{"id":5059,"date":"2022-03-27T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-27T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/?p=5059"},"modified":"2022-03-27T12:45:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-27T16:45:01","slug":"sourcing-scan-mirrors-in-early-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/27\/sourcing-scan-mirrors-in-early-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Sourcing scan mirrors in early 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ScannerMax Saturn 5<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There are some companies that have no real competition. Maybe a product here-and-there in their catalog is subject to market forces, but most of their items have no competing options from other companies. Hamamatsu Photonics<\/a> is a great example. There is competition in the sCMOS space (vs. their Orca series), but their PMT offerings have no parallel at any other company. If Hamamatsu closed their doors, I don’t know what we would do. Cambridge Technology was another one– they make galvo mirrors and resonant scanners used in laser-scanning microscopes. Both of these companies can have massive lead times (measured in months). Why carry stock that may (or might not) sell just to reduce lead times? We scientific customers adapt to it and carry on. Well, sometimes that situation can degrade. And that has happened at Cambridge Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ownership of Cambridge Technology has changed. They are now owned by Novanta<\/a>. They stopped selling<\/a> their 6-series galvos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They have other galvos that can be used in laser scanning microscopes, but the lead times are still long. There are alternatives, including ScannerMax<\/a>, which can work with Vidrio\/MBF ScanImage<\/a>. Thorlabs<\/a> and Edmund Optics<\/a> also have options. But they’re often repackaged products (still nice, because they carry stock and can ship right away) and\/or lower performance products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resonant scanners are critical for high speed scanning. No other technology combines flexible scan amplitude, large (>5 degree) scan angles, and large (>5 mm) beam apertures. These products have even less competition than galvos. A friend of mine just reported that the Cambridge\/Novanta resonant scanners they ordered in late 2021 won’t be delivered until 2023. Some competition in the resonant scanner market would be welcome. EOPC<\/a> is another company to consider if you’re shopping around (and if you love 1990s era web page design).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEMS mirrors are cool, but are typically small aperture and\/or small scan angles (PDF link<\/a>), so they’re not drop-in replacements for conventional laser scanning systems, which often require > 10 degree scanning and >5 mm apertures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a>ScannerMax Saturn 5<\/p>\n

There are some companies that have no real competition. Maybe a product here-and-there in their catalog is subject to market forces, but most of their items have no competing options from…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21,36,15],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-imaging","tag-microscopy","tag-optics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5066,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions\/5066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/labrigger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}