7 ms·

The OpenFlexure 3D printable microscope

189 points by enceladus06 2y ago

hifikuno 2y ago
This is amazing. I think this would be a fun project for me and the kids to make and have a useful tool to help them with their curiosity.
- dekhn 2y ago
  This scope is nontrivial to build and run. I recommend buying a cheap stereoscope and spending more time enjoying looking at things before jumping to diy.
ahmadmijot 2y ago
btw, the OpenFlexure forum link is 404.
- earthtograndma 2y ago
  Working now. https://openflexure.discourse.group/ https://openflexure.discourse.group/
roflmaostc 2y ago
There is a similar project called UC2 where the emphasis is on modularity of the different configurations (simple building blocks) https://github.com/openUC2/UC2-GIT https://github.com/openUC2/UC2-GIT
moffkalast 2y ago
I'm wondering now there if are any cheap entry level stereo microscopes or at least any microscopes that work with indirect reflected light instead of through-slide illumination. LEDs have gotten laughably strong, so if we can turn a night forest into day, surely we can illuminate some microbes? These standard ones are certainly useful for high magnification, but they don't really work at all for anything opaque. For the average person doing this on a hobby level, looking at random objects slightly beyond macro level is far more interesting than having to painfully prepare slides for things you aren't even sure are actually there or not.
- buescher 2y ago
  Cheap is relative, I guess. You can find a used stereo microscope on eBay for well under $100, maybe under $50. Building one out of a pair of binoculars is a classic but relatively advanced DIY project. I’m pretty sure there’s a detailed write up of one in either the old Edmund's optics books or Scientific American’s amateur scientist collections. Something like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20190123040421/http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/uster2/uster2.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20190123040421/http://www.funsci... If you’re thinking of something like a metallurgical microscope, those are more involved and expensive, but again, eBay.
- Zobat 2y ago
  Bought mine at our local "biological" museum for about $150 (in Sweden where everything is a little more expensive). 20x/40x magnification, indirect or through slide illumination, solid construction. The leds could be better and/or brighter but works for looking at stuff and for photography with a 3D printed phone holder on one of the ocular lenses.
- dekhn 2y ago
  The cheap stereomicroscopes don't have "indirect reflected light" but it's not hard at all to add a ring illuminator or just arrange a flashlight or other led light that comes in from the side. I emulate darkfield using a side illuminator all the time. You can also replace the installed LED with an LED matrix (like the tiny one adafruit sells) and just illuminate the outermost ring of pixels, this will emulate dark field mask.
geokon 2y ago
This is outside my area of expertise .. But I'd be surprised if you can easily best a phone camera without paying obscene dollars for special sensors A bit of an anecdote, but a lab in our building got some expensive fancy digital microscope. But we noticed that if you took a cheap old school microscope and stuck an iPhone on the lens the resulting images were infinitely more crisp vivid and high-res The only obstacles are getting consistent colors and calibration as well as making a mount to hold the phone at the right distance from the lens
- addaon 2y ago
  Many of the best cell phone sensors are off-the-shelf Sony sensors that individuals can buy in reasonable quality. The “magic” of cell phone cameras is the combination of these decent sensors, a lot of processing (that you don’t want), and really amazing lenses (that, in a microscope application, you’re replacing with your own — better to go microscope optics to focal plane than microscope optics to cell phone optics to focal plane). Certainly at the hobbiest level cell phone cameras are amazing, but I suspect even “advanced hobbiest” or whatever would prefer the same sensor in a C mount.
  - geokon 2y ago
    A raw sensor is clearly not easy to just hook up to a computer. For example look at the top end Raspberrypi sensor. It's a pathetic 12MP. That's like a ten year old phone or so? I think the processing is also not to be entirely dismissed. There is frame stacking that extends the dynamic range and there is compression and other complex DSP going on that is necessary (b/c 50MP of raw pixel data is a ton of raw data to pull off the sensor). Realistically you probably can only do some of that in software
    - billyjmc 2y ago
      You can do all of these things in software, and it is done. It’s important thing to have control over the process so you can get quantitative data at the other end, and not just a pretty picture. Also, noise should not be discounted as a very good reason to use lower megapixel sensors. If you want a pretty picture, by all means use a cellphone, but you can’t reality use or trust the result for many scientific purposes.

189 points by enceladus06 2y ago

This is amazing. I think this would be a fun project for me and the kids to make and have a useful tool to help them with their curiosity.

dekhn 2y ago
This scope is nontrivial to build and run. I recommend buying a cheap stereoscope and spending more time enjoying looking at things before jumping to diy.

ahmadmijot 2y ago

btw, the OpenFlexure forum link is 404.

earthtograndma 2y ago
Working now. https://openflexure.discourse.group/ https://openflexure.discourse.group/

roflmaostc 2y ago

There is a similar project called UC2 where the emphasis is on modularity of the different configurations (simple building blocks) https://github.com/openUC2/UC2-GIT https://github.com/openUC2/UC2-GIT

moffkalast 2y ago

I'm wondering now there if are any cheap entry level stereo microscopes or at least any microscopes that work with indirect reflected light instead of through-slide illumination. LEDs have gotten laughably strong, so if we can turn a night forest into day, surely we can illuminate some microbes? These standard ones are certainly useful for high magnification, but they don't really work at all for anything opaque. For the average person doing this on a hobby level, looking at random objects slightly beyond macro level is far more interesting than having to painfully prepare slides for things you aren't even sure are actually there or not.

buescher 2y ago
Cheap is relative, I guess. You can find a used stereo microscope on eBay for well under $100, maybe under $50. Building one out of a pair of binoculars is a classic but relatively advanced DIY project. I’m pretty sure there’s a detailed write up of one in either the old Edmund's optics books or Scientific American’s amateur scientist collections. Something like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20190123040421/http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/uster2/uster2.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20190123040421/http://www.funsci... If you’re thinking of something like a metallurgical microscope, those are more involved and expensive, but again, eBay.
Zobat 2y ago
Bought mine at our local "biological" museum for about $150 (in Sweden where everything is a little more expensive). 20x/40x magnification, indirect or through slide illumination, solid construction. The leds could be better and/or brighter but works for looking at stuff and for photography with a 3D printed phone holder on one of the ocular lenses.
dekhn 2y ago
The cheap stereomicroscopes don't have "indirect reflected light" but it's not hard at all to add a ring illuminator or just arrange a flashlight or other led light that comes in from the side. I emulate darkfield using a side illuminator all the time. You can also replace the installed LED with an LED matrix (like the tiny one adafruit sells) and just illuminate the outermost ring of pixels, this will emulate dark field mask.

geokon 2y ago

This is outside my area of expertise .. But I'd be surprised if you can easily best a phone camera without paying obscene dollars for special sensors A bit of an anecdote, but a lab in our building got some expensive fancy digital microscope. But we noticed that if you took a cheap old school microscope and stuck an iPhone on the lens the resulting images were infinitely more crisp vivid and high-res The only obstacles are getting consistent colors and calibration as well as making a mount to hold the phone at the right distance from the lens

addaon 2y ago
Many of the best cell phone sensors are off-the-shelf Sony sensors that individuals can buy in reasonable quality. The “magic” of cell phone cameras is the combination of these decent sensors, a lot of processing (that you don’t want), and really amazing lenses (that, in a microscope application, you’re replacing with your own — better to go microscope optics to focal plane than microscope optics to cell phone optics to focal plane). Certainly at the hobbiest level cell phone cameras are amazing, but I suspect even “advanced hobbiest” or whatever would prefer the same sensor in a C mount.
- geokon 2y ago
  A raw sensor is clearly not easy to just hook up to a computer. For example look at the top end Raspberrypi sensor. It's a pathetic 12MP. That's like a ten year old phone or so? I think the processing is also not to be entirely dismissed. There is frame stacking that extends the dynamic range and there is compression and other complex DSP going on that is necessary (b/c 50MP of raw pixel data is a ton of raw data to pull off the sensor). Realistically you probably can only do some of that in software
  - billyjmc 2y ago
    You can do all of these things in software, and it is done. It’s important thing to have control over the process so you can get quantitative data at the other end, and not just a pretty picture. Also, noise should not be discounted as a very good reason to use lower megapixel sensors. If you want a pretty picture, by all means use a cellphone, but you can’t reality use or trust the result for many scientific purposes.