Personally I am not a fan of laser cut boxes. They are a quick way to make an mediocre ply wood box, or a nasty plexiglass box. Fine for a hobby project, not fine for a serious instrument, especially as both ply and plexiglass degrade in appearance super quickly.
As I said this is a rapid prototype design, to get an understanding of the dimensions and interface that allows the microscope to be easily accessed, easily assembled and maintained then we can consider things like how we actually make the box. This is not a discussion of how to manufacture a box.
As part of my current campaign to ask all the silly questions everyone else is embarrassed toā¦ is there yet a simple FDM-printable storage/transport case design? ie not something where you use the microscope when it is in it, but just to store it in, and lightly protect it.
Iām happy to come up with something, but donāt want to duplicate work already done.
For storage or transport, making an insert to support the microscope inside an existing box is more usual. Something like a Peli case for rough transport. I think somebody did design inserts for the microscope to sit in a box, I donāt remember where.
FDM printing a box big enough to take the standard assembled microscope would be a huge print and probably quite weak. @j.stirling 's printed case here replaces the microscope base, so does not need to be as big. It would work quite well for less rugged storage and transport.
For transport I worry about anything hard transferring the energy of every bump. I have always used foam inserts because it is softer and better at absorbing and knocks. You can easily make it from layers of this ācuttableā foam: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404815266488?_ul=GB
It may also be possible to use something like shadow foam, but I think the foam above is better as it is softer. Once we have more of a box I think shadow foam might be the best way forward.
If it is just to keep dust off, but not for transport, there is also this printable dust cover:
@WilliamW@j.stirling Thank you both, a few things to muse on there. I might try designing a FDM printed box, with some foam inserts, and see how robust that is, and indeed how long a print that would be. Iām not aiming for the Panamanian jungle level of protection; for that an insert for a transport case would be essential - but something for everyday storage to keep dust and the inquisitive out of it.
The conversation on the Pi 5 has also returned to boxes and vibrational isolation. Replying here to keep threads sort of on topic
I think having models even if they are not in OpenSCAD is useful. We can always move them to OpenSCAD so we can parametrize them later. This is often best done from a technical drawing.
We may want to write a bit of a list of things that we want, and sketch out a couple of ideas, before we jump into designing? I think there are some access requirements for maintenance. But, I am in the middle of cooking, so I am going to post this now and not explain what I mean until later. Sorry! To be continued!
This way for maintenance the top plate and walls can be removed just leaving the microscope and computer on the base. This should make it pretty easy to access.
If possible it would be good to not have to turn the microscope upside down to remove the walls. Also ideally the screws are in captive channels so the isnāt a risk from dropping them during assembly.
As we were discussing above. Probably we want some way to isolate the microscope and the electronics from the base if we are moving to a Pi5 with fan. This is probably done by having heavier plates that they each mount to. This can then be vibrationally decoupled from the base.
I think the box I designed above needs to be slightly bigger as it currently restricts motion a bit.
Which also addresses the question of how you attach a fan and a hat (ie Sangaboard) over the top (the answer being 16mm GPIO extenders).
However the blog also casts doubt on whether the Pi 5 actually needs a fan, which had been my earlier assumption. I guess only testing it out in our particular use-case will tell us for sure, but it could be we arenāt going to be stressing it enough to turn the fan on anyway.
And to that end, in this video (at about the 27 minute mark), they suggest that under a typical load, the Pi 5 might run cooler than a Pi 4:
Incidentally, this video spends quite a lot of time talking about power management, which might affect our choices on whether we draw power in direct to the Pi or via the Sangaboard.
Iām back to thinking about boxes. No designed anything further but just jotting down my most recent musings.
The box needs to be somewhat chemical resistant for cleaning. I think it may be worth thinking about using epoxy paints to coat a 3D printed box (if injection moulding is unavailable). Epoxy coatings can be very durable.
Rather than splitting the walls in two like I have done so far, it may make more sense to split the construction into: Base, walls, top-pate, lid.
For making a heavy base, it seems quite common to cast bases for machine tools from epoxy granite, which is a mixture of epoxy and granite dust. As granite dust is used in construction I could get a 1/2 tonne bag for Ā£30! Most is 0-4mm graded. 0-2mm is available though the closes supplier is offering it by the tonne, so I probably wont put in an order to test just yet! (There is and interesting article here of someone doing custom epoxy granite fill into machine tool bases for weight and vibration damping.)
For the heavy base aspect, Iām thinking that something which comes in loose / powder form is likely to be a bit messy.
So maybe we could find something āstandardā which is solid, reasonably dense, and we can provide a slot/box it can be inserted into.
A builderās brick was my first thought, but the shape and size isnāt ideal.
But maybe quarry floor tiles would work. They seem to be available in a standard nominal size of 15cm square and various thicknesses up to about 3cm - and one could stack several if needed.
Often the issue with building materials is the sizes change across the globe, and if they are porous they are less good in a lab.
I suppose we can have multiple options if we specify a heavy base of a given size. If we make it so we just need a cuboid of āstoneā then depending on local availabilities people could get composite granite (basically epoxy granite) cut for them from a supplier who does counter tops/chopping boards. Or cast their own if they really wanted. Or use anything locally available that is similar size and heavy.
Hi,
I printed the first box from provided stl from @j.stirling, but couldnāt complete wiring with 20 mm camera cable and screwing on the base. I tried to generate stlās from merge request with split case, but only managed to render middle part. Is there a way to render other parts and generate stlās for all part from splitted case?
Edit: I figured out how to render other parts. Thanks for sharing openscad files .
Glad you got it working. Itās still a mess. I am starting to think we may want it to be a flat base, and then a lid that goes over, this way it is easier to do maintenance. Also would be easier to create a sheet metal one for applications that need it.
I could well believe that a longer cable is needed.
This is great! I will try it out asap, I want to take my OFM in hand luggage on a 4h flight and then use it in a forest. Can I power the Sangaboard from a 5v power bank? What I probably need to add to this design are 4 legs on screws to make sure the slide is completely on level, I can glue two levels to the top.
I would check the scan range before hand. I am not sure this design has been tested fully. I think it may limit the range of motion. But It would be great to see how it work in the field.
It runs fine off a power bank.
If you are transporting the microscope you need to take care if you are using a traditional microscope objective. Hand luggage is probably fine, sometimes the weight of the objective caused damage during transit.
I would recommend a power bank which can provide 3A @ 5V, it should have no problems running the microscope.
For travel with a high resolution OFM I would recommend removing the optics module. I designed a box for it when we were taking some microscopes to Trieste never got around to cleaning up the messy openscad. I pushed it to a repo here optics_module_box Ā· main Ā· Filip Ayazi / ofm-utils Ā· GitLab in case anyone is interested (you might also need to adjust it depending on the diameter of your objective if you use the round clip. ofm_optics_module_box_demo.stl (1.2 MB)
Didnāt fully tested but as @j.stirling mentioned above box limits range of motion. Another lower cost microscope can move between -14500 to 14500 in x,y coordinates. But with box most i managed is -8000 to 6000. But Iām not sure if it was due to cutout for stage or protrusions required for mounting the top cover.
If you are using Sangaboard-compatible motor controller with plate to attach motor, motor plate pushes y feet towards to main body.
Ribbon cable for camera needs to be longer, I used 30 cm one with success.
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