mesospim/mesospim-hardware-documentation

Hardware documentation for the mesoSPIM microscope project

What is the mesoSPIM project?

The mesoSPIM (mesoscale selective plane illumination microscopy) project aims at creating open-hardware microscopy platforms for imaging in cleared tissue. Core features of the mesoSPIM setups are:

• compatibilty with all tissue clearing techniques
• large field-of-views
• dual-sided excitation
• optimized for fast screening of whole mouse brain samples (10-14 GB/brain/color at low magnification, up to 100 GB/brain/color at high magnification)
• near-isotropic sampling (1.5-5 µm in X,Y and 3-6 µm in Z) due to an axially swept lightsheet which leads to uniform z-resolution across the field-of-view
• modular sample holders and quick sample exchange
• large travel range (50 x 50 x 100 mm) to allow imaging of very large samples

Benchtop mesoSPIM

The Benchtop mesoSPIM is the newest version and its repository is separate to organize documentation and wiki pages of the two very different systems.

"Mainframe" mesoSPIM

The mesoSPIM v.5 wiki provides documentation, setup, and usage instructions of "mainframe" mesoSPIMs that require an optical table.

mesoSPIM Version 6 "Revolver"

The detection arm of older versions (4 and 5) can be upgraded to a v.6 "Revolver" using the following documentation.

mesoSPIM v.5

Who is the mesoSPIM project for?

• You are looking for a versatile imaging platform for cleared tissue that can be tailored to your needs.
• Research groups and imaging facilities with experience in building and supporting custom microscopes.

What are ideal imaging applications for a mesoSPIM?

• screening of large numbers of samples for clearing & labeling quality
• visualization of cell populations or other structures (blood vessels, plaques) in whole cleared organs

What are the mesoSPIM instruments less well suited for?

• imaging live samples (this is the domain of classical light-sheet microscopes)
• high-resolution imaging (<1.5 µm optical resolution), e.g. subcellular structures.

Not sure where to start?

You can start by comparing Benchtop and V5 versions and deciding which one suites your needs better. When ready, review the respective Wiki pages and parts list. If still in doubt, contact us for help.

About

See the project history and meet the developers on our main website.

mesospim-hardware-documentation's Issues

Finish instructions for adding zoom servo to detection path

ETL params and co-alignment

Particularly to get the edges co aligned the ETL parameters need to be correct. Maybe we should spell this out in the co-alignment section, but I'm not sure how best to do it with sparse samples like beads.

What I found worked for me was to get the sheets as well aligned as possible then zero the ETL amplitude then adjust it until the focused area is centered at the middle. Manually switching from one sheet to the other until they look similar. Then return to sweeping mode and tweak the amplitude until field looks homogenous and the two sheets look similar. I didn't add this to the co-alignment page because I'm not certain it's the most sensible way to proceed.

Camera to tube lens distance

Do you have a suggested way of setting the correct camera to tube lens distance?

Orientation of L3

Is the orientation of L3 such that its flat surface faces L4?

M-116 adapter screws

What are the screws needed to mount the circular M-116 adapter to the M-116 stage?

Finish detection path alignment page

X and Z stage orientation

Do I recall correctly that we want to choose the stage with the least yaw motion to be the X stage?

12V power supply for servo motor is missing from parts list

The 12V power supply for the Robotis Dynamixel MX-28R Robot Servo is mentioned in the hardware documentation (https://github.com/mesoSPIM/mesoSPIM-hardware-documentation/wiki/mesoSPIM_preparing_zoom_servo),
but it is not included in the parts list (https://github.com/mesoSPIM/mesoSPIM-hardware-documentation/blob/master/mesoSPIM_V5/parts_list/mesoSPIM-V5-parts-list-8-5-19.xlsx)