Wall-mounted vertical rig

[mjkzz]

ah, forgot about the finite objectives.

[mjkzz]

but then again, there are more room to work with behind the objective.

[Lou Jost]

But you can't freely put things there without causing aberrations, especially not stuff that sits at an angle.

One of the main reasons modern scopes use infinity optics is because there is virtually no optical cost to putting many kinds of optical elements in the infinity space.

[elf]

Just put a hinge on your horizontal setup

[Beatsy]

I must be being thick, but I don't see how a mirror behind the objective could work on a horizontal rig. I visualise an objective pointing down at 90 degrees from the end of the (horizontal) tube or lens connected to the camera. So when the camera was moved forward by the focus rail, the objective would pan across the subject, not move closer to focus on a different plane. What am I missing?

[Lou Jost]

I think he was suggesting that just as a solution to the lighting problem, not the horizontal/vertical thing.

[mawyatt]

Beats,

What about the Thor 95mm XT95 Rail Extruded bar, say 600~800mm long, securely fasten to the wall vertically with large "L" brackets at the top and bottom. Then either a Drop-On Rail XT95P11 or Rail Plate XT95P12 to hold your subject positioning fixture at the vertical rail bottom and a Drop-On Rail XT95P11 to hold your focus rail above the subject positioning fixture.

This would be totally suspended from the wall, have common mode vibration isolation, take up almost no desk space, easily accessible, adjustable and utilize your present lighting and computer setups.

You could use the XT95SP One-Sided Rail, but I don't think it would be stiff enough stand alone vertically.

Best,

Edit, added image & can't spell

[mjkzz]

But you can't freely put things there without causing aberrations, especially not stuff that sits at an angle.

One of the main reasons modern scopes use infinity optics is because there is virtually no optical cost to putting many kinds of optical elements in the infinity space.

I must be being thick, but I don't see how a mirror behind the objective could work on a horizontal rig. I visualise an objective pointing down at 90 degrees from the end of the (horizontal) tube or lens connected to the camera. So when the camera was moved forward by the focus rail, the objective would pan across the subject, not move closer to focus on a different plane. What am I missing?

ah OK, I was thinking about solving Lou's "heavy load" issue going back some times, the solution is to move the (infinite) objective but keep camera with heavy equipments, tubes and tube lenses horizontal, so bear with me.

One of the key advantage of an infinite objective is to be able to insert other optical apparatus (or multiple) in the optical path between back of objective and tube lens, so inserting a high grade mirror (say eighth lambda first surface mirror) at 45 degrees should not cause too much of an issue. I have hard time doing it in CAD program, so I hand drew it here. One might say, hey, that is NOT moving horizontally and capture vertically? But the solution provides "capturing images at 90 degrees".

[mjkzz]

For finite objectives, say a 160mm one, yet another bellow like thing on the camera and yet another rail for the camera. So if the vertical rail moves, say, 5um, the horizontal rail can move 5um in the direction to maintain 160mm from objective to sensor.

[mjkzz]

All these sound very difficult to do particularly for us without resources, but the when problem presents itself with much difficulty, what can we do?

One suggestion is to integrate the "bellow like" thing, the mirror, and the rail (maybe much smaller) into ONE solid package.

Such device allows some unique way of photographing "difficult" things, like roots of plants where we can rotate the lens upwards to capture it in natural way (hanging downward).

Anyways, maybe some researcher can ask for grants to make things like this.

[elf]

Is this still your horizontal rig? If so, it shouldn't be too hard to convert it vertical.

[Beatsy]

Is this still your horizontal rig? If so, it shouldn't be too hard to convert it vertical.

Was this question for me? If so, no, I want a vertical rig as well. The horizontal one is staying as and where it is. I've solved all the vibration issues and finally have it configured so I can do anything from 0.3x to 50x with *very* quick and easy lens/tube changes (only). There are occasions though where I'd rather just drop very small specimen(s) on a flat, transparent or opaque surface to photograph them, while applying the same illumination/diffusion regimes I use on the horizontal rig. Hence my interest in an additional dedicated vertical rig. I'm hopeful that it would provide a better platform for magnifications beyond 50x too. I've yet to acquire objectives for that, but aspire to tackle 80x or so some day (mainly for diatoms).

[mawyatt]

Beats,

Here's some images of the Thor Vertical setup I'm putting together, the lighting fixtures are not correctly placed obviously. Think you can get the idea from the sketch and these images.

Anyway, hope this helps..(Getting braver/closer to cracking the wafer)

Best,





Edit to add:

Also should mention have you considered the Wemacro Vertical Stand kit? It's quite good and very affordable. One idea to mount it to the wall, and maybe slightly increase rigidity, would be to use a 40mm X 80mm bar instead of the supplied 40X40, you can these from Misumi & 80/20 Inc for under $25. Secure the bar to the wall in multiple locations along the bar sides using T-Nuts and right angle brackets (like the heavy extruded ones supplied with the kit). The base stand would be suspended from the vertical bar at the bar bottom (like normal use, except not sitting on the stand feet supporting the vertical bar, the other way around bar supporting stand). You would mount your subject positioning fixture to the base stand as usual. The base isn't that heavy without the feet, and the right angle brackets that are supplied with the kit are massive extruded types that can sustain lots of torque, and use M8 bolts.

Anyway, just a thought and doesn't cost much to find out if it would be stable enough (if not you now have a very nice portable Vertical & Horizontal (get this option) setup. My guess is (I normally don't like to speculate, but do have the Vertical Stand, so not total speculation) this would work very well indeed

If I'm wrong I'll buy you a brew,

Cheers,

[Lou Jost]

mjkzz, yes, that works well to solve the load problem with infinity-corrected optics. In that case it is slightly simpler to skip the mirror and just build a vertical mount for the camera + tube lens and focus by moving the objective.

My heaviest lenses are unfortunately not the infinity-corrected ones but the finite photolithography lenses. Can you think of a system that might work for these? Working distance is only about 1-2cm and the diameter of the front lens is bigger than that.

[mjkzz]

mjkzz, yes, that works well to solve the load problem with infinity-corrected optics. In that case it is slightly simpler to skip the mirror and just build a vertical mount for the camera + tube lens and focus by moving the objective.

Yes, you can keep cameras fixed and simply move the objective. Come to think of it, I think everything can be put in one assembly -- objective mount, bellow, optional mirror, rail, and tube lens. This way, user does not have to deal with making sure everything is in place, user simply put it in front of camera system.

My heaviest lenses are unfortunately not the infinity-corrected ones but the finite photolithography lenses. Can you think of a system that might work for these? Working distance is only about 1-2cm and the diameter of the front lens is bigger than that.

My next post after the post for infinite objective is the only solution I can think of -- use two rails, one moves the lens (vertically) and one moves the camera (horizontally) but they move in tandem, ie, if lens moves down by 5um, the camera moves forward by 5um, so that the total distance along the optical path matches what your lens requires.

I have very little knowledge of optics and optical system, so please take my ideas with a grain of salt