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Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

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Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

#3
This reminds me of this Kickstarter project that I backed a while back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-l...

This one just sticks to your phone rather than requiring an enclosure, but only has a max zoom of 60x (or 15x without phone zoom).

Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

#4

This reminds me of this Kickstarter project that I backed a while back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-l... This one just sticks to your phone rather than requiring an enclosure, but only has a max zoom of 60x (or 15x without phone zoom).

'Phone zoom' is all software, so it wouldn't be true 60x.

Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

#6
post #4

This reminds me of this Kickstarter project that I backed a while back: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/968523355/micro-phone-l... This one just sticks to your phone rather than requiring an enclosure, but only has a max zoom of 60x (or 15x without phone zoom).

'Phone zoom' is all software, so it wouldn't be true 60x.

That depends on the phone.

Some Nokia devices (for one example I know of: no doubt there exist other cameras and camera phones that do something similar) have a higher resolution CCD than they need for unzoomed images and use the extra resolution for noise reduction and such when scaling the image down to the final size - so with zoom you genuinely get more detail but possibly at the expense of extra signal noise.

Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

#9
Digging these new cheap microscope concepts (this is and the as-of-yet unbuyable paper microscope). Just reading about them moved me to build this contraption someone linked to in the paper microscope thread comments:

http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-mic...

It's pretty cool, but if you build one, definitely use caution and wear eye protection when drilling through the Plexiglas.

Re: Droplet lens turns a smartphone into a 160X microscope

#10

Digging these new cheap microscope concepts (this is and the as-of-yet unbuyable paper microscope). Just reading about them moved me to build this contraption someone linked to in the paper microscope thread comments: http://www.instructables.com/id/10-Smartphone-to-digital-mic... It's pretty cool, but if you build one, definitely use caution and wear eye protection when drilling through the Plexiglas.

Seconded on the eye protection. Also, drill slow (without too much pressure) and drill a pilot hole so you stay centered.

There are special plexiglass drills, those make life a bit easier, a glass bit works as well (even better, actually).

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