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DIY Computer Video Microscopy For Under $50
cybrpnk writes: "The QX3 Video Microscope may have been an obscure commercial failure as an educational toy, but it is widely available (for now, at least) as a fantastic tool/toy for any geek. The QX3 hooks up to a USB port and delivers live color 10X, 60X or 200X microphotos at 512x384 pixel resolution. Its kid-friendly software even makes time lapse videos a snap, like this one of TNT synthesis - a whole new way to blow up the lab, do not try this at home! Educators are doing amazing things with the QX3 in their classrooms.
Sourceforge even has documentation on the software command structure used by the QX3, so it may be considered an open source microscope. Get yours today for under $50 at surplus closeout or EBay before they're all gone!" The Toys-R-Us nearest to me has one QX3+ left (now with my name on it) at $30, so I hope it really does work under Linux. And it's a lot less complicated than building a Scanning-Tunneling microscope.
They are great for quickly examining thick-film hybrid circuits. Much better than straining your eyes on a conventional scope when you don't have to.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Correct me if im wrong but didnt UNBC start this project almost 30 years ago? Talk about unexpected project delays!
Bitch you KNOW the side.. WORLD MAFUCKIN WIDE..
First, Intel's official position on Linux support: CPiA chipset inforrmation which the QX3 uses for its imaging. Note that there are still some problems getting everything working right. Back up your kernel.
If none of the above works, try some more generic hacks with the CPiA driver. It seems the biggest problem is getting the lights turned on...
Anybody know if this works under linux?
Which chipset are they using? ov511?
Just making sure it'd work before I grab one.
I wonder why Myers in Melbourne (Lonsdale St) is still selling it at A$249 (around US$125). That sounds pretty steep compared to just US$50. Oh well, generally electronics is Australia retails for much higher than their US counterparts anyway. Does anyone know why? Even GST won't inflate the prices so high. I've now resorted to buying stuff from Estore. They seem to offer the best prices i can find in Melbourne. They don't stock the QX3 though.
Leading the wild into the ways of the man... http://www.sixthseal.com Something wicked this way comes
I work in a plant growth research lab, and we bought one of these to get real time images of protoplasts (plant cells in culture). It was cheap, and produces surprisingly good-quality images. Of course, we also got a $100,000 Bausch & Lomb scope to do more "serious" work...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Is an excellent alternative(granted at a higher price). For about $250 and $100 for a higher multiple lens, you can view excellent, high quality magnifications of your specimens.
I am thinking about getting one, but want to see if higher (500x) magnification is going to be available. See www.bodelin.com for details.
I've had an Intel microscope for a couple of years and took pics of a used Biore nasal strip with it.
check them out.
Trolling is a art,
Why? 10x is easier to use and you can look at all kinds of real world objects. You catch some funny looking bug and you can look at him real close up and personal like. You've got a cut on your finger healing? Nothing like seeing that filling your field of view. Now sure, at 400x you can see cells if you prepare a slide. But the real interesting stuff has to stained and prepared properly, those nice micrographs you see don't come without preparation. And you can't just stick a circuit board in there and see if you have cracked traces or cold solder joints.
Bleh!
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has an excellent page dedicated to the Intel QX3, including a cool QX3 digital image photo gallery. Definitely worth a look if you're interested in what these little toys can do.
I was always intrigued by the microscope when I saw it in the store, but it seemed so Fisher-Price that I figured that it couldn't be all that good. The way it's packaged and marketed makes it look like some cheesy toy, not a real scientific instrument. I guess I was wrong.
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Intel has its own developer-oriented discussion of the design and development of the QX3.
1 /a rticles/art_3.htm
http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/q4200
That's funny, it looks fine to me. Mozilla 1.0 RC1 under WinXP.
The QX3's software has an interface that can only be called bizarre, however, at least the original version (without the +) installs a Twain driver accessible by standard imaging software (e.g. Photoshop). It includes controls for the lighting and video.
The IntelPlay site has a good QX3 FAQ as well as the product's 3/29/02 obituary. We can only hope they are clearing out stock before introducing the new improved version, but I doubt it - Intel is discontinuing ALL Intelplay toys, not just the microscope. With MTV style advertising like this it's no wonder it failed to find a continuing market niche as a classic toy - it takes longer than a 10 second attention span to do science. Some gross-out photos are here, as well as a comparison of a QX3 vs.Zeiss dissection scope as well as a comparison of the QX3 and another "inexpensive educational toy" called the Pocketscope. The main Pocketscope site talks about how to add video and lighting to their superior optics. Tinkering with, adjusting, modifying and using the QX3 is discussed here, here and here. More places to buy a QX3 before they go universally out of stock are GlobalMart, Erwincomputers, and Amazon.
This is the correct link. Intel has support thru 2003. They stopped making them as of 3/29/2002.
Gorkman
It just happens that I spent Friday afternoon finally getting my QX3 (I've had for about a year, picked up for about $50 at a supermarket (!) in an after-Xmas sale last year) running on my Linux box.
I'm using a mostly stock SuSE 7.3 distro with the 2.4.10 kernel, the camera built into the QX3 is the same CPiA chipset that many other webcams use. I haven't done the necessary tweaking run the lamps, I just an external light. The "gqcam" program works fine for viewing/grabbing the images.
-- Alastair
The QX3 is supported in the latest versions of Macam for OS X. I have not yet experimented with the software, but have heard okay-to-good things about it.
:)
His CVS repository is a little outdated, so download the drivers from the web site.
http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/
"All your base are belong to this file I send in order to have your advice."
You get to buy nifty things like this for 'em. Yeah, some might argue that a two year old can't really appreciate a microscope, or a Lego Mindstorms kit, but you've got to start them early, right?
Live ants especially. Any recommendation for low prices for me? Thank you in advance. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I just went to two Toys R Us stores and various consumer electronics stores. Sounds like they sold out months ago when they were dropped to the $30 quoted in the article for after-christmas closeout.
The CPIA driver works fine with it for Linux, for viewing. Unfortunately, the code to turn the lights off and on has been commented out of the driver due to a buffer overflow.
I've got it running with the RedHat 7.3. I had to merge the driver from http://webcam.sourceforge.net with the drivers in the kernel source and recompile. I tried compiling the driver outside the tree but got bit by a bug in USB link ordering. Once you apply the updates you'll be able to use simple command-line statements to turn the lights off and on.
If you're going to try these patches on RedHat 7.2 or on some other Linux distribution, you'll have to merge the driver on http://webcam.sourceforge.net with your distributions's driver yourself.
For my code and images, see http://graflex.org/klotz/qx3.
Of course, the best thing would be for the webcam.sourceforge.net people and the kernel people to resolve their differences and get the write code for /proc/cpia enabled. Until then, turning the lights on under Linux will be a DIY project.
Almost every appliance I've seen in Edmund is significantly overpriced. No big deal if you just want to grab some lenses or something, but for lasers, cameras, or microscopes, it's best to look elsewhere.
Wow. Computergeeks had around 350 units in stock when the story was posted 8 hours ago or so...
I wish these had been around when I was a proto-geek kid with too much allowance...
especially when I hit puberty and got really interested in microscopic things, if you know what I mean =)
Get off my launchpad!
Can someone tell me how, under Windows, to spoof the driver into thinking I've a Pentium 4 processor?
In the literature accompanying mine, it actually specifies that with a Pentium 4 processor, you get better resolution at higher magnifications, additional effects, and faster screen refreshes. I'm sure it's a deliberate screw up of the software if it doesn't detect a Pentium 4, (or other Intel processor, I suppose) and that pisses me off.
In fact, I can see the artifacts that are artificially added on the screen. There's a spattering of pixels that appear "dead" on screen: they're always some obviously wrong color that's slightly "off" what you'd otherwise expect to see at that point, and the "dead" spots don't move at all when the underlying target images are moved.
Artificially screwing up the quality of your products for AMD customers won't bring customers back, Intel! In fact, it does quite the opposite for me. Assholes.
And in the hands of geeks, where they belong, instead of a landfill someplace or gathering dust in the back of a warehouse after being removed from active inventory...
You can still get in there and slug it out at EBay...
this site mentions modifications
t el anatomy.html
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/intelplay/in
Liberty uber alles.
J&R Electronics has 100+ units in stock (the salesguy wouldn't say exactly how many) as of 9:30 AM EST Monday morning for $49.88 each plus shipping of $4.95...
J&R Electronics has 100+ units in stock (the salesguy wouldn't say exactly how many) as of 9:30 AM EST Monday morning for $49.88 each plus shipping of $4.95...
Computergeeks is showing the QX3 as back in stock Monday morning for $42.50 with around 400 units available. The stock they had listed on the website went from 360 to zero yesterday.
hmm, maybe too expensive for what you get out of it, hard to say. The site tells the truth about the hardware, saying it is less sensitive than ccd (low surface area sensitive to light), noisy (snow due to differences between pixels), and so on. But it might be neat to try and hook it up to your telescope if you already have one.. vcr image stacking software is available on the net. Anyone tried it?