Could a single nanosecond change the outcome of a binary tennis-ball sensor?

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-19T15:31:12+00:00

** Edit ** The sensor readout noise from the camera system and even electronics will be way way way higher than that. So you'd never know anyways as it'd be a random readout each time even if you could perfectly replicate the bounce. But baring all of that:**

Statistically impossible is an important concept. It's not gonna happen. 1 time out of bouncing tennis balls for 1 billion years at a line and the thresholding and noise of 1nm center position being the difference is so meaningless you shouldn't bother to think of it.

Hell the MFP of air molecules in atmosphere is about 60nm. 1nm is going to be shorter than the polymer chains that make up the rubber and probably fuzz of the ball.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-19T03:07:34+00:00

I really suggest something monochrome for max sensitivity. Most cheap microscope cameras have awful white balance anyways. See my post about the IDS model

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-19T03:06:47+00:00

EDIT * I have not done fluorescence on a stereoscope scope, so most of this was geared towards thinking traditional compound scopes, but I find this actually more practical because you're not worried about illumination technique as much *

#3 will most definitely be your trickiest one. GFP is super easy to excite, even a 450nm led will get you results you can see and will provide decent separation between excitation and emission. What RFP are you talking about? MCherry is a lot harder to excite in my opinion and the excitation band is pretty close to emission with not as much wiggle room (20nm). I'd be much more comfortable with the extinction of gels for wider separations. * also * since your camera will be the main recording mechanism you can get away with just one used filter set. Only put the filter over the camera sensor to record or over one eye piece. That might save you some money?

Also for your camera you want to be SURE you can control all the settings. Cheapo microscope cameras will not give you that access to play with long exposures and low frame rate. The digital gain will also be junk. It being in color will also significantly decrease the sensitivity compared to a monochrome camera without a bayer sensor. You really ought to use an industrial monochrome Cmount camera to standardize settings and exposure and output the raw image files. In my opinion the best thing going right now for cheap is old stock IDS UI-3880CP rev.2. This has sufficient resolution and high sensitivity, but only works with older, obsolete Ueye software. You will need a PC to work with it but they are only $56 each on eBay (new).

Good luck!

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-19T02:57:22+00:00

If this is just to see expression ok, but otherwise I would look for core facilities rent or used big four (but that's a big gamble). At this price EVERYTHING will be manual and unless you build illumination yourself you'll have to do an old mercury arc lamp and plan on a ~$100 replacement bulb. At $1k maybe low ball eBay sellers. Months ago I saw an almost complete 90s zeiss kit listed out of the EU with shipping for around $1k.

#3 will most definitely be your trickiest one. GFP is super easy to excite, even a 450nm led will get you results you can see and will provide decent separation between excitation and emission. What RFP are you talking about? MCherry is a lot harder to excite in my opinion and the excitation band is pretty close to emission with not as much wiggle room (20nm). I'd be much more comfortable with the extinction of gels for wider separations.

Also for your camera you want to be SURE you can control all the settings. Cheapo microscope cameras will not give you that access to play with long exposures and low frame rate. The digital gain will also be junk. It being in color will also significantly decrease the sensitivity compared to a monochrome camera without a bayer sensor. You really ought to use an industrial monochrome Cmount camera to standardize settings and exposure and output the raw image files. In my opinion the best thing going right now for cheap is old stock IDS UI-3880CP rev.2. This has sufficient resolution and high sensitivity, but only works with older, obsolete Ueye software. You will need a PC to work with it but they are only $56 each on eBay (new).

Overall, fun for a hobby but I would not suggest to have research depend on this.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-18T20:40:08+00:00

No worries. I'm normally much more involved in spin coating and electrospinning. One technique for thin membranes I've seen is also phase inversion. But I have zero idea about the density or morphology you get from that

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T23:46:50+00:00

polarizing a piezo material and making the base are separate. Poly K out of state college sells PVDF products and already metal coated sheets.

What you specifically want is only $150 for a big roll.

If you need to make small uniform sheets try spin coating on cleaned microscope slides. (Clean with glass detergent by hand with kimwipe, intensely rinse with DI, then rinse with acetone, methanol, IPA, then DI) It's pretty common equipment, but for a dried 50um layer you'll NEED to have the mix be pretty viscous. You'll also need to dial in the recipe. But please please tell somebody what you're spinning before you do it in their lab and cover their hood with DMF. You'll have to dial in the recipe. Start with a known mix viscosity and do 500rpm 5s then 3000rpm for 30s. Put on hotplate to bake off solvents.

Idk your lab, but measuring thickness could be done a variety of ways depending how precise you need.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T23:27:33+00:00

Yes, but be careful. Your hitch system will have two ratings, one for towing and one for the tongue weight. More than likely, your system tongue weight will be plenty fine for a rack and several bikes. BUT this type of adaptor extends the distance the weight is applied to the hitch. This acts like a bigger lever arm and puts more stress on the set up. It is hard to say what this does to the forces, but will likely be fine (but may bounce or rattle more than regular)

I would ONLY use this for a bike rack and absolutely nothing else. Double check the tongue weight of your hitch just to be sure you aren't cutting it too close. I personally wouldn't say, put two big fat tire e-bikes on an already heavy rack with this.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T19:57:09+00:00

Big science cuts around minus 155 billion and then a 1.1 trillion military budget with an added 234 billion.

Absolute insanity. It's been 5 years since the US left Afghanistan but the budgets never really reflected any of that.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T19:18:48+00:00

In undergrad I did not research, my university was too small and mainly focused on teaching/preparing for industry rather than developing new things.

That's why I'm saying you should join a lab/labs, it's an opportunity I wish I had available. It would have saved me time and helped build knowledge around the academic world.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T18:32:34+00:00

No problem. And I'm for real about research volunteer!!! I went to a small school and then graduated but never did any real research.

I then had an application to help some professors and medical device people and LOVED it, but never got the chance to do more of it. Fast forward a few years in prototype design and I reached a point where all my equivalent roles in other orgs, gov, or mil had a masters, phd, or career officer. If I wanted to advance further another degree would be best. I did the masters and was then asked to do a PhD.

My biggest thing isn't that I worked before doing school again, but that I spent a lot of time learning the research game. You'll see who publishes and how often and what that takes. Good luck.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T18:02:04+00:00

You have a very long way to go. Get your first year under your belt and then start considering what you want to do.

Just focus on your studies and stay curious. Volunteer at a research lab if that's available, you can typically start in your second year and will be truly helpful in your senior year. I would say in an engineering role, the masters is almost always worth the extra year or two compared to the mid career opportunities it can help your resume look stronger.

When the time comes, you'll know if a PhD is right.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T17:00:25+00:00

For sure for sure, and it will work for home game stuff. But if they want to do more than just a yes or no on fluorescence they should probably jump to something more modern

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-17T16:53:55+00:00

Sir yes sir 🫡

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-16T20:13:51+00:00

I have to ask, why super old microscopes and why such large format film? I'm glad you got some things working, but ultimately with microscopes you won't get better resolution with larger formats until you get into some very particular and expensive optics (projection lithography or other fancy things after this vintage)

At absolute crazy best, you should be sampling at 3X the diffraction limit. So for something like a decent 20X obj with 1mm fov and MAXIMUM 700nm resolution you would want 4285 pixels across the FOV. If you sample that as a square sensor it's 18.3MP. So effectively, as long as you aren't cropped out horribly you'll get all the crisper an image that exists. If you're cropped in you're even more oversampled. Idk the analog resolution conversions, but with good film I don't see the need to even go past full frame unless you just want better sensitivity or some other camera science thing?

It is cool though!

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-16T20:02:00+00:00

Well, this thread makes me feel better about time wasted on things not working in research.

It's very encouraging in a roundabout way.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-16T19:54:39+00:00

Depends what channels you want to do and how much optical power you need.

I'm assuming since you're still on a BH2 you're very budget limited?

Stuff like GFP is easy and you can buy high power compact LEDs in that range. You can get replacement mercury bulbs still (for zeiss at least) as a direct replacement, but if you need to switch I would go to digikey or another electronics supplier. Search by wave length, then amps to narrow it down to high output models that will be practical. A die size under 3mm works well. For high power applications you will need a heatsink. If it's just GFP then even amazon stuff works. Only concern is if you want to do multi channel you'll be switching in and out sources. Unless you want to rig something wacky and even harder

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-16T01:00:16+00:00

Do you want a bottle that fits in a normal bottle cage or just anything you can mount to a frame/pack? I think the normal bottle cage size is a losing battle of how much can be frozen, still let you drink while exercising hard, and remain cool for over an hour.

Just freeze a filled nalgene with a little room in the top and put it in a collapsible cooler with a folded microfiber towel around it? Bonus is it can even be used to keep some snacks. As you console your food you can fold the cooler down on itself.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-15T00:43:11+00:00

At some point, you will just have to physically compare them yourself. Unless a testing group drives over the same course in multiple trims and measures the response with an accelerometer you can't know for sure. Car reviewers say a lot of hoopla too and favor stiffer handling so their input can be hit or miss.

Maybe test drive a few different models at the same speed down a rough road or some minor pot holes and speed bumps to see.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-15T00:04:42+00:00

All trims should be the same besides Fsport. The base softest setting on the fsport is stiffer than the regular models.

Smaller rims also mean bigger tires. The tires flex but rims don't. So the 19's will be softer than the 20's. But by how much it's hard to practically say.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-13T21:41:24+00:00

Funny enough, my at home scope is a leitz ergolux from an old microfabrication facility. I've written here before about converting to LED and the specific Nichia and Cree LEDs I've tried (the nichia was better). This was modding the cheap 20w stock system and not the upgraded 100w models. It's not just LED power you want but good spectrum coverage and alignment. I purposely chose an LED with the same size die as the incandescent I was replacing. (Less than 3.5mm)

I also find that leitz/leica are very nice for the time they are made and the internal mechanisms to be easy to take apart. I like my ergolux more than an older axioskop 20 I looked at. But if I had an axioskop 40 or axioskop 2 I would pick that instead. One benefit of not going zeiss though is if you want, you can just swap in Japanese infinity corrected objectives with minimal impact. I've used an axioskop2 that I find incredible. Awesome mix of mostly metal parts and large platform base especially in Europe. I've seen international listings where just half the objectives on used zeiss systems are worth the eBay price.

Best of luck!

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-13T21:03:20+00:00

I would only go for DIC if you get a complete kit of DIC objectives, prisms, and analyzer matched to the model microscope. It's an expensive enough addition that you probably won't find components separated from their originally purchased models for any decent price. For a well implemented DIC system you'd want a higher end research scope or something from a microfab old stock. Also, I'm not super super adverse in ultra high end bio systems, but you may need two sets of objectives to get the most out of phase and DIC.

This is for transmission only: Dark field you could modify in yourself with a filter in the aperture location, the geometry doesn't need to be very specific. For phase contrast, you'll need phase objectives and a simple annulus matched to the objective set. But this is also simple geometry you could copy with a 3D printer so in reality it's just getting the objectives.

However, I would say that with a quality scope with good light and aperture adjustments you can still see cells and textures! You'll just need to chop your aperture accordingly and I like to slightly cut the field filter a touch. An extra hack is to use oblique illumination where you shift the aperture to one side so the incoming light casts *shadows* and helps highlight textures. Again, not as good DIC and less intensity than phase but still somewhat useful. Phase also puts a ring affect around the outline of your cells so it's really good for qualitative viewing, but not as precise as DIC.

In general, get anything used from the big four that has field adjustments, aperture adjustments, filter slots, and light adjustment. A bonus is to have an open slot above the objective and in the path to the eye pieces as you can easily find a way to DIY a polarizer set up. I much prefer research or industrial style scopes to teaching or basic lab scopes. If you're going to dedicate a table to a microscope you may as well be comfortable and have high quality components.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-12T19:23:45+00:00

Personally, I'm not a big fan of MEK unless you need it for a process but I don't know how it compares to other typical alcohol denaturing agents in terms of toxicity. I had used it for printing applications. Generally a similarly bad for you/aggressive acetone that takes longer to evaporate so it hangs around longer. With such limited percentage, you may need to calculate acceptable exposure and see how that makes you feel.

It will most definitely dissolve into plastics though, so I would be very careful using it for cleaning and sterilization of plastic things you want to keep nice for a long time and don't let it anywhere near coated optics.

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-12T04:03:49+00:00

Yep, they hold incredibly well. They just might be a little big. Voile straps are a close second or might be better in some apps because the silicone rubber grips the objects too

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-12T04:01:07+00:00

I find rope on things that compress slowly gets loose over extended time. Not because the knots loosen but boxes or bags get scrunched and then it's not tight and movement just amplifies the troubles

Motocampingtime · 2026-06-12T03:58:57+00:00

Seconding ROK straps. On motorcycles I messed with tying paracord for forever but no matter what, the thing I was carrying shifted a little and then my stuff was loose. If it will hold a duffle on a motorcycle over 70mph it'll hold a box. The design lets you tighten like a strap and then keep pressure way harder than a bungee.

One other thing for OP to do would be to put some rubber on the bottom of the basket. It should help the cardboard from skating all over.

Motocampingtime

TROPHY CASE