You must have used microscope during your school or college days! Lets make one DIY microscope using just some 3D printed parts, screws, a small lens and your Smartphone. For additional functionality to adjust light intensity, we have used the adjustable voltage output feature of evive.

Step 1: Components Used

We have used the following components:

A 9V Battery
A Laser Light keyring (from which we will get lens :P )
A Push-Pull Switch
A Power LED 10W
3 4mm Bolts/Screws with 50mm length
6 4mm Nuts
Some wires and 9V Battery connector
Glass slide (like the one used in high school biology labs)
evive
Kapton tape (got from here), PLA material and Prusa i3 for 3D Printing

Step 2: 3D Printing and CAD Model of Parts

To begin with, we need to make a CAD model as per the dimensions of components available with you.

You can download the sample part files from here.

Once we have the assembly ready, now you can proceed for 3D printing of the parts. Take care for suitable tolerances of your 3D printing facility/vendor as many parts require good fitting. Particularly take care for printing the phone support as the lens is very small and is required to be tight fit inside the small cylindrical extrusion.

We have used Chinese version of Prusa i3 3D printer available on Aliexpress. For getting very good quality finish we have used Kapton Tape on the heating bead heated at around 70 degrees. For PLA, we have set melting temperature at around 210 degrees.

Also to improve the finish of any type of ups and down (if any) on part, you can use some plastic putty to smoothen it. We have got some from here in 20days.

Step 3: Assembly of Mobile Microscope

Once you have all the parts and components ready, its time to assemble them together. Go through the following images of assembly.

Most of the commonly available laser light key-rings like this have a small lens in it. For getting the lens, open the lid and carefully take out the lens. This lens will be our objective lens.

Note: In case the lens is not fitting in the grove made in phone holder, use some adhesive to stick it on edges. Be very patient while gluing as it requires very attention to avoid any spilling on top/bottom side of lens.

evive is powered with a 9V DC battery or any suitable power source. Then we have powered the LED using the variable power output feature of evive. Adjusting the intensityof incoming light in smartphone camera is important to record good videos or take nice pictures.

Step 4: Plug in Evive With Mobile Microscope

The use of evive was to control the intensity/brightness of power LED. evive's power module has a variable voltage power output (buck) ranging from 1.25V to 30V. We used a 12V (or a 9V) battery to power the LED, but when you place it in front of your mobile camera via the "subject" on a glass slide, you need to adjust the "incoming light". We have adjusted the voltage across the LED using evive.

(Mobile camera also has inbuilt light intensity/exposure adjustment, but the main use was to control the light on the subject for eg. some insect/worms may be very dark while other can be translucent (like wing of a fly) )

Step 5: Ready to Go!!

Once our microscope is ready, now catch some very small insect, worms or ant to see it your DIY microscope. Place them on top of glass slide.

We tried many such very small stuffs and then got amazed to observe the algae. We took the algae sample from a wash basin. See the attached images and video for more samples. Adjust the intensity using the thumbwheel potentiometer on evive for clearly seeing the subject on your smartphone screen. Now adjust the focus screws for getting quality images or screen records.

This DIY project is conceptualized by Shiksha Sopan, IIT Kanpur, India. Its an organization to promote value-based education for economically weaker section of the society. Visit them here.

CREDITS:
Professor HC Verma, IIT Kanpur, India
Ranjit Kumar, Sopanika Pvt Ltd

To watch more interesting project click here.

To watch evive product video click here.