Category: Hardware

Oct312011October 31, 2011October 31, 20111Commentby L.

No homemade cables

Posted in Hardware

One of Josh Trachtenberg’s rules that I have adopted is “No Homemade Cables”. It’s so natural to think that this is the best solution to hook two…

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Oct232011October 23, 2011October 23, 20111Commentby L.

Streamlined & simple prototyping to custom PCB

Posted in Hardware, Software

Fritzing is PCB design software (EDA) in the spirit of Arduino and Processing. It’s open source, cross-platform, streamlined, and simple to use. It doesn’t do simulations, but you can lay out your circuit in a GUI that looks like a prototyping board, then move to…

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Oct172011October 17, 2011October 20, 20111Commentby L.

Photon counting, addendum

Posted in Hardware, Tips

Let me add some clarification to the hybrid PMT post.

The actual signal that comes off of a PMT in response to a photon is a pulse of…

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Oct162011October 16, 2011October 16, 20111Commentby L.

Photon counting with Hybrid PMTs

Posted in Hardware

Hybrid PMTs have made their way into fluorescence microscopy and are competing with GaAsP PMTs. (Well, actually, Hamamatsu makes both types, so it’s not really competition…

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Oct032011October 3, 2011October 3, 201121Commentsby L.

Osmometer tech – Vapor or Freezing point?

Posted in Hardware

I’ve used Wescor Vapro osmometers for a long time. Specifically, the model pictured above. They’re nice machines. But now I think freezing point osmometers are better. In this post I’ll talk about why.

The…

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Sep302011September 30, 2011September 25, 20110Commentby L.

Easy Arduino projects just got even easier

Posted in Hardware

The killjoy afficiando commenters at Hack a Day love to deride as unsophisticated any project that uses an Ardunio (e.g. this thread). The platform has become so popular that, to co-opt…

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Sep282011September 28, 2011September 25, 20119Commentsby L.

DIY Heat pad

Posted in Hardware

More cleverness from Taro Ishikawa. Instead of buying a homeothermic heating pad for surgeries (these often cost > $1000), Taro used some basic industrial process control items. He bought his stuff in Japan, but similar items are available from McMaster-Carr in…

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Sep272011September 27, 2011September 25, 20118Commentsby L.

DIY Picospritzer

Posted in Hardware, Tips

I was in Tokyo recently and stopped by my friend Taro Ishikawa’s lab (of TaroTools fame). He and Misa are doing very well. They have exciting work underway and are expanding their…

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Sep012011September 1, 2011September 1, 20113Commentsby L.

Project enclosures

Posted in Hardware, Tips

Here are some ideas for project enclosures. The stock enclosures from Mouser, Digikey, and others are generally serviceable, but are rarely the perfect size. In addition, making the required cutouts can be inconvenient. Here are a couple of alternatives.

…

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Jul172011July 17, 2011July 16, 20113Commentsby L.

2pLSM: When will scientists stop making their own?

Posted in Hardware

In the early days of patch clamp electrophysiology, everyone made their own patch clamp amplifiers because there were none commercially available. I was lucky enough to be educated by scientists of such lineage,…

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Jul162011July 16, 2011July 16, 20111Commentby L.

OpenPCR: Now shipping

Posted in Hardware

Over a year ago, we covered the OpenPCR project. Following their successful Kickstarter campaign, which netted twice their funding goal, they’re now actually shipping the devices.

To start, this is a $512 PCR…

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Jun182011June 18, 2011June 18, 20110Commentby L.

OpenMoCo for motion control

Posted in Hardware

OpenMoCo is short for “Open Motion Control”. The community is focussed on building rigs for moving cameras.

…

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Jun152011June 15, 2011June 15, 20111Commentby L.

Structured Illumination, pt. 2

Posted in Hardware, Tips

This is a long post. If you’re in a rush, then just read these first two paragraphs.

One of the early posts on this blog was about …

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May272011May 27, 2011May 27, 20113Commentsby L.

Destroying the curve

Posted in Hardware

So you’re feeling pretty good about the rodent virtual reality system (Hölscher et al. 2005) you have up and running. You’ve got it all… the spherical treadmill with motion tracking feeding back…

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Apr192011April 19, 2011April 19, 20110Commentby L.

MakerBeam: cheap construction rails

Posted in Hardware

A while back Labrigger covered some sources for alternative mechanics. Here’s a new one. MakerBeam is an inexpensive kit of construction rails aka T-slot bars. This would be a…

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