OpenFlexure Scope

Our first real build of an OpenFlexure Scope happened quite some time ago (23may19)!

However, we plan much more to come, especially for the 'Cheek Cell chip' project!

We basically followed instructions from GitHub.
Actuator Assembly Used WD40 to oil the screws before twisting down.
Used Blue LED below, with 150ohm resister to start (maybe not best?)
Used longer screws (15mm) to attach the motors.

The program openflexure ev is put into the fedora system of the 'inner sanctum' space.
login with pi@openflexture.local (and pass from our dear old mascot! )

The motor board was set up by Masoud and running already by December 2019,

but we were not yet able to take overall panoramas of samples.

Figured out exactly how to wire things up, so could do bright field or epifluor, and we played with different powers to the blue LED to get more excitation light..
However, to date (dec2019), we have only been able to image nuclei stained with sybr safe, not yet comets...

There is a lot of old information in this thread of the GOSH Forum.
In fact, we played with more power to the blue 'excitation' LED, but it was a filter problem that got resolved before the pandemic that got us able to see fluor nuclei.

This is the filter set needed.

1 550nm dichroic mirror, 25x16mm (GFP) Mfr: Comar; Part No. 550 1Y 116

1 490nm excitation filter, 25x16mm (GFP) Mfr: Comar; Part No. 495 1K 116

1 500nm emission filter, a ‘long-pass’ Comar 510 IY 116 was what was needed to make this work on sybr-safe stained cells.

Much more would come soon, we thought, before we we struck by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, including the full configuration so far...
(thanks to the [www.openflexure.org OpenFlexure] crew at Bath, UK (and elsewhere!), and to all Octanis members, and Masoud for getting the motors to work!!)

The latest plan, as we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel out of this pandemic time (April 2021), will be to try the more sensitive Raspberry Pi camera and the more stable filter insertion version of OpenFlexure, to see if we can also visualise the comet tails... Then, the 'cheek cell chip' might get incorporated in place of the current slide holder, and all our hopes will finally get tested for DNA damage quantitation by both the micronuclei and comets from the same cell samples, and the fun can really begin (chocolate? blueberries?) !

You can help!