I’m interested in building either the normal microscope or the delta stage to put in a museum (behind glass) and ‘fly’ over a meteorite sample. Later ideas might include letting the visitors control the positioning with a keyboard.
PS: got to know openflexure at FOSDEM and talked to someone there.
Some questions:
normal microscope or delta stage? Delta stage has a distinct reflection build which is probably the kind of illumination I need?
if the answer is the delta stage, can I source the components somewhere in the EU? 3D printing and assembly is no problem.
The Microscope is likely to be the best option. The performance is basically the same for your application, but it is much more ‘finished’ than the Delta Stage. Version 7 rather than version 1 .
The reflection optics modules are in the Alternative Optics in the Customisations and alternatives tab of the Microscope build instructions. There are no instructions for assembly, but it is the same as the assembly in the Delta Stage instructions. The reflection/fluorescence module is not used much by the core team and is still a little experimental.
I would suggest that you build a transmission version first, to get familiar with the operation before moving to the reflection optics. If you go for the ‘low cost’ optics version then you will not need a second tube lens. The bright field condenser uses a plastic lens that you would not need for the reflection optics. The low cost optics is equivalent to about 20x on a normal objective.
You could relatively easily make custom buttons act as the key presses using a Pi Pico etc. Several types of microcontroller are able to emulate a USB keyboard. Then you just attach whatever buttons you like to the digital inputs and assign keypresses.
You would probably also need to have a custom iteration of the microscope software, to stop moves stacking up when visitors hammer the buttons, and to keep track that it is still within the range of motion.
I’ve made my own keyboard before so that should be doable, and some python is always fun so biggest challenge will be building the microscope
Thx for the input on what to build, so you’re suggesting building the low cost optics version of the microscope and then add/change to reflection illumination. I’m guessing the reflection illumination changes keep the optics train and the 20x magnification?
I’m not very clear why your recommend the low cost optics, is it because it contains lenses I don’t need for the reflection illumination usage? Or beter suited magnification?
Any updates on using the pi HQ camera? Asking because I have a few in my drawer
I am suggesting the low-cost because it is one of the standard optics sets, so is well supported with instructions and the Forum, and does not require you to buy any additional imaging optics. It just uses the lens from the Pi camera, which as you say you will not need for the reflection optics.
You could build the standard high resolution transmission optics, with whatwever microscope objective you are planning to use in the final reflection build. However you need a tube lens to work with a microscope objective, and once fitted to an optics module they are not that easy to get out to reuse in a different module.
For either route, you can choose any magnification for your final build, although the range of motion and speed can be an issue for lower magnification than 10×.
Software support for.the High Q camera is still a way off I am afraid.
At 10X it may be possible to do reflection with a ring LED rather than full epi-illumination through the objective. This would simplify the optics.
Rather than customising the software itself I think probably the easiest thing would be to look at the python client. This way you can do your own debouncing of requests and limit the scope of interaction to a few buttons.
As for buying the parts, I’d talk to LabCrafter, they have a kit for the microscope and they are UK based but deliver to the EU:
The deltastage is largely the same components but perhaps with a slightly different set of screws.
HiQ has a number of annoying difference in bit-level and dark pixel level that requires us to ensure we have abstracted our camera software sufficiently. So this will take some time, hopefully we will have more resources to focus on the software soon.
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