Yes, with PETG its not necessary and i did just successfully print the V7 Beta1 main body using Prusament PLA which i did store for a special print. And OpenFlexure is a special print. Even the PLA didnt need the brim.
I can report back that the main body is printable with a 0.6 nozzle which speeds up the print approx by 30%. The main body seems fully functional to me. I assume all other parts should be printable too with a 0.6 nozzle too.
And, Willam, this is a genious design… thank you very much.
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Seems like parts which have small/tight threads like the one for the main lense dont print correctly with an 0.6 nozzle. Normally i dont have problems printing threads as long as i use a layer height of max 0.2mm but for the thread of the lense it doesnt seem to be enough. Better use a 0.4mm or smaller for printing lense threads.
Everything else seem to work with an 0.6mm nozzle using 0.2mm layer height. I used 0.3mm layer height for the base.
// Arnd
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Hello everyone,
i did just assemble and tested the electronics (raspberry PI 4 with sangaboard V0.5.3) and have a minor problem. Using the 7Beta-1 stls i cant find a matching drawer for above electronics combination using the the stand stand-7-beta-1-new-sanga-board.stl
It looks assembled like this, the fixation screw hole doesnt match the stands screwhole:
And the height of the fixation sockets for the sanga board are too low.
Its a minor issue as all seems stable enough and, most importantly the setup is working incl. motor test and led. Then, could someone point me to the correct stl’s for the condenser using the led-smd coming with the sangaboard? I am not sure which ones are the correct ones.
On a side note, i had to start the openflexure app on Linux (Mint 21 with nvidia mx150 GPU) with “–no-sandbox” as i otherwise did get the following error.
FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(439)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye
Another Question, in case i want to add the Adafruit LED Illumination board, which drawer is the correct one? (Raspiberry PI 4, LED Board Mod, Sangaboard V0.5.3)
cheers…
Hi @nethead, the base that you are using is the new base that was designed after the beta1 release, but the drawer you have is the beta1 drawer. The new drawer and base are specifically to overcome the socket height issue that you see with Sangaboard v0.5. Moving the socket meant that we also needed to move the screw to the side. All of the STLs for Sangaboard v0.5 are on the thread about the Sangaboard, in post 50. You will need the electronics_drawer-pi4_sanga_stack_11mm.stl for Pi 4 and Sangaboard v0.5.
We do not have any specific mounting for any electronics required for the LED array. That is an option that is not in the core version of the microscope, I have not used this illumination myself, but the board in the instructions I linked above is just a level shifter. There might be space above the Sangaboard to fit that over the top and still get the motor cables out underneath, but as it is just a level shifter there are plenty of very small level shifter breakout boards that you could use.
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Thanks for help, William,
i will first try the simple darkfield mod for smd led that i ordered with the new sangaboard. In case i will try the LED array i will check if i can mod the openscad files. Cant say i am an openscad pro but i do use it for most of my technical models for 3D printing. Where can i find the openscad source files?
cheers…
Source files are in the openscad folder of the microscope Gitlab repository. The overall repository is linked from the Openflexure web site. The electronics drawer and stand are defined in the file libs\lib_microscope_stand.scad
Hello,
i have the microscope now nearly fully assembled. Unluckily i cant find the Self Tapping Screws 2 x 6.5mm so i had to improvise. Is there any documentation on the calibration process? Auto calibration totally fails with (only) the X-Axis moving until i can hear the plastic cracking.
When i manually (by hand) move the Z-Axis all the way up the lens ends up over the level of the specimen platform. (Would hit the specimen slide). The lens seems to be fully inserted and its a “Plan 60/0.85 160/0.17” lens. I am currently using the “standard” LED illumination setup coming with the sanga board.
I am not really sure how to continue from here.
I think that a couple more tests would help to find where the problem might be here. You have looked at the z-axis manually, and from what you say that sounds fine, if it is moving smoothly when you use it manually. For a x60 objective the working distance from the sample is much less than 1mm. The z-axis has a travel of 2mm, centred on the nominal focus position (shoulder of the objective 45mm below the sample). That means that the lens will be able to move up to 1mm above the focus position, which for a x60 lens is through the sample. This is usually the case for high magnification microscopes; to be sure that you can get close enough to be in focus the travel does allow the lens to hit the sample.
The x-y behaviour is less clear. Have you tried it manually without the motors, and does it seem to move correctly and smoothly? If it does work manually, then with the motors installed but without running the stage calibration do the x and y travel seem to work using either the arrow keys or go to position in the web app? Are the motors plugged in in the right order so that the x motor responds to x commands, y to y and z to z? It is very easy to get the wires muddled when building the microscope, there was also a software error at one point that meant that the markings on the Sangaboard v0.5 did not match what the software was doing. If that all works, after swapping motor connections if needed, then calibration should work.
The stage calibration needs the stage to start reasonably close to the centre to be sure that it does not get to the end of travel before it has finished the routine. You can see whether the actuators are centred by looking at the slot that the actuator nut goes in - that is lined up in the actuator column and the housing when the actuator is in the central position. If that all looks to be OK then try the stage calibration again. Get a slide with some clear detail and focus the microscope before starting the stage calibration, the routine uses image analysis to see how far the image moves when the motors step in each direction so it needs something to look at.
I hope that this helps you to progress.
My main body (PLA vesion) did basicly fall apart when i did try to remove it. All axis had seem to had been broken. Which had been quite hard to see. I am currently assembling a new main body.
For calibarating a 60x lense, which kind of calibration slide is recommended? I will now calibrate manually before trying any auto-calibration as it seems there are no max values for axis travel distance.
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It is unfortunate that the body fell apart. Pictures of where it broke could be helpful to understand why that was.
For the illumination and lens shading calibration you need to have no slide, but the illumination adjusted as it will be for imaging.
For the camera-stage mapping you need to have a slide with some detail, illuminated and in focus (or close to focus). A scribble of sharpie on a slide can work well. It needs to have some dark and light areas in the field of view at all times when the stage moves from the starting position by a screen width or so in all directions. Straight lines could confuse it.
As you say there are no max travel sensors or values. There is actually a way to do it from the autofocus information during scanning Home / Limit switch- OpenFlexure Forum, post 41. Something like that will all being well make it into the main software, but for now you need to keep an eye on whether the stage is centred.
Hello William,
i dont think it makes a lot of sense to debug why the old main-stage did break. IMO the axis had been overstrechted. Autocallibration did move the X axis until i could hear something breaking, most probably the “hinges”.
So, main stage 2 is ready wo the motors but i only get a black screen. I did remove the “OpenFlexure Connect” dirs in “.config” on both, the openflexure server / raspberry pi and my linux notebook. I did stop the openflexure service before deleting the config and restartet it afterwards. Openflexure Connect tells me that the lens shading table is already correct/loaded (how to delete/recalibrate this?) but all i see is a black screen.
When i use “raspistill -o test.jpg” i do get an image though (see attached image). I also saw that one can download a shading table but i dont know where to find it. Not sure on how to proceed from here. I suspect a resetting the lense shaping table?
Openflexure connect just connects finds microscopes on the same network as the computer and launches the web app that is served from the microscope that you select. All the actions and settings are in the server running on the Pi in each microscope.
In the microscope web app interface there is a ‘settings’ tab. In that tab the camera group has a set of buttons at the bottom. One is to disable the lens shading table, one is to auto adjust the brightness (if it is black that should make it not black) and one is to re-run the calibration.
I would suggest that you try the auto gain and brightness first and see if anything changes during the process. it is not fast but should start black, go brighter to very white and then finish at something sensible. If that happens then try the re-run of the full calibration.
Hi,
again, much thx for your help, William. I finally managed to zoom onto “something”. Seems like dirt and sharpy trails. I also seem to have dirt on the camera sensor (big black spot upper right). I already cleaned some dirt off but unluckily not completely. The only way to clean a cam sensor is probably to push air at it?
N00b question: Does the sample face downwards towards the lense?
Can i try auto calibration with the spot or should i buy another raspberry cam?
BTW: Is there any book which covers basic (high resolution) camera calibration / operation you can recommend?
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Dust can very easily get onto a camera. An air duster is the safest way to try to get it off, but is not always successful. You can do the lens shading table calibration with dust present, it will give you a bright area around the spot as it tries to compensate for the average colour and brightness in that corner. The lens shading calibration is without a sample.
The sample should face down, towards the lens. This is particularly important for high magnification lenses as the distance to the focus is usually less than the thickness of a microscope slide. Even where you can get to focus looking through the slide the lenses are usually not designed for that and will not give the best image.
With the lens shading calibration done and a slide in place you can then do the camera stage mapping. The dust spot will obviously remain stationary, but with plenty of other detain in a focussed image there will be much more that moves for the routine to work with.
