We are meeting at Ames on Thursday. I have requested a visitors badge for Gene from Ted.
Current Status on the MicroGigapan Adapter Kit: I am planning to have a test image out today, Monday the 18th. And then take more tests.
- Computers to run process: We've had trouble getting laptops ordered. Need to figure that out. I (Rich) have loan of Gene's old Window's laptop, so I have enough to be able to get software worked out a bit.
- Mechanics/Electronics: with Gene's help I have all three stepper motors and the camera responding to his software. I have a little bit of work to screw things back together.
- Software: I am able to run Gene's software from my Mac, and from his Windows machine.
- Lighting: I made a box to raise the microscope so that a flash can fit underneath and be projected up through the regular microscope optical path. My flash does not have adjustable power, so I am adjusting the intensity by experimenting with filters between the flash and the microscope (by 'filters' right now I am using opaque acyrilic, and sheets of paper). I am triggering the flash with a wireless trigger I have. Bonus: with some foam the box doubles as a protective case for transporting the microscope.
- Optics/image quality: I believe that taking out the intermediate 2.5x lens and lowering the camera has made a definite improvement. But it is hard to test because focusing is hard! After the rig is up I am going to take single frame-multi focus images of our test samples, focus stack them, and then see how they compare. I also need to experiment with the distance from the camera to the microscope, which may require fabricating some adapters/repurposing things we have :-) I have an adapter which goes from Canon to T-Mount. There are lots of rings, adapters, tubes, bellows, extensions, etc with T-Mount threads.
No comments:
Post a Comment