Labrigger Xmas Gift List 2010

Here’s the 2010 Labrigger Xmas Gift List.
Care to add anything?

Beam profiler

Measure the divergence of your laser beam, its stability, uniformity– all kinds of good stuff. These are useful metrics for diagnosing problems with the laser and really nailing the alignment and optics in your microscope.

Spectrophotometer

Measure the transmission and reflectance spectra of optical elements yourself, don’t rely on company literature. In addition to detecting defective or dirty optics (or misrepresented optics), this can also help to identify unlabeled optics you might have around. Assemble one that can be used for lenses and filters, across the wavelengths that you’ll use.

Vertical mill

For modifying parts, and making simple parts from scratch. This was covered in more detail in a previous post.

Autoquant software

Sure ImageJ is free, but Autoquant has blind deconvolution nailed.

High speed camera

A nice, high speed sCMOS camera (see discussion, post) could find use in all kinds of applications.

Recording Nanoject

For targeted injections into very small, deep structures, it’s handy to have a characteristic electrophysiological signature to look for. Typically, one would first go in with an electrode, find the location, record the coordinates, and then re-enter with an injection pipette. However, wouldn’t simply recording through the pipette work better? Drummond has been making the Recording Nanoject II for a while now, and it seems to work fine, despite the relatively unrefined recording electronics.

Autocorrelator

For most biomedical research labs, this is a bit gratuitous, but it can be useful for laser diagnostics and measuring the pulse after passing though your scope optics.