Yeah, they are permanently mounted. I learned to make mounts in Canada Balsam by watching some online videos.

Here is a description of the procedure:
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/glm ... ication-ii

I have been working quite a bit of macro and micro photography into my iNaturalist observations this past year. When I started photographing aphids, the experts I talked to didn't think more obscure species could be identified from photos. As I learned more, I saw their point. However if you work th...

What I got out of this was that I shouldn’t be using enlarging lenses at 4X. Stick with other types of lenses. Was there something I missed?

I bought the $17 Amscope 4X for a Labophot microscope. When using it to look through an eye piece it works fine. For photography though it is not filling an APS-C frame though. Looking at tests other people have done, this seems like it is an issue of my lighting rather than the objective. Here is a...

I still have not tried the series 5 ohm resistor as I am looking for a suitable power rated resistor. The resistors I am using are: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087ZCSQ4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They are 50W resistors which are obviously over-kill. There is a lot of room i...

The boards I bought were these. They definitely don’t match the schematic in that two pins are shorted together. That seems to have been the primary reason I failed boards although bad wiring may have also failed some. WINGONEER 5PCS MT3608 DC-DC Step Up Power Apply Module Booster 2A Power Module fo...

Interesting point. Given my poor soldering skills I could easily see that being the problem with multiple boards. I may try using a 7.5 or 10 ohm resistor. I have a second 5 ohm resistor laying around. If I am understanding correctly that should reduce the lower end of the light range at the expense...

Put a camera on it. Previously I typically used 1/8 sec shutter speeds on phase contrast with my 10x objective. Now I can use 1/80 second shutter times! Not all of this was the upgrade. I found, removed (and promptly lost) a filter in the microscope as a part of this process. Still, this is a lot mo...

Left it running for a bit more than an hour on high, turned it off and on a bunch of times. So far this is way better than advertised. It is too bright to use on bright field, yet runs way cooler than it did with the original bulb. Still haven't tried messing with the potentiometer again to get it t...

First I made the circuit just as described before, but without the capacitor. I did note that I was wrong, the pot goes 0 to 1130 ohms. It burned up immediately. Then I made it just like described before but with Vout- grounded and a 600 ohm resistor (with the 2.2k resistor still there) and no capac...

Thanks! For some reason I had it in my head I was connecting to the grounded side of that 2.2k resistor. Even if I was right in that guess, it is easier to connect to Vout- so hopefully this is my last revision: http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/6015_Circuit4_2.jpg I get the boards tomor...

Looking back at your circuit it seems that pin 3 should have been left unused. Hopefully this circuit creates the correct voltage divider:

Based on my current understanding of the board, these are the two circuits I am considering when the new boards come. http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/6015_Circuit2_1.jpg http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/userpix/6015_Circuit3_2.jpg I need to poke through what I have and see if I ha...

In the out of factory design two terminals of the potentiometer are shorted and it is thus being used as a variable resistor. I was figuring that if I just switch the shorted terminals from the center to left to connecting the center to right it would still function. That would swap it from 0 ohms f...

That makes more sense. When I wire it up I will either find that it works correctly, or it works backward with high power at what was previously low power. If it is the later than I just need to rewire the potentiometer. I had noted earlier that two of the three outputs are currently shorted togethe...