the third model of the Advanced Plus range with rack and pinion system for the condensor and integrated mechanical stage from BMS Microscopes.

Designed to fulfil all of today’s demands that one might expect from a student-proof microscope, but they are not equipped with expensive and unnecessary extras, Dr. Nichola Swann takes you through the BMS Microscope 146 FLArQ LED Trinocular.

“So if you’re looking for a microscope, that’s suitable for A-level biology, this one definitely ticks all the boxes. Price wise is not too cheap, it’s not too expensive. It’s kind of in the middle, and it does come with a free five year warranty, so you can expect a nice long lifetime from it in your lab.”

Video transcript below:

00:00:09:23 – 00:00:11:12
Hi I’m Nichola from LaBLiFe

00:00:11:12 – 00:00:14:14
And in this video
I’m going to talk you through the

00:00:14:14 – 00:00:17:22
BMS 146FLARQ LED

00:00:17:22 – 00:00:20:01
Trinocular Microscope

00:00:20:01 – 00:00:22:20
for the title of this product
is super complicated,

00:00:22:20 – 00:00:25:23
but that’s the only negative thing
I’m going to say about this

00:00:26:08 – 00:00:28:11
microscope because I do, in fact,
really, really like it.

00:00:29:08 – 00:00:32:05
So if you’re looking for a microscope
that’s suitable for A-level biology,

00:00:32:14 – 00:00:33:11
this one definitely ticks

00:00:33:11 – 00:00:37:07
all the boxes. Price wise is not too cheap,
it’s not too expensive.

00:00:37:07 – 00:00:38:18
It’s kind of in the middle,

00:00:38:18 – 00:00:39:15
and it does come with a free

00:00:39:15 – 00:00:43:02
five year warranty, so you can expect
a nice long lifetime from it in your lab.

00:00:43:20 – 00:00:45:18
In terms of power,
you can plug into the mains

00:00:45:18 – 00:00:48:12
like I have done here,
or you can power it with batteries.

00:00:48:21 – 00:00:51:24
If you’re using rechargeable batteries,
you can power it straight from them.

00:00:51:24 – 00:00:53:22
And then when you plug
the unit in, it’s going to charge your

00:00:53:22 – 00:00:55:15
batteries back up for you.

00:00:55:15 – 00:00:58:01
If you’re using normal batteries,
please make sure at that point

00:00:58:01 – 00:01:00:09
to never plug it into the mains

00:01:00:09 – 00:01:02:18
because you’re going to blow the batteries
and it’s going to make a mess.

00:01:02:18 – 00:01:04:23
And we don’t want that.

00:01:04:23 – 00:01:07:06
Okay, so to turn the microscope on
is a flick switch at the back.

00:01:07:20 – 00:01:09:03
I’m just going to turn it on.

00:01:09:03 – 00:01:11:09
And now you can see that
my light source is illuminated.

00:01:11:19 – 00:01:15:17
So this is an LED light source
which is important for three reasons.

00:01:16:01 – 00:01:17:00
It’s not going to get hot.

00:01:17:00 – 00:01:19:22
So when your student brushes their arm
against it, it’s not going to hurt them.

00:01:20:15 – 00:01:23:03
And it’s also more energy efficient
and you’re going

00:01:23:03 – 00:01:26:03
to get a longer bulb life
than you would a tungsten bulb.

00:01:27:09 – 00:01:30:09
You can change the brightness of this bulb
by playing with this.

00:01:30:09 – 00:01:34:10
Wheel here, decrease and increase.

00:01:34:10 – 00:01:34:23
And then if we come

00:01:34:23 – 00:01:37:07
to the top of the microscope,
you can see this is trinocular

00:01:38:05 – 00:01:41:17
So we’ve got this tube up here,
which is where you attach your camera

00:01:41:17 – 00:01:42:24
if you wanted to.

00:01:42:24 – 00:01:46:01
And then we’ve got two more oculars here
which you can rotate.

00:01:46:19 – 00:01:50:16
So this is to make it match
the spacing inbetween your eyes.

00:01:51:07 – 00:01:53:16
So if look down here

00:01:53:16 – 00:01:56:23
and then get one field-of-view

00:01:58:18 – 00:02:00:03
one perfect circle

00:02:00:03 – 00:02:04:19
And then this is going to stop me
from getting…

00:02:04:19 – 00:02:08:02
stop me from getting a headache
when I’m using the microscope.

00:02:11:00 – 00:02:15:00
In these two oculars,
we’ve got two 10x eyepieces.

00:02:16:18 – 00:02:20:03
And then if we come down the microscope
to this quadruple

00:02:20:03 – 00:02:23:17
nose-piece, we have got three different
objectives on here.

00:02:24:05 – 00:02:26:04
They’re all achromatic.

00:02:26:04 – 00:02:28:20
So this red one is 4x

00:02:28:24 – 00:02:32:12
yellow one is 10x
blue one is 40x.

00:02:33:09 – 00:02:35:10
And then you can see
we’ve got a spare space here.

00:02:35:23 – 00:02:38:10
Now you can get more objective lenses
for this model.

00:02:38:10 – 00:02:41:00
You can get a 60x
and you can get a 100x

00:02:41:08 – 00:02:46:20
the 100x one is the one that you use
with an oil immersion.

00:02:46:20 – 00:02:51:06
And then if we come down even further,
we have got the cause and find focus.

00:02:51:08 – 00:02:53:09
Here on a rack and pinion movement.

00:02:53:09 – 00:02:55:20
The course focus is the one that’s closest
to the microscope,

00:02:55:20 – 00:02:58:11
and the fine
one is the one that’s on the outside.

00:03:01:24 – 00:03:05:16
One feature to point out
is that it’s got a rack stop on there.

00:03:05:16 – 00:03:09:05
So what this does is
it sets the maximum height of the stage

00:03:09:06 – 00:03:11:13
so that it doesn’t
touch your objective lenses.

00:03:13:02 – 00:03:15:07
So if you didn’t have this feature
on your microscope, you’d essentially

00:03:15:07 – 00:03:18:05
be able to move your stage
right up into…

00:03:18:13 – 00:03:22:14
right up into your objective lens
and essentially would smash your slide,

00:03:22:14 – 00:03:26:01
ruin your samples, send glass flying everywhere.
Not ideal

00:03:26:01 – 00:03:30:19
so this is a really good safety
feature of this microscope.

00:03:30:19 – 00:03:33:17
And then we’ve got the micrometer
stage here.

00:03:33:24 – 00:03:36:21
So this is an X Y translational stage.

00:03:37:03 – 00:03:39:21
We’ve got these screws here again
on rack and pinion.

00:03:39:21 – 00:03:44:03
So the top one moves your stage in the
Y direction, forwards and backwards

00:03:44:22 – 00:03:47:03
and the bottom one moves it

00:03:47:03 – 00:03:49:24
in the X direction, side to side.

00:03:49:24 – 00:03:52:18
You’ve got vernier scales
on both the X and Y

00:03:52:18 – 00:03:55:09
You can make nice,
precise measurements on both axis,

00:03:56:01 – 00:03:58:05
and then we’ve got the stage clip here.

00:03:58:07 – 00:04:01:07
So that’s going to secure your slide
in place nice and securely.

00:04:02:00 – 00:04:05:24
And then underneath we’ve got an abbe type
condenser and the diaphragm

00:04:06:02 – 00:04:07:13
with this little lever here.

00:04:09:18 – 00:04:12:06
So that is all the parts of the microscope covered.

00:04:12:19 – 00:04:15:11
So if we want to start thinking about

00:04:15:11 – 00:04:17:22
focusing in on a sample,
I’ll show you how to do that.

00:04:18:17 – 00:04:22:00
You get your microscope slide, you open
the clip,

00:04:23:01 – 00:04:25:23
plonk your slide in here and secure it.

00:04:26:23 – 00:04:29:01
So starting on the lowest magnification

00:04:29:01 – 00:04:31:12
and making
sure your stage is all the way up,

00:04:32:12 – 00:04:36:14
we want to look through the eyepieces
and then use the course focus

00:04:37:11 – 00:04:40:12
to get it at the right height
so we can see it clearly.

00:04:42:00 – 00:04:44:07
So I’m going to use the course focus.

00:04:44:07 – 00:04:46:12
Roll it towards me
and bring the stage down

00:04:46:16 – 00:04:50:15
until I can see some structure
and then I’m going to use the fine

00:04:50:16 – 00:04:52:19
knob just to get it nice and sharp.

00:04:53:17 – 00:04:58:11
And once it’s in focus,
we turn this to the next

00:04:59:15 – 00:05:01:11
magnification.

00:05:01:12 – 00:05:02:10
Look down again.

00:05:02:10 – 00:05:04:14
So this is pretty much bang in focus
already.

00:05:04:14 – 00:05:09:16
I’ll just twiddle the fine
knob ever so slightly.

00:05:09:16 – 00:05:10:11
There we are…

00:05:10:17 – 00:05:12:20
And then up to the next magnification.

00:05:14:00 – 00:05:16:11
Now that looks super close,
but I assure you

00:05:16:11 – 00:05:18:12
there is a teeny tiny gap

00:05:19:21 – 00:05:23:12
and then again can use the fine focus
to get it nice and clear.

00:05:24:10 – 00:05:27:05
And there we are, all in focus.

00:05:27:05 – 00:05:31:07
So it’s really nice that you’ve got
both the oculars here and this

00:05:31:07 – 00:05:35:01
extra one up here so that you can have
a camera attached to it.

00:05:35:01 – 00:05:38:17
Because I always find it easier to be able
to focus using the eyepieces first

00:05:39:16 – 00:05:41:06
and then find it with the camera.

00:05:41:06 – 00:05:44:04
If you only had the one
like monocular, for example,

00:05:44:04 – 00:05:47:06
you have to do it with your eye first
and then attach a camera.

00:05:47:06 – 00:05:50:16
And if it gets out of focus, you have to
take your camera off and it’s a right palaver.

00:05:50:20 – 00:05:54:10
So it’s really nice that you’ve got
both of those options at the same time.

00:05:55:17 – 00:05:57:12
So, yes,
I hope this video has been useful.

00:05:57:12 – 00:05:58:08
We’ve talked through all the

00:05:58:08 – 00:06:01:02
different features of the microscope
and how to get focused on the slide.

00:06:02:01 – 00:06:06:03
So thank you very much for watching
and I’ll see you next time.

Enjoyed this blog? Become a LaBLiFer and sign up to our newsletter to get special deals: eepurl.com/h8rb0f