Open Flexure Microscope
2018 Work
- Using lower cost webcams - https://github.com/rwb27/openflexure_microscope/issues/42
- By Matt Rogge of Tech For Trade
Communications
- Mar 16, 2018 - The files we are using are located here. For build instructions, the current best documentation is with the original designs from Richard Bowman at University of Bath located at their Github repository - https://github.com/rwb27/openflexure_microscope .
- Feb 5, 2018 - On the Microscope - Yes it is ready for use. You just need to decide which version is right for you. You can see the images of cheek cells on the link I sent. Those are the lowest resolution you would get - $3 webcam. Using a $30 web cam improves the image quite a bit. Adding a 40x objective to that improves the resolution even further. Really depends on what you what to see. I'm not much of a microbiologist so I don't have much recommendation on that. There is lots of info on their wiki page. https://github.com/rwb27/openflexure_microscope/wiki
Our main issues with trying to get them into the market in Kenya revolve around packaging, stability and the O-rings. The microscope doesn't have a box and cable management designed with it. We added one which is on our GrabCAD repository [1] for our changes to the scope. The box also adds some mass to the setup. When it isn't attached to the box, turning the nobs on the microscope causes the scope to move around the table. Finally, the O-rings or rubber bands used were challenging in Nairobi. A likely point of breakage in our experience. And potentially hard to fix in the field. Thats why I developed the version without rubber bands.
