Sourcing small parts
Posted in Hardware
When McMaster-Carr doesn’t carry the tiny parts you’re looking for, where can you go?
There used to be a company called Small Parts, and their catalog was great because everything in it was small. That…
Category: Hardware
Damage thresholds and Ti:Sapph lasers
Posted in Hardware
Recently, a moderately expensive optical element got fried at Labrigger. During the postmortem, we revisited our power and energy calculations, and our LIDT (laser intensity damage threshold) calculations.
LIDT calculations remind me of radiation-health physics…
Custom motorized stereotax from Mark O. West’s lab at Rutgers
Posted in Hardware
They motorized a Kopf manipulator and used CNC software to control it. I like the simple mechanics. Here’s one of the parts used to couple the stepper motors to the manipulator:
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Mini-wireless Arduino-compatible LightBlue Cortado
Posted in Hardware
No wires- even for programming. And the battery can last “up to a year”. If you can wait until May 2014 to get your hands on one, here are the details:
The Arduino-compatible Bluetooth LightBlue Cortado…
Simple magnetic stir plate
Posted in Hardware
Tekla Labs has DIY plans for lab equipment, such as this battery-operated magnetic stir plate.
The contest they’re sponsoring is probably to flesh this section out beyond the lonely 3 items at present.
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DIY Lab Equipment Contest
Posted in Hardware
Tekla Labs is sponsoring a contest to design lab equipment. There are already over 100 entries.
EyeWriter 2.0 Eye tracking system
Posted in Hardware
The EyeWriter DIY project is for the disabled, but could work equally well for psychophysics applications. All of the code is open source, and the build is thoroughly documented.
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Sensapex piezo manipulators… update
Posted in Hardware
Labrigger covered Sensapex’s tiny manipulators in the past. Since then, Sensapex has broadened their offerings a bit.
SciScan: Scientifica’s two photon software
My friend Bruno has written some very nice software for Scientifica’s two photon microscope systems. It’s called SciScan.
It’s written in LabVIEW and runs both their conventional galvo and resonant systems….
Open Ephys
Posted in Hardware
Open Ephys is a well-developed, extensive open hardware solution for extracellular electrophysiology.
Founded by Josh Siegle and Jakob Voigts, its motivation resonantes with Labrigger:
We are not motivated to create new tools for their own…
Makerwise: comparing 3d printers
3D printing is a great tool. However, I still don’t recommend buying your own 3D printer. Use a service instead (e.g., Ponoko, Shapeways, or Quickparts). Here’s why:
1. The technology moves fast.
What…
Smartport for open source handheld laser control
Posted in Hardware
Wicked Lasers makes laser pointers. High quality, high power laser pointers that can be repurposed for other applications. In fact, some of their lasers should probably never be used as pointers (e.g., this 2 watt…
Oscilloscope watch
Posted in Hardware
It tells time, and has a calendar, alarm, oscilloscope, waveform generator, logic analyzer, protocol sniffer, and a frequency counter.
There’s about a month to go on the Kickstarter campaign, if you want one.
The maker, Gabriel Anzziani, has a good track record. Here are some of his earlier devices:
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Fast resonant scanning two-photon scope from UCLA
Posted in Hardware
Here’s an update on the scope from Joshua Trachtenberg’s team. If you want one, contact them at: info.neurolabware@gmail.com
This is another moving objective microscope, like the Sutter (Denk/MOM) scope, and the Thorlabs scope. Here’s a…