(old) external build reports

Build Reports
1

This is pasted over from the project wiki:

Quite a few people other than Richard have now built a microscope. It would be great to keep track of them! If you’ve built one, and especially if you’ve blogged about it, please add it here. Even better, if you found snags and/or ways to make it better, make an issue so we can improve the design (and instructions).

  • WaterScope used to sell kits, and are using the microscope for some cool water testing and looking into medical use as well. (I’m the one that produces the kits; do give me a yell if you want one and they’re out of stock)
  • Cambridge’s 2015 iGEM team based their project on this microscope. They completely re-engineered it in SolidWorks, based around the design at that time (v5.11) but modified to be upright rather than inverted, and with some seriously neat software. Hopefully we’ll make use of some of that in the future.
  • Matt at Public Lab built a high-resolution v5.15 and a pi lens based v5.15 and wrote an excellent couple of articles. They’ve since used them in particle tracking/sizing and it’s exciting to imagine what they’ll do next!
  • STICLab are now making these in Tanzania, contact them if you’d like to buy one there!
  • The Sensors CDT Team Challenge 2016 used an offshoot of the microscope design (a flexure-based delta robot) as part of their OPT system. Particular shout-out to Fergus Riche, who designed some lovely electronics and is also one of not very many people to have worked with the OpenSCAD source for the deltabot.
  • Karl Heinz is now marketing them (high-res and low-res models) as JuakaliScope, available in Kenya (and blogged about).
  • I ran a workshop at GOSH 2017 and some of the participants wrote a hilarious account of their experience, complete with a bilingual video, awesome soundtrack, and important advice about coffee provision.
  • Proteus Microscopy are doing some cool stuff in Chile!
  • Tech for Trade have made microscopes from recycled plastic bottles

There’s definitely more that have been built/tweeted about but not written up. WaterScope tweets relatively often, and here’s some of the ones from other people I’ve spotted so far:

If you’d like to add your own build report, please either add it directly as a new topic in here, or link to your blog/whatever.

2

Hey Richard,

I have different questions :

Why do you mean by “WaterScope used to sell some”, have they stopped selling kits ?

The links about JuakaliScope and the blog are not working.

3

Thanks - WaterScope don’t sell OpenFlexure kits any more; the business was set up to focus on water testing, and selling kits was a sideline that they’ve now stopped. OpenFlexure Industries is happy to sell kits within the UK, which fulfils the same role.

Thanks for spotting the dead links. I think that project morphed into Tech for Trade’s activities, but sadly there’s not much public content online at the moment.

4

Yes, we discussed that on another thread. I am still figuring out how to set up a EU version of OpenFlexure industries, but it will come sooner or later.

5

Few things I’ve posted using 2 of the microscopes I built. I have 4 total. Trying to build more but Raspberry Pi boards are backordered worldwide. :sob:

2 Likes
6

Thanks Daniel, this is probably the most interesting thing I’ve seen on LinkedIn - I should log in more often, clearly!