AustinBlanco.com

Category: Optics

  • Understanding TTL control, Blanking & Device Streaming, and why it matters for your research.

    While this is an old subject in terms of technology, I find that every few years I end up describing it to a new group. Surprisingly to me, every time people seem to appreciate the information, and I think it’s just not covered often in broader imaging trainings. So today I’m writing about a favorite subject of mine – TTL control. To do this I’ll be referencing some fun technology – namely:

    TL:DR

    The Problem

    For illustration of the device control, I’ve captured a few real example frames from my oscilloscope, but also added some simulated oscilloscope examples that I hope will better depict the work behind the scenes for these devices.

    I think it’s most important to frame this in a question,

    When my software controls devices, how fast do they respond?

    Assume we click a shutter button in any software. This can be for a laser, an LED, even an old mechanical shutter. In every case a bunch of things must happen for the end device to actually change it’s state. For that state (let’s say, “OFF” to change to “ON”,

    • the software must accept the command
    • and issue control signals to the device connection.
    • That connection talks to the device controller (normally, a microcontroller)
    • The microcontroller reads the command and does what it’s told
    • The state changes.

    Now, along the way, each device has a communication bus, and each bus has a traffic control system to insure multiple communications don’t conflict. As a result, the timing from the start of the button click to the end is variable – sometimes, up to 20 milliseconds!

    Now, because the software is typically programmed to “confirm” each thing it does, it doesn’t just shout orders into the dark. Instead, the software waits for a confirmation, or acknowledgment, of the command being received, and oftentimes it will confirm the new state is active.

    Consider this means a new set of jobs which must be completed.

    • The device controller changes state
    • The device controller then replies, or reports state
    • The communication connection on the PC receives the reply
    • The software reads the reply, and confirms it’s correct
    • The software continues to the next job.

    And so again, we can see a stack-up of not only delay, but a variable amount of delay.

    If we visualize this in a graphic example like the one below, we can see the software code is sent to an LED microcontroller, the command is processed, and the led illuminates. However, we can also see there is a lot of room for improvement!

    Another way to look at this control is what happens with a typical complex instrument. Below is a video where I control 3 devices. The PCO Camera, a Zaber filter turret, and the Tetrem. Notice how long it takes just to get 3 time points for 2 channels. The exposure is short, that's not the issue - the issue here is of course, the devices need to move, but also each device must receive + process + move + report positions, and this takes a long time.

    TTL Control -> Old + Fast = Awesome

    So what is TTL? Basically, nothing more than an on/off switch! Just like a light switch allows an electrical signal to feed a light, TTL uses a voltage to send a signal to another device. You can find a thorough history on this communication method here if interested.

    What we care about is that we have an on/off control system. Because it's nothing more than a voltage, no crazy translations need to happen for things to immediately react. If a TTL control line is on, or "High", then the device should be doing whatever ON is. Many devices have this input, but few people even know about it! For example, most Focus controllers, XY Stages, Peristaltic Pumps, Perfusion systems, and many other devices like lasers, shutters, and actuators accept a TTL input for control.

    TTL Logic typically comes in 2 flavors. Older systems will use 5V for "on" and 0V for "off". The device being controlled might use thresholds or a midpoint. Some devices, assuming you give them at least 2.5V, will go active. Others want at least 4V or 4.5V before they enable. Newer devices often use 3.3v control. This is the same concept as 5V, just with lower voltages. One word of caution here - before connecting things up, it's good to confirm the logic of your devices. Generally, the amount of power these use is quite low, and signal inputs won't break things - but in the case of an exposed microcontroller pin, you can definitely cook a 3.3v input with a 5V line!

    TTL Blanking - A partial Solution

    So what can be done about this overhead? First, we can consider that the only time we really need the illumination on, is when the camera is truly collecting data. One way to do this is to use the I/O control cables found on most scientific cameras. In my case I routed the expose signal from the edge camera into the Tetrem on a single channel, and then, told the tetrem in my software to use "TTL Control". With these changes, the LED source now waits for a TTL input to go high, before it enables it's emission.

    So now, let's assume that when the camera is exposing, we can enable the LED line. The software can act as a logical "AND" if needed, but the line won't enable unless there is real collection of light by the camera. You can see an example of this below.

    For the example, the yellow line is the camera output, or trigger output, the teal line is the LED B brightness result, and the purple line is the software-only reaction. In this example, we can see the delay (latency) of the response, yet in most software, the purple line will illuminate before the camera exposure. What this means for research is your cells are being exposed to excitation energy, and you aren't even collecting that light onto a sensor! So, we are in effect just cooking cells for fun. NOT GOOD!

    Oscilloscope reading TTL from PCO camera

    Using the Triggerscope for State Control of Devices

    This is great for a single LED, but how can we control more than 1 channel? For this, we would use a logic controller like the Triggerscope Mini! With the mini, the camera expose line is routed to it's TRIG input, and up to 4 output channels are connected to it's TTL control pins.

    Triggerscope Mini with Tetrem Controller for intensity

    With this done, we can assign an active line using the triggerscope. This provides fast easy state switching, and can even be done over multiple devices. Doing this will mean, for this example, we won't be moving our filter cube device. Instead, we would use a multi-band dichroic. However we can switch the LED excitation, and that's how we will gain some speed here.

    In the example above, we see a high speed switch. This is simply by telling the Triggerscope Mini to change channels, instead of the LED. But - there is still more to do to improve our speed!

    Streaming for the Win

    The above example uses the triggerscope via USB, and while we only have 1 device, we are still using a "set + capture + set + capture" type of sequence. What if we just told the camera, "run as FAST as you can." Then, we used the output signal from the camera to count frames, and we told the triggerscope, "every other frame, switch from LED 1 to LED 2, then back to 1". THIS is the power of "Streaming", or also called "Sequencing". With this capability, we pre-load stuff to do into the triggerscope. Then, we arm the triggerscope. With that done, our triggerscope is sitting, locked into a state, simply waiting to receive camera frame TTL inputs. Below is a graphical depiction of this technique.

    Now, we tell the camera, "Give us 2 channels * 10 frames = 20 pictures, and do so as fast as possible". In effect, "give us video of 20 frames".

    In this method, there is zero control overhead. The camera free-runs, the triggerscope switches, and the LED reacts. Below is a video example of this, note also there is a small in-view live feed from a web camera (for all these video samples), and you can see that, indeed, streaming is crazy fast! For the below example, we've tied the camera "transfer" line into the triggerscope. This way, the triggerscope recieves a brief pulse before capture occurs. We enable on the "low" side of the signal, and illuminate. You can see for the CMOS style readout on the left of the example, once readout is done, the channel switches.

    So what does the above look like in real life? Check out this example below! Note that I select in my "lambda" control box the "Stream" checkbox. Then once start capture is pressed, the triggerscope is armed, the camera is readied, and we snag 20 images in < 300ms!

    Of course, we can extend this using the 5V DAC control line on the triggerscope for capture of Z as well as channel, and if using the more capable triggerscope 4B, we can control even more devices.

    I hope this article has helped explain not only why I make devices such as the triggerscope, but also how it's important to use software that provides complete control for your light sources and other devices, as well as the ability to do things like this. My sincere thanks to Excelitas for lending me the Edge camera and Tetrem LED, both of which have worked flawlessly on my system. Nebula has drivers for both products fully integrated for streaming control if you have interest in using it.

    -Austin

  • Design of a cemented doublet lens using AI

    How well can modern AI agents produce engineering designs for optics? Well – I wanted to find out.

    To test this, I’ll walk through my goal. I need to get a lens made and I need it fast. I also need it to work properly. Lastly, I need it to be manufacturable at scale which means using glass substitutes often found in China.

    So – using Claude Chat, I took performance specs from several existing lenses, handed them over and added:

    “Make me a lens design that meets these general performance criteria.”

    I also asked :

    • Use Chinese available glass (e.g. K series)
    • Validate the design using a raytrace
    • produce estimated performance data
    • produce design drawings
    • produce a prescription
    • produce a ZMX file

    Here is the design it produced, it sure doesn’t look bad so far!

    After a while it decided to build it’s own python analysis tool using multiple metrics, it did the job and generally things look ok. However – is this actually OK? Let’s drop the lens design into Zemax.

    Using a COTS 200mm doublet as a comparison, I pulled a image, plot, ray fan and Huygens spot to inspect. All look quite similar, the spot size can be realized a bit better, but consider the aperture on the reference file was slightly larger, so that means difference in NA.

    AI Doublet Left — COTS Design at right

    Ray Fan Diagram

    Note there is a difference here, this design is not optimized – with an optimized second surface, it’s obvious a lot of improvement can be made. Yet for a commercial type lens, I think this is a good example of a sufficient result – it’s less than the diffraction limit, which is a suitable bar for pass failure.

    Huygens spot size is below, again note the difference in the psf due to optimization missed.

    Finally, we can compare the simulated image formation – here I don’t think there is a clear winner, which is what we are shooting for in a commercially produced result. Very cool.

  • xTool Conversion utilities

    We are about to announce some new products made using the amazing xTool UV laser engraver. Along te way, we needed to convert the 3d files used on the system to SVG. I figured I may as well share that, and so you can find it on my github here .

    Of course, the first thing I made using this engraver was a 3D engraving of the USS Enterprise 1701-D inside of a BK7 Prism. Because why not?!?!

  • Nikon Ti-E EPI Filter Wheel

    What to look for and how to replace the drive gear

    The Venerable Nikon Ti-E remains in service in research labs all over the world. One of the first autofocus-enabled instruments deployed with the integrated PFS, there isn’t much to ask for when it comes to a modern compound fluorescent stand. For owners of the instruments, it’s important to be aware of a big maintenance item on the scope – it’s motorized epi filter cube turret.

    It lived a good life!

    These turrets use a stepper motor to rotate the large carousel into various positions. The motor, control electronics, and positional sensing system are all high quality and should last many years, however, there is an internal gear which connects the belt drive to the carousel, and over time and stress of use, these gear rings have a tendency to crack.

    I recently had a colleague ask if we could reverse engineer a solution for these, as Nikon charges a mint for them and in some cases they may be difficult to obtain depending on your region. You can see from the one supplied to me indeed had cracked, and under inspection, stress cracks from aged plastic are apparent.

    It’s important to note here that these might “work fine” under manual rotation (where the motor isn’t applying stress to the belt drive). If you are having problems where the filter isn’t moving to position, or hearing any snapping, clicking or other unusual noises, it’s highly recommended to remove the carriage assembly, and to inspect the gear closely for cracks. This is a ~ 15 minute procedure and only requires a flashlight and removal of the top cover of the carriage.

    If yours is cracked, we can supply a replacement within 1 day of order placement from our web store.

    Here is a video of how to inspect and replace the ring as well.

  • Cooling a Pt Grey Camera

    I’ve been working with Pt Grey (now FLIR) cameras for a few years now, and one nagging question in the back of my mind has been whether or not it is possible to cool them via external means. There are basically 3 categories of cooling when it comes to low light cameras:

    • no cooling whatsoever
    • cooling to + or – some delta from ambient
    • fixed-temperature cooling to some set point.

    Of these methods, the fixed temp cooling is the most difficult to achieve, for a number of reasons, and I don’t believe these types of cameras would benefit greatly from such an attempt, so my idea was to simply answer the question, “Will cooling improve the performance of these cameras in a measurable way?”

    Normally, the cooling of a sensor takes place as close as possible to the back side of the sensor itself. In this case, I started with an already-encased camera, the Pt Grey Chameleon 3. Because I didn’t have access to the sensor back directly, I figured making contact with the case, at as much surface as possible, would suffice. In order to do that I simply used 2 l channel strips of aluminum, and placed thermal tape on all 3 sides touching the camera. The graphic below shows what was added after the aluminum wrapper. First, a peltier (thermo-electric heat exchanger) was coupled to the aluminum. From there, a large CPU heat sink/cooler was attached to the hot side of the TEC. The general idea here is that the aluminum should absorb the heat from the camera. The peltier moves a lot of that heat to the CPU cooler, which radiates the heat into the air. This is a rather rudimentary setup, but it works for the proof of concept.

     

     

    Below is an image of the assembled system. To provide the required 5V and 12V power to the cooler and peltier, I used my old reliable ATX Power supply.  This assembly low cost components from Amazon and the like. I think the total cost was $27 or so. Maybe more including thermal tape.

    So how did the system perform?

    First I allowed the stack to heat up for ~ 30 minutes. I wanted the camera to heat-soak the wrapper, so that when cooling was applied any measurable change could be collected. I think the act of adding the non-powered stack aided in the camera performance a bit, as simply having the radiator attached means that the hot camera can cool more readily from greater surface area exposure. In any case, a thermal camera was used in timelapse mode to collect the change in temperature over time. The recording was started after 30 minutes of warm-up. Images from the thermal camera were captured during a 1 hour period, while the camera was run in timelapse mode using Micro-Manager 1.4. First, here’s a GIF showing a time-compressed thermal image.

    Several things to note here. One is the large drop in camera body temp during the experiment. Another is the subsequent increase in radiator temperature, as it works to shunt the heat from the peltier. Also note the wings on each side of the camera body. They start at a similar temp as the camera body, then drop in temperature significantly (40-50°F) over the duration of the timelapse. It’s important to also note that the emissivity of the plastic camera body differs from that of the aluminum. As a result, even if the temperature is exactly the same, a slight difference in the IR image will be visible.

    Below are the results of the image captures. First is a graph showing maximum measured intensity of any pixel in-frame, over the duration of the timelapse (120 frames @ 30Seconds interval). In the case of “hot pixels”, as the camera temperature decreases, the collected signal from those pixels drops.

    Graph of measured 8-bit maximum intensity in image over time of experiment. Orange line represents a 20 point moving average trend.

     

    Next, I wanted to measure the total # of hot pixels. Now, it’s somewhat nebulous to define a hot pixel, but I used anything 1.5x greater in intensity than the minimum background, or offset, of the image. On this experiment, the average background was ~ 14, resulting in a threshold of 21. I was really surprised by this one. There is a rather large spike in the data, and I’m not certain what that is from. However, this again shows that the cooling is indeed reducing the hot pixel count, as would be expected. Additionally, the count can be seen to normalize at around 1500 pixels, which I expect is where the system started to thermal stabilize.

     

    For a final set of interesting images. Here’s a shot of the stack after the experiment finished. Note the low temp of the wings and the back wrapper block.

    Another interesting shot, this one of the sensor face. Using the cooling system it was at 104°F.

    Turning the system off produced a temp of ~ 130°F.

    My conclusion is that it is possible to cool even encased cameras using external cooling methods, to improve the performance of the camera(s). I do not think such adaptation will yield comparable results to a camera designed with cooling from the start, but this is an interesting option to achieve better results from a camera with a low price point.

     

    -Austin

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • High speed stable enclosure for GoPro and Black Magic cameras

    Here’s a project I can finally talk about! This is one of my clients, PEOVI, who makes rugged, high speed camera mounts for anything from race cars, to airplanes. If you need to mount a Black Magic Micro, or GoPro, to your high speed vehicle, this is the product for you. The engineering team behind this company has decades of experience in manufacturing airborne cinematography platforms. No plastic on these bad boys 🙂

    Here’s a link to the company store, where you can get anything from a simple fixtured mount, up to a tilt/roll/pitch enclosure.

    peovi-speed-ball

     

    Above is an example of the “speed ball” enclosure, which is used with GoPro cameras. The bottom mount us for a cinematic type tube, so it can be used with normal video production equipment if desired. Of course, it might also be attached to the strut of an experimental aircraft wing… 🙂

    – Austin

     

  • Shutter Configuration of TTL devices in Micromanager

    I made this video to show how to use both a state device shutter object and a group shutter object in micro-manager. Hopefully others can make use of it!

     

  • Dynamic Mirror Reflection Angles using Fusion360

    SO I’ve been working with AutoDesk’s Fusion360 for a while now, and have found it to be an exceptional tool for diving into CAD. If you’ve considered CAD before, but have been scared off by the learning curve, I recommend checking it out. One of the important functions of a truly parametric CAD program is the need to reference objects to other objects, and to reference measurements to variables or other object measurements. I knew Fusion360 could handle parametric work, but hadn’t been able to figure out a solution to my particular problem, so, here’s a video on how I did it. Not sure if this is an accepted method conventionally, but it worked for me!

    The problem I had was how to set up a reflection line, which was dependent on 2 inputs, the angle of an input source, and the reflection angle of a mirrored surface. I wanted to be able to drive these 2 input values, and have either of them affect the resulting reflection line. Here’s how it worked out.

    [youtube width=”600″ height=”365″ video_id=”hVRhyYDPGr8″]

    -Austin

  • Optical Design comes to the iPad!

    Over the past 5 years, almost every project I’ve worked on has required some level of optic design. In many cases, simple designs suffice. For example, projecting an LED can be accomplished at a basic level with an aspheric condenser. But when designs require flat fields, especially corrective elements, or apochromatic performance, it’s time to leverage commercial tools like Zemax. Luckily, I have one of the best Zemax gurus on the planet on hand for such work. But there is a middle ground where I want to work on designs I’d call basic+. This is where there has never been a clear solution. In such cases, the best compromise is to buy experimental grade lenses, and test them empirically.

    Obviously this presents 3 problems:

    • shipping time + setup time = a long iterative design process.
    • when issues are found, the only solution is to snag a few more lenses and test, vs.  modeling a solution.
    • The end result is “good enough” , but it’s unknown as to where other improvements may be found.

    So imagine my surprise when I found an app for ray tracing and modeling, in the App store! Too good to be true – has to be a joke, right? Nope – Check out this short example, showing the Nikon 105mm SLR lens.

    [youtube width=”600″ height=”365″ video_id=”KPwETNTQfFI”]

    You can read more about RayLab here – http://www.raymak.com/wp/  or can download it on the app store here.

    The basic app is ~ $2.00. Adding all of the features will run just under $30. Considering that the cheapest alternative runs ~ $1500, this is an amazing deal. Anyway – I hope others find this as useful as I have!

    Oh one more example – here’s the optical design for a Zeiss 40x objective! Cool huh?!?!

    Zeiss_40_Raylab

    -Austin

  • uPeek iPhone based Microscope

    Kickstarter has another iphone microscope project, this time it looks like an attachment which includes a 4 line LED, focusing and optical element system, and machined body. Looks cool!

     

     

    -Austin

     

  • ASCB 2015 Reveals the Next Generation of Microscopy

    One of the best aspects of flying is being apart from the world. Not only terra firma, but the troubles of life, questions of the future, and concerns of the present. Flight requires attention to instruments while in operation, but long cross country flights leave the pilot with time to sit and watch the world unfold beneath as time passes.

    IMG_6313
    Departing from San Diego @ ASCB

    Night flight brings an even more isolated perspective, where after a few minutes alone, you watch the gauges, view the small points of light from far off cities, and feel suspended in the air, utterly alone in the earth.

    IMG_6381
    Night Flight home in the cessna.

    So last night, flying home with the sun setting behind me, I had a chance to consider the past week of ASCB, and what it meant to me.

    Trade shows are hard. They are hard for the attendees and the exhibitioners. Attendees sit through lengthy talks, then browse the show floor and get bombarded by marketing, then have dinners with colleagues into the night. Exhibitors aren’t that different. Business meetings in the early morning, standing at the show floor booth all day, and then meetings and dinners with colleagues and contacts into the night. By the last day, everyone is happy to rest on the trip home!

    Yet somehow in this internet era, there’s nothing like meeting face to face, to share life, to discuss new projects, and meet new people. This year was my 14th year of attending trade shows as a member of the microscopy community. In that time things have changed in many ways, and are exactly the same in others. I hunted through the Blanco archives and found a few shots from my very first trade show. What an impression it made on me! This was from Neuroscience 2001, with my good friend Will Casavan. I was there working for Technical Instrument Company at the time, and Will was with Media Cybernetics. DSC00008

    Little did I know that it would be 14 years later, that Will would link me up with Echo labs, and a new and exciting chapter in my life would begin.

    I bring up the past for two reasons. First, because I enjoy looking back to see how far this industry has come. 14 years ago the hottest product on the market was the Nikon TE-2000, and it sported 2, yes 2!, cameras. One for fluorescence, and one for brightfield. The inverted microscope with cameras, computer, capture cards (yes, the cameras required a card, check out that data cable!), monitor, supporting electronic boxes and cables, took up a large bench worth of space, and ran about $65,000.

    DSC00005
    Noelle looking at a TE-2000 microscope equipped with fluorescence and brightfield cameras

    Some might argue that this industry hasn’t evolved quickly enough, but consider the following. Almost every function performed on the microscope above can also be performed using the ECHO Revolve. Of course, while at the booth I was able to airdrop images like this one straight to my phone, allowing me to easily post them on the blog!

    Image_0159_zoverlay
    Three channel fluorescence captured and airdropped to my iPhone in about 30 seconds using the Revolve microscope

    To me, this is a major step forward in research technology. I think the attendees who visited the ECHO booth would agree, as while working the booth I don’t think there was a single minute without at least 1 person looking at the scopes. In 2 of the 3 days I worked the booth, we couldn’t even break for lunch!

    IMG_6262
    Yes, I was there, yes this is a selfie, don’t judge me 🙂

    While writing this, Eugene Cho, CEO of Echo labs, sent me a great timelapse of the show. I think this is an excellent video, as it shows the additional hard work required for exhibitors, to set up and tear down these displays. ECHO hand made the booth for the show, and the personal touch really made the booth stand out from the crowd in my opinion!

    Of course, there are many other advances taking place in the industry! I got to speak with Silvia Foppiano of Oko Lab, and was amazed how far incubation technology has come! In 2001, the best incubators I remember were homemade ones. Today, you can buy a stage top incubator, with magnetized connectors, micro-scale thermistor temp probes, humidity and co2 control, for prices around 1/3 of units in the past. As a machining junkie, I was very impressed with the finish of these units. If you are looking for an incubation solution you should definitely check them out.

    IMG_6290
    Magnetized hold downs keep the chambered slide in place when being used with immersion oil

    IMG_6298
    This little controller provides control and capture of all sensor data in the system.

    IMG_6292
    Chamber has perfusion ports for dynamic experiments

    Zeiss has an awesome Oculus Rift-equipped demonstration of interactive sample observation. I couldn’t believe it when I walked by, there was the rift, and no-one was sitting in the demo chair! Boom 🙂 I had to jump on that chance. As a tech nerd and gaming junkie, I’ve been relishing the chance to test these, and it was a super cool experience! At first it’s disjointed to turn and see the image field move with the accelerometer inputs on the rift. Navigation was performed using an XBOX 360 controller.

    Zeiss ad for the Oculus Rift Cellular Visualization demo

    In only a few minutes I found my senses immersed in the environment, and was soon able to fly around with ease without even thinking about the control inputs required to do so. It really was like being in another environment. Excellent demonstration by Zeiss, and I’m happy to see that these types of technology are being adapted for use in biology.

    Sutter Instrument Company had the new IPA Integrated Patch Amplifier system on display at the show. This system is a huge leap forward for cell physiologists. With a single system, you get a matched probe, amplifier, and digital capture device, all optimized for low noise and maximum sensitivity. Definitely a major step for whole cell analysis!

    Sutters new IPA cell patch system

    Open-Imaging had a booth as well, demonstrating the new Micro-Manager 2.0 open source microscopy platform. IMG_6221

    I’ve seen a lot of new (read unstable) software at shows like this, and was surprised at how smoothly things worked. It’s obvious that Chris and Mark have put lots of time into this version, to make sure there’s minimal chaos factor when end users upgrade. I was also able to spend some time talking with Mark, as we flew to the show together this year! I’m excited for the future of Open Imaging, and am looking forward to working with the new release!

    IMG_6200
    Mark Tsuchida takes the controls of a Mooney 201. We were speeding to the show at about 225MPH when I took this. Mark flew great!

    I want to give a special thanks to Sutter and Open Imaging, who both allowed me to present my Triggerscope at the show. I hope you got a chance to see it!

    My second observation is more a felt sense than a metric. Maybe it was the new product advancements, or my age, or who I spent tim with, but I felt a shift in generational control of the industry. During my early years in microscopy, there were a group of highly intelligent, capable and dedicated people who, in one form or another, directed the outcome of products and services in this industry. But now, a decade and a half has gone by, and I’ve realized that a new group of people are influencing that direction. While I may never get to place my personal mark on the industry, I know that I get to work near those who do.  To the people who led us here, I’d say thanks for working so hard to bring this industry such incredible capability. To those who now have the burden of keeping things new, I say bear this responsibly, not lightly. Our industry should be the hallmark of the highest ethical standards, have the strictest dedication to accuracy, and consistency. Our marketing should keep people captivated while only promising what we can deliver. We should price products fairly, and support them well. I hope we are up to the challenge, because it’s in our shoulders now.

    Yet…..when I did get a chance to walk the show floor this year, I took heart. I can see that the future is bright 🙂

    Austin

    IMG_6282
    Sunset after the show, from the top of the SD convention center

     

  • Cutting Filters using a CNC

    SO I had a project where I needed a specific size of beamsplitter and I needed it quickly. Unfortunately, the type I needed wasn’t available from the usual sources, at least, not without a few days of lead time. What to do? It turns out, crazier people than me have been using CNC machines to cut glass!

    So, I made a jig from acrylic, and cooked up a hold down method, and voila, after a few attempts and figuring out how to hold the part, I was able to cut both sides of 2 of these small beamsplitters successfully! Unlike the linked example, I simply used water as a coolant, and submerged the workpiece in a recessed channel in order to provide cooling during the cut. I used a dremel diamond engraving bit, likely not the best choice, but it’s what I had avaailable. Feed speeds were @ 0.61 IPM with an RPM on the spindle @ 2600. Finish was a bit rough, but definitely useable! I figure the difference between my work and the example above is the end mill selection. Anwyay – If you ever find yourself in a similar pickle, and have access to a CNC, it might be worth a shot.

     

  • Echo Laboratories launches the Revolve Microscope

    Over 450 years have seen the compound microscope evolve into an incredible instrument. From simple contrast viewing, we’ve moved to super resolution systems capable of sub-diffraction accuracy. But for all this advancement, we’ve been stuck with the architecture of the microscope platform. Over 70% of labs end up buying both inverted and upright microscopes….until today!

    5 Revolve Rotation_2I’m happy to introduce the Revolve Hybrid Microscope! A scope that combines both inverted and upright observation into one instrument. I’ve worked in this industry for over a decade, and this is by far the biggest evolution in the idea of a scope I’ve ever seen! I’m so excited to share this with the research community, and I hope you’ll enjoy learning more about it!

    The Concept

    We all know that uprights and inverts use similar objectives, illuminators, position systems and cameras. Why duplicate all of these expensive components? Can’t we find a way to merge these two systems into one unified instrument? Echo Labs has done just that, with the Revolve.

    RevolveOp

    As you can see above, this a completely new way of approaching what a microscope should be! The revolve is two microscopes in one. It provides a fully capable inverted research instrument, AND a fully capable upright microscope, into one device. So the revolve is 2x the microscope at 1x the price, size and maintenance. While the revolve brings so much more capability, it’s also less, in all the ways less can be good. You’ll note the lack of a tower computer. It’s gone! The integrated iPad drives everything inside the scope. No more rat’s nest of wires on your lab bench. Of course, with the iPad, training isn’t required for new users. Both my boys (6 & 7yrs old) got a chance to use the fluorescent side of the app, and were capturing multichannel fluorescence with a few seconds. Using the touchscreen is simple and an easy extension to the other controls on the scope, so the keyboard and mouse won’t be missed. You may also note a lack of wires. In normal marketing pictures microscope manufactures won’t connect all the boxes, so things “look clean”, but the revolve IS clean. Only 1 power wire is required for operation, and all of the other brightfield, and fluorescent components are placed inside the body of the scope! To see these functions live, Echo Labs has produced a great website which includes demonstration videos, at www.echo-labs.com 

    The Revolve Microscope

    Revolve

    Let’s get right to the specs. This is a compound, infinity-path microscope. Current glass selection includes the entire line of Olympus objectives, with everything from long working distance phase to high NA oil immersion lenses. Both a high NA and long working distance transmitted light condenser are available to support phase and brightfield. The instrument uses the Apple iPad for control, interface, storage and display of images. The body and chassis are designed to be compact, fitting inside a fume hood or a lab bench with shelving installed. A single power supply runs all internal components, so there is only a single power connection required, and aside from that, no other cables need to be connected.

    Brightfield

    In brightfield mode the iPad camera is optically coupled to the lightpath, providing sharp, color balanced, auto exposed images. Optical coupling is set to provide the full objective field within the iPad camera FOV, with pinch+zoom available should the user want a traditional square view. On-screen controls are provided for color balance, brightness and contrast.

    IMG_9727 (1)

    Due to the unique nature of the upright/inverted combination, both high res close working condensers as well as long working distance phase condensers are available. A high accuracy locking mechanism is used to securely hold the condenser assembly in place, while still allowing for easy removal by a single lever.

    Fluorescence

    In fluorescent mode the Revolve uses a high sensitivity quantitative monochrome camera, which is wirelessly connected to the iPad display, providing a no-latency view when scanning a fluorescent plate or slide. High power discrete LED’s provide fluorescence excitation. Fluorescent wavelengths are specified by “light cube”, with a cube and filter block set provided for popular fluorescent excitation/emission spectra.

    IMG_9761

    The user interface for fluorescence includes enough control to be useful, but avoids the excessive detail usually found on older imaging programs. You won’t have to worry about parallel shift voltage settings, or pre/post sensor clearing options just to snap an image! On-image display scaling, a simple high/low gain selection, and attenuation control are easily controlled. The physical knob on the right side of the microscope controls the current fluorescent channel in parallel with the app, providing a bidirectional link for the user’s preferred mode of operation.

    Mechanical

    The body includes a USB hub which can accept common memory sticks, allowing for quick USB transfer of images obtained by the iPad app. The engineers spent an extensive amount of time working on the question of “what do we do with the images on the iPad?”. This is an important question for every microscope, yet it never seems to be completely addressed. How many times have you realized images you captured simply were lost, because someone deleted them from your scope’s hard drive! With the Revolve you can save your images almost anywhere: USB, AirDrop, DropBox, with more cloud options coming soon. Or, just take your iPad….and walk away!

    Revolve side

    The focus mechanism is duplicated for easy access in either upright or inverted configuration, providing a common coarse/fine knob adjustment. X/Y adjustment is provided by dual knob control placed close to the user’s hand. The stage is locked into the microscope with a secure, but easily removable cam lock and alignment pins. This makes removal of the stage easy for revolving the scope, but keeps the stage securely in place when in use. Check out this video for an example of each of the above functions!

    Conclusion

    During my time working with the Echo Labs team, I’ve seen the attention to detail put into the user-focused features of this microscope. My previous posts have hopefully allowed a sense of understanding as to why I am so excited to work with this team! This company is a completely new approach to an old industry. The management team consists of veterans in the microscopy industry with a passion for high end imaging. The engineers are an amazing cadre with broad experience in the music, medical, defense, and research industries. Watching this team put the combined skill and experience into this microscope has been simply incredible. I hope you get a chance to experience using this microscope, as you’ll never look at scopes the same way again! Of course, in keeping with the idea of a new-generation company, you don’t need to talk with anyone just to check out pricing, an online and interactive quote configurator is available, which allows you to easily build the revolve for your work.

    I believe Echo labs is well on the way to completely changing the microscopy industry. The Revolve is only the first step in bringing easy to use, fair price research instruments into the lab. Welcome to the Revolution.

    -Austin Blanco

     

  • Countdown to a Revolution in Microscopy – Day 1

    Well,

    I guess I should continue providing lengthy explanations of this skunk works project, but I think it’s time to let this thing stand on it’s own merit. So…here’s a nifty countdown timer until the announcement goes up!

    The wait is over – the Revolve is Here!!

     

  • Countdown to a Revolution in Microscopy – Day 2

    I was supposed to write about bigger/faster/stronger today, but I don’t want to. Instead I want to consider culture. Companies absolutely have cultures, or rather, micro-cultures. Labs have cultures as well! One can consider in many ways a lab to be a small business operating inside the incubator of a university! So how does a culture affect what products and services are offered by a company? Well, take for example the typical order lag from when you say, “I want to buy a new eyepiece” or some other part, and when you actually receive that part. For most major scope companies, this is around 4-9 weeks. Yes…. WEEKS.

    Hawaiian shirt day is NOT a good cultural trait....just sayin...
    Hawaiian shirt day is NOT a good cultural trait….just sayin…

    Is that wrong? Well…that depends on what your company culture values. If it values maximum profit potential for in-stock supplies over turnaround times, then no, it’s not wrong. In my mind, if I have customers that need parts, and it’s regularly taking a month to receive supplies, I’m a lot less concerned with the part itself and a lot more concerned with customer satisfaction, so to me, I don’t think it’s the best customer-service philosophy. In any case, this is a question of culture – what values are prioritized inside of a company? Those values drive the culture. Is shaking up things seen as productive, or divisive? This is a cultural trait of a company. Companies like Tesla or Apple have to maintain a fanatical obsession with experimentation, with risk taking, in order to avoid becoming just another big widget maker, and truth be told, over some length of time, they will likely not be able to avoid this change. It’s almost inevitable.

    So – what sort of company do you want to work with? What values should be important to a new company offering products in the microscopy industry? Should delivery times run in the months, or the days? Should service require checklists, or a ups label? Just an interesting thing to consider….

    -Austin

     

  • Countdown to a Revolution in Microscopy – Day 4

    What can’t your microscope do?

    Any user of a modern scope, or at least, a high end scope, considers the addition of new widgets. Whether it’s a better illuminator, adding a more sensitive camera, or even a motorized component, we think of scope upgrades,as…well…UP grades, yes? But in so many other areas of our lives, we’ve seen that less can really be more. How many of us still have a cable TV service, and a landline, and a fax line, and a fiber connection for internet? We’ve reduced all of these different services to a simpler and easier choice – wired of some type (Cable, fiber or whatnot) for high bandwidth, and wireless (cellular etc) for low bandwidth. I’d expect we’ll soon see the end of wired connections at all…. One could imagine the new apartment renter only 15 years ago, asking the question, “how many phone / fax lines do I need?” yet now, we find our less is better, is more. Less power consumption is better, yet 30 years ago every ad wasn’t about efficiency, it was about POWER. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing that stirs my soul like the sound of a Hellcat at the reno air races, pushing 500MPH and screaming out the gutteral sound of 2,000 horsepower only a few hundred feet away. Power is cool. But hey, I drive a hybrid. In many practical ways, less is more. It’s with this in mind that I ask, do you NEED that 30lb computer, sitting next to your scope? What if it wasn’t there? What could you do differently with your scope if, say, it was smaller, or lighter? What could you do with your scope if those boxes and wires hanging everywhere were….less?

    IMG_9727

    Sometimes we don’t see the power in less. I love wrenching on scopes that, by all rights, may blow a breaker were everything fired up at the same time. I love the complexity, but I’m, for lack of a better term, an imaging gearhead. I love working on laser launches BECAUSE they might burn my fingers! If they can’t, it’s just not as cool for some reason. But at the end of things, I’m just a gearhead. Research is what matters, not my personal desire to melt fiber. Today more then ever we are presented with the challenge of better understanding our world, our environment, our universe, through basic research. We need affordable tools. We need tools that are easy to obtain, easy to use, easy to service. Tools that can be used for what they are. The research is the objective, but so many microscopy companies have fallen into the mistaken belief that the device they sell is the objective itself. A microscope is nothing more than 450 years of technological advancement beyond the hammer, but……it’s still a tool.

    What if the tools you had in the lab weren’t aimed at being the most complex, all encompassing widget around, but instead were aimed at being useful for the intended purpose? Would less complexity equal more speed?

    What if your microscope wan’t intended to have every cool new thing added to it? What if it were just made to have cool stuff, useful stuff, already inside? Would less wiring and add-on components equal more useable bench space? Or more potential places you could put the thing?

    What if the scope you wanted to buy didn’t come with a 4 page list of crypto-part numbers, providing your sales rep, and you, an excellent way to miss detailed little parts on the system, only to figure that out when you receive the thing? Would less itemization result in more assurance in a simple, complete system?

    What if you didn’t have to earn a dual Ph.D in computer science just to run esoteric software with a few hundred unintelligible icons scattered all over the place? Would less buttons equal more sanity?

    You know, most of these questions aren’t new ones. There will always be gearheads who want a water cooled 220V laser simply because it needs water cooling, but in so many ways, the current microscope options available are built FOR the gearhead, and then reduced and passed to the regular researcher who just wants the tool to work.

    I’ll always be a gearhead, but I’ve come to realize how powerful less can be, and it’s pretty freaking powerful….

    4 Days and counting.

    Austin

  • Countdown to a Revolution in Microscopy – Day 5

    One of the first known microscopes by Zacharias Jansen.

    The foundational design of the compound microscope has, in many ways, remained locked in place for the 450 years of it’s existence. Combining an objective, eyepiece, and illuminator to provide a magnified view of a specimen has drastically improved. The illumination, staging, detection, optical design, and contrast methods have all evolved by leaps and bounds today. Super resolution will likely become the new normal in the next 10 years. But for all of this improvement, some of the basic limitations of the microscope remain locked in place. A further limitation is placed on development by the same names in the industry. Big name instrument manufacturers, with entrenched, slow, and top-heavy R&D divisions aren’t really set up to upset things, but instead to make small improvements over time. Sometimes it takes fresh eyes, a new way of seeing things, a new generation of builders, to break free of this incremental development cycle, to find a different way of solving the age old limitations we find in todays’ instruments.

    IMG_2648
    Guess what this is 🙂

    Over the past year, I’ve been privileged to find an amazing group of young entrepreneurs, who have tirelessly worked to bring a new microscope to life. I’ve been even more honored to play a small part along the way. I’ve been chomping at the bit to share the story of this group. I’ve watched as they struggled to solve extremely difficult problems. I’ve looked into eyes not seen since I was a young grunt in the infantry, the eyes of a man who hasn’t slept in days, fighting to figure out the answer to a seemingly unanswerable question. I’ve watched as we walked through success, through failure, through disappointment, watching as one man’s imagination was brought into reality, watching as each person contributed to make something bigger, better, than any of us could imagine.

    On August 1, the company will announce it’s product, and I’ll be able to tell more of the story. For today, I just want to ask a series of questions, which I plan to further explore in the days leading up to release.

    • What can’t your microscope do?
    • Does the instrument you use today reflect an embodiment of available consumer-grade technology?
    • What is “ease of use”, how can such a phrase be quantified?
    • Is faster, bigger, heavier, stronger, always better?
    • Asking a tough question on mature markets and the voice of the customer.

    I hope you’ll stay with me for the week. All I can promise is that will be worth the wait. I hope to at least provide an explanation on why I believe this group is on the right track, and why it’ll turn the microscopy industry on it’s head…..literally.

    -Austin

     

     

  • Identifying Astigmatism in your microscope

    Proper optical performance should produce nice clear defocused rings as shown in this example

     

    After all of the engineering and testing which goes into a microscope, you’d imagine that any manufactured scope would have perfect alignment of the optics. Believe it or not, in many cases things can be off! So how can you tell this? A simple test is to view a bead slide, or a grid slide, and run the focus up and down through the sample’s best focal plane. What you should see is clear defocused rings or bars which expand away from the object as you drive away from either side of the focal plane.

    Nikon has a nice writeup on astigmatism here – click on the pic to view the artice.

    Running through the focus quickly will reveal astigmatism:

    • Does the defocused haze seem to move from right to left as you drive into the focal plane, and continue traveling in the same direction as you focus past the focal plane? This can indicate astigmatism or sample alignment problems.
    • Do your out of focus regions seem to defocus into horizontal lines on one side of the sample, and then defocus into vertical lines on the other side? If so this can indicate astigmatism.

    In either case this is a limitation to the amount of clarity your optics can resolve and should be addressed.

    Simple example of astigmatic errors and the effect they cause on image clarity

    You can further isolate the issue by switching objectives and running the test again.

    • If the problem remains, the problem is not related to a single objective, but is either due to the optical components inside the scope, or due to the stage not installed at perfect level (this is actually quite common!).
    • If the problem is only visible in one objective and not in any others, the problem is in the objective affected. (If it’s an oil lens first try giving it a good cleaning! old oil can build up on the lens and cause this type of behavior!

    -Austin

    IamgingIm

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