Scanning electron microscope offer

At 09:58 PM 9/29/2007, Dave McGuire wrote: If anyone wants a classic SEM, I have one I'd part with. In summer 2001, I picked up a circa 1983 Amray 1610T SEM with a PGT 4000 EDS (energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy unit) from Northwestern University. It had been donated by Littelfuse out of Des Plaines. It was still palletted and wrapped when I got it. It was in purportedly working condition, but NWU never used it. See the pictures at: http://www.threedee.com/jmosn/microscopes/amray/index.html I performed a few simple repairs to the unit: resetting the chamber door hinges, resoldering a few broken connections, and mapping the reconnection process, gathering docs. I found the tech at Littelfuse who'd once known the unit, and picked up a few more manuals and schematics from KLA Tencor and a fellow in Germany. I have floppies for the PGT, a half-dozen extra filaments, a Leybold model D8A vacuum pump, and the vibration isolation unit (a bucket filled with cement with a tube through it.) The Amray is run by an 8085. It'll magnify down to about 50,000 x. The PGT computer is a customized RT-11 running on a PPD-11/23. It powers up but doesn't boot. Hitting the reset button does trigger the floppy, but I'm not seeing anything on-screen. It's heavy. The column base is 33"x33" and may weigh as much as 1,200 pounds, but the real danger comes from it having a high center of gravity. The Amray console is wider and may weigh only 300 pounds. The PGT is in a 19"-ish rack with a terminal on top. A friend and I moved it all with a pallet jack and a flat-bed truck. (He was sympathetic to crazy projects like this because he does the same with Jaguars.) To get it in and out of my garage, I used a bucket on a tractor. For the last few years, it's been in heated storage at a friend's facility with a dock. Sometime in-between now and then, I saw the same model Amray and PGT sell for about $15,000 on LabX. Of course, the difference between working and "sitting in storage for seven years" may be wide and costly so don't think that I think it's worth that. SEM techs get a nice penny per hour, per diem, and travel. I have no idea what I'd take for it. If I get tired of it, I'm sure all that quality stainless steel in the column will fetch a nice price at the scrapper. :-) I'm open to offers. I'm in Wisconsin between Madison and Milwaukee. - John