How will the new RPi 5 affect the OFM?
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Maybe it is a good thing that server V3 is not done yet!
I hope that it does not make too much difference to the software, but they do say it will need a new version of the operating system, which is not yet released. If we don’t yet know what that is it is hard to see where any difficulties might be.
It seems to have two camera ports, which would be fun. Upright and inverted on a single microscope. Both would need the reflection optics module which would give bright field and reflected options for both cameras. Running two separate microscopes would need some way of dealing with two Sangaboards.
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Having upright and inverted on the same microscope is exactly what I thought of too when I saw the new board.
Two sangaboard v5s are technically possible with no additional hardware (except maybe a power supply depending on the main one), with one running as a hat and one running over USB. To separate motor power from the 5V line there is a cuttable trace on the bottom of the board, cutting it and using the Vmot pin to the expansion header for motor power instead should work. A neater alternative would be a simple board passing USB data and separating power (with an extra USB-C for motor power in) between the pi and the second Sangaboard.
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interesting idea! But how do you illuminate a double upright/inverted microscope?
Both sides would need the reflection optics module. That then gives transmitted light for the optics on the other side.
You also need a thin sample for it to make sense to look from both sides at the same place.
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