Hi Ray. That is exactly right. The arduino and the driver are powered by the USB cable from the raspberry Pi only. I have 3 OFM builds like this and is working fine. Even when the 3 motors are engaged. I noticed less torque in one microscope but not the other 2. I think it may be due to the plastic build itself and not the motors or electronics.
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Wow, Iāll go ahead and order one too! Iāll report back if it works for me too once all my parts arrive.
Another thing I did and may help was adding this angled USB adapter to connect the Arduino to the Pi inside the case.
Amazon.com: Right Angled USB Adapter A Male to Female Extension 90 180 Degrees Turn Connectors 3G Router USB adapter : Electronics
Ooo the angled adapter does look nicer. For the drawer stl, do you have the version with the support tower? The one linked doesnt have it and it sort of defeats the purpose.
How have you found working with this board? Are you still having success?
Iām completely new and in the process of starting my first OFM - looking for an alternative (simple) solution to not being able to source a Sangaboard.
Saw you also tried an Ardunio Motor Shield, but seems that can only run 2 motorsā¦
Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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@CraigK that board should be great for you, they are unfortunately not that widely available. You will just need to think a little about where the power for the motors comes from, as discussed earlier in this thread.
Which version of the microscope are you planning to build? Please note that there are a couple of known bugs in the current V7.0.0-Beta1, as in the thread Openflexure Microscope V7.0.0-beta1 released
Thanks for the heads up! So far, Iām thinking of building the Delta Stage microscope. Recently printed the base and body to get a perspective on size, etc.
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Unfortunately canāt find a Raspberry Pi
Supply of Raspberry Pi is a central problem for Openflexure. It was originally chosen for the wide availability and camera integration. Now that Pis are so hard to find, alternative platforms look better, but the camera integration that gives the lovely flat background in microscope images means that there is significant development required to port the software to other platforms. Even now the server is not running the latest Pi operating system because of major changes to the way the Pi camera is handled.
There are a couple of work-arounds:
A Pi4 will give the slickest interface if you are using the raspberry Pi desktop. However if you have almost any older version of a Pi it can work, particularly if you install the āLiteā version of the Raspbian Openflexure operating system and then operate the microscope from a remote computer. You will probably need SSH on a local cable if you want to set up things like wifi. The minimum Pi then is stated as Pi1 B+, 512MB. That should actually mean that it will run on a 3A or a Zero 2.
You could use a USB camera, but with a Deltastage you would also need to write something to control the motors directly over serial as it is not really possible to us a Deltastage manually.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
On the face of it āsecond quarter isā not very different from what they said last year. However in detail it is a lot different, second quarter, not second half of the year, and they are talking about āpre-pandemic levelsā and āunlimitedā availability rather than just ābetterā availability. I hope it does happen rapidly at the retail level.
Yes, you are right. I hope they keep up to their promise.
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