@innuendo @jernej__s @ZachWeinersmith
Our eFIB-SEM (as per Xu et al. 2017 https://elifesciences.org/articles/25916 ) runs 24/7 for up to 8 weeks, when it runs out of source. And it's essential that it does so, uninterrupted, since it's imaging at nanometre resolution, milling 2 nm slices at a time with an ion beam and then repeatedly imaging the block face. The process is unsurprisingly very sensitive; was hard enough to overcome the reheat cycle of the instrument itself (every 60 hours or so) by detecting it, de-engaging the beams and then seamlessly re-engaging with the block face.
A brief video of the kind of data we acquire:
https://youtu.be/p4MH4-I-P5I
The MS Windows computer deciding to reboot on its own is unacceptable.
#ElectronMicroscopy #Zeiss #FIBSEM #VolumeEM #vEM #Drosophila