OpenFlexure Microscope v7.0.0-beta5 and Server v3.0.0-alpha3

Announcements
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:openflexure: It’s pre-release day! :openflexure:

The team, many collaborators and community members have been very busy over the last couple of months making a number of improvements that we are really excited to share as pre-releases.

OpenFlexure Microscope v7.0.0-beta5

We didn’t plan to do another beta before the release candidate. However the final tweaks for the release candidate are taking some time and there are huge improvements that are merged that we wanted to share more widely. While most of the changes are ongoing work on the documentation there are also two larger hardware changes.

The biggest one is that the M4 screws that previously tapped directly into plastic to hold the motors have been replaced by M3 screws and nut traps. This is much stronger and more secure, and far less likely to be damaged during assembly, it also reduces the number of unique items in the bill of material. This work was done by Florian (@ffesti), who has also made many other big contributions to this beta release. :clap:

The other larger hardware change has been improving the cable tidies. Including adding an extra screw to hold the back of the tidy down to stop it flapping. Thanks to James Wadsworth (not on the forum? But @Just_a_Lonely_Traceback_Error on GitLab) for starting this work.

OpenFlexure Microscope Server v3.0.0-alpha3

There has also been a lot of progress on the server. The team developing the server also continues to grow. Thanks especially to Ben (@chish) for work on the calibration wizard and documentation and Beth (@bprobert) for work on GitLab CI that validates our code, on software architecture, and on documentation. Also thanks to everyone who attended our Maintain-A-Thon.

Key improvements are:

  • Experimental support for the Raspberry Pi HQ camera
  • A move to a 64 bit OS (Thanks to @nico for the branch that showed us how to do this!)
  • UI and calibration wizard improvements to make the interface more intuitive
  • Adding the ability to cancel preview stitch (waiting for background processes)
  • Improved logging
  • Improved docs

Really happy to see this out :partying_face:

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And as always a huge amount of work from @j.stirling :clap:

For the hardware release we would particularly welcome feedback on the process of the motor mounting. Either post here, or issues on Gitlab. Do the motors sit neatly in the recess? Are the new instructions clear?

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I wasn’t highlighting the core team, but I probably should. Thanks also to the others on the core team :openflexure:@JohemianKnapsody, @WilliamW, and @r.w.bowman :openflexure:.

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