I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/

I've not used a fiberoptic ringlight, but I think this light is
markedly superior to a fluorescent ringlight as Aristo. It exceeds
my wildest expectations. I'm delighted with it.

It uses four 1-watt Luxeon LED's with 30-degree collimators, held in
a ring around the microscope objective. The diameter of the ring is
about 4", but it isn't really a ring, just four lights that are each
about 2" displaced from the objective axis.

Each of the lights is aimable so their beams will converge at the
workplane about 6-1/2" below. They are also each individually
dimmable at the control box, using thumbwheel pots. There is no
color shift when dimming. Maximum brightness is almost too bright to
be comfortable even at max zoom. The light in the field of view is
bright, white and very uniform.

Tools in the work region (tweezers, soldering iron, solder etc) cast
only faint shadows, just enough to give 3D cues. Nothing anywhere
runs even warm, much less hot.

Ths is not a particularly complex project, but it's considerably more
than a one weekend project. For me, it was absolutely worth it.
I am going to enjoy using this tool a lot.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/




Cool! Meiji 'scopes ROCK!
--
Skuke
Reverse the domain name to send email

I imagine you used white luxeons......I was looking for some LEDs and
stumbled on Luxeons on a webiste but they seem to be pretty pricey at
$12.00 for each 1 watt assembly.......but I guess thier price over
standard type LEDS is better due to their intensity......I need some
in the 460 to 470nm range for lunar lights.

NIce job by the way......on that ringlight.

Regards'

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:
I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/

I've not used a fiberoptic ringlight, but I think this light is
markedly superior to a fluorescent ringlight as Aristo. It exceeds
my wildest expectations. I'm delighted with it.

It uses four 1-watt Luxeon LED's with 30-degree collimators, held in
a ring around the microscope objective. The diameter of the ring is
about 4", but it isn't really a ring, just four lights that are each
about 2" displaced from the objective axis.

Each of the lights is aimable so their beams will converge at the
workplane about 6-1/2" below. They are also each individually
dimmable at the control box, using thumbwheel pots. There is no
color shift when dimming. Maximum brightness is almost too bright to
be comfortable even at max zoom. The light in the field of view is
bright, white and very uniform.

Tools in the work region (tweezers, soldering iron, solder etc) cast
only faint shadows, just enough to give 3D cues. Nothing anywhere
runs even warm, much less hot.

Ths is not a particularly complex project, but it's considerably more
than a one weekend project. For me, it was absolutely worth it.
I am going to enjoy using this tool a lot.

--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder! Koi-ahoi mates....

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 14:08:41 GMT, (Roy) wrote:

I imagine you used white luxeons......I was looking for some LEDs and
stumbled on Luxeons on a webiste but they seem to be pretty pricey at
$12.00 for each 1 watt assembly.......but I guess thier price over
standard type LEDS is better due to their intensity......I need some
in the 460 to 470nm range for lunar lights.

If you want more than one or two, buy from Future Electronics. They
are the sole distributor for Luxeon. Other suppliers buy theirs from
them too.

Future has a min order of $25 and they charge $9 shipping on any
order, but a blue 1-watt Luxeon Star LXHL-MB1D centered at 470 nM is
about $3.01, I think. You could get 10 of 'em for about $40.

Future's website is hopeless. Order by phone.
1-888-880-3449 x 4292

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/

I've not used a fiberoptic ringlight, but I think this light is
markedly superior to a fluorescent ringlight as Aristo. It exceeds
my wildest expectations. I'm delighted with it.

It uses four 1-watt Luxeon LED's with 30-degree collimators, held in
a ring around the microscope objective. The diameter of the ring is
about 4", but it isn't really a ring, just four lights that are each
about 2" displaced from the objective axis.

Each of the lights is aimable so their beams will converge at the
workplane about 6-1/2" below. They are also each individually
dimmable at the control box, using thumbwheel pots. There is no
color shift when dimming. Maximum brightness is almost too bright to
be comfortable even at max zoom. The light in the field of view is
bright, white and very uniform.

Tools in the work region (tweezers, soldering iron, solder etc) cast
only faint shadows, just enough to give 3D cues. Nothing anywhere
runs even warm, much less hot.

Ths is not a particularly complex project, but it's considerably more
than a one weekend project. For me, it was absolutely worth it.
I am going to enjoy using this tool a lot.


Just a thought for a future modification...
use a joystick for differential control with a rotary knob, preferably on the
joystick, for overall brightness.

Mark Rand (I'm only jealous really :-)
RTFM

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/


Nice work Don. I have B&L microscope and take pictures regularly right thru
the eyepiece. When properly focused, the microscope projects image at
infinity. I just place the camera objective lens against the eyepiece and
shoot. Make sure that yo have some kind of rubber guard as not to scratch
the lens.

--

Boris Mohar

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:27:17 +0000, Mark Rand
wrote:



Just a thought for a future modification...
use a joystick for differential control with a rotary knob, preferably on the
joystick, for overall brightness.

Mark Rand (I'm only jealous really :-)
RTFM

Yup! I thought of that about a month ago, but I'd already redesigned
the thing twice and was determined to finish a project for once!

I can always make another control box. The light ring connects to
the box with a mini-DIN connector so it'd be easy to swap controllers.

BTW, I don't have a way to measure luminous intensity, but according
to the specsheets for Luxeon and Fraen collimators (with a range
correction from 1 meter to 6.5 inches) the luminous intensity on the
work surface is about 30,000 lux at WOT. That's about 3X direct
tropical sunlight. With no noticable heat. The lights run cooler
than a fluorescent tube, and only about 1.5 watts are dissipated in
the control box at WOT so it doesn't get warm either.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:50:49 -0500, Boris Mohar
wrote:


On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/


Nice work Don. I have B&L microscope and take pictures regularly right thru
the eyepiece. When properly focused, the microscope projects image at
infinity. I just place the camera objective lens against the eyepiece and
shoot. Make sure that yo have some kind of rubber guard as not to scratch
the lens.

What kind of camera? That doesn't work at all with my Olympus, and
even with the little Kodak I get pretty marked vignetting. Maybe
your B&L has a larger exit pupil than my scope. Do you have 10X or
5X eyepieces?

I sure wished I knew a lot more about leds and luxeons and collimators
etc etc.....Its where lighting for reef and marine tanks is headed,
due to heat issues and prices involved with power compacts, HO, and
VHO lights and the high end jetal halides......and bulbs for all of
the above are outragesouly expensive when you consider they get
changed every 9 months or so. Right now the rage is led moon lights
(blue 460 nm to simulate the light a reef has on with moon lighting,
and some have played with reds and yellows to simulate sundown and
sunrise, but the main issues is full daylight lighting without the
associated heat the typical lights give off......I bet that ringlight
yu have if its equal to 3x direct tropical sunlight would do super in
a small pico reef tank and would be awesome..Have you thought about
marketing it for such. Most pico tanks are 2 gal or less in size and
rarely over 8" deep....Would be awesome to say the least. Sure would
beat hanging a 75 or 50 watt 15K MH light over it just to grow stonie
corals and keep clams.........So you should check into it, there is
definately a market for it, or for one in kit form........and odds are
it beats the hell out of soldering up an array of 340 leds just to fit
and provide light on a 2 gal tank..

Regards

Roy

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:27:00 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:27:17 +0000, Mark Rand
wrote:



Just a thought for a future modification...
use a joystick for differential control with a rotary knob, preferably on the
joystick, for overall brightness.

Mark Rand (I'm only jealous really :-)
RTFM

Yup! I thought of that about a month ago, but I'd already redesigned
the thing twice and was determined to finish a project for once!

I can always make another control box. The light ring connects to
the box with a mini-DIN connector so it'd be easy to swap controllers.

BTW, I don't have a way to measure luminous intensity, but according
to the specsheets for Luxeon and Fraen collimators (with a range
correction from 1 meter to 6.5 inches) the luminous intensity on the
work surface is about 30,000 lux at WOT. That's about 3X direct
tropical sunlight. With no noticable heat. The lights run cooler
than a fluorescent tube, and only about 1.5 watts are dissipated in
the control box at WOT so it doesn't get warm either.

--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:27:00 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:


work surface is about 30,000 lux at WOT. That's about 3X direct
tropical sunlight.

Oops. Should have been 0.3 x direct tropical sunlight, which is about
100,000 lux. Got my footcandles and lux mixed up.

Don, did you actually fabricate the holder/reflector/lenses? Are you going to
write up a step-by-step of how to make this unit?

Thanks, Grant

Don Foreman wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:27:00 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:



work surface is about 30,000 lux at WOT. That's about 3X direct
tropical sunlight.


Oops. Should have been 0.3 x direct tropical sunlight, which is about
100,000 lux. Got my footcandles and lux mixed up.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:01:09 GMT, (Roy) wrote:

I sure wished I knew a lot more about leds and luxeons and collimators
etc etc.....Its where lighting for reef and marine tanks is headed,
due to heat issues and prices involved with power compacts, HO, and
VHO lights and the high end jetal halides......and bulbs for all of
the above are outragesouly expensive when you consider they get
changed every 9 months or so. Right now the rage is led moon lights
(blue 460 nm to simulate the light a reef has on with moon lighting,
and some have played with reds and yellows to simulate sundown and
sunrise, but the main issues is full daylight lighting without the
associated heat the typical lights give off......I bet that ringlight
yu have if its equal to 3x direct tropical sunlight would do super in
a small pico reef tank and would be awesome..Have you thought about
marketing it for such. Most pico tanks are 2 gal or less in size and
rarely over 8" deep....Would be awesome to say the least. Sure would
beat hanging a 75 or 50 watt 15K MH light over it just to grow stonie
corals and keep clams.........So you should check into it, there is
definately a market for it, or for one in kit form........and odds are
it beats the hell out of soldering up an array of 340 leds just to fit
and provide light on a 2 gal tank..

Bear in mind that the 30,000 lux intensity (0.3x sunlight, not 3x as
I first wrote) is at a distance of 6.5 inches and would diminish as
the square of distance from the lamps. But these are just 1-watt
Luxeons; they're also available in 3-watt for only a buck or so more
each.

Your 2 gallon tank 8" deep has area of about 58 sq inches, or about 8
times that of my 3" dia illuminated region. 20 three-watt luxeons
would be 60 watts, probably would compare reasonably well with a 50
watt MH light.


LED's are not yet quite as efficient as fluorescent or metal halide
lamps. One reason the ringlight significantly outperforms a
fluorescent ringlight is that the fluorescent spills light all over
the bench while the collimators direct nearly 100% of the LED outputs
to a region about 3" in diameter.

Luxeons are only 3 or 4 bux each if you buy several at a time, and
their lifetime is rated at 50,000 hours. And, if you got three
colors, you could synthesize colors and simulate dawn, day, dusk and
night conditions. And they're very easy to dim with inexpensive
electronics.

If you would like to try this, I would be glad to collaborate with
you off-net. I'm retired and have plenty of time for stuff like
that. It's what I do.

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:50:49 -0500, Boris Mohar
wrote:


On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/


Nice work Don. I have B&L microscope and take pictures regularly right thru
the eyepiece. When properly focused, the microscope projects image at
infinity. I just place the camera objective lens against the eyepiece and
shoot. Make sure that yo have some kind of rubber guard as not to scratch
the lens.

What kind of camera? That doesn't work at all with my Olympus, and
even with the little Kodak I get pretty marked vignetting. Maybe
your B&L has a larger exit pupil than my scope. Do you have 10X or
5X eyepieces?



Which Olympus? I get pretty good results with an Olympus D-460, despite
the fact that the manual controls are very limited. The smaller outer
wire wrap in this photo is 4.8 mils:
http://www.suscom-maine.net/~nsimmon..._050912_05.JPG

I made an adapter that's a slip fit on the OD of the camera lens on one
end and slides on the eyepiece on the other end. B&L 10x WF eyepieces.

I've been dreaming about a ringlight that fits around the quill of a
Bridgeport.

Ned Simmons

Don Foreman wrote:
Nothing anywhere runs even warm, much less hot.

Really? A 1W LED is going to get warm if ran at full power... don't the Luxeons
have integral heatsinks?

Ned Simmons wrote:
I've been dreaming about a ringlight that fits around the quill of a
Bridgeport.


Oooh, nice idea. You might be able to get a deal on LEDs on eBay. Once I bought
a 100-count bag of nice ultraviolet ones for $10! Not that those would do any
good for milling however.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:10:53 -0500, Ned Simmons
wrote:


Which Olympus? I get pretty good results with an Olympus D-460, despite
the fact that the manual controls are very limited. The smaller outer
wire wrap in this photo is 4.8 mils:
http://www.suscom-maine.net/~nsimmon..._050912_05.JPG

Wow! Good results indeed! My Oly is a C2500 SLR, has a pretty big
lens on it.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 17:24:52 -0800, Grant Erwin
wrote:

Don, did you actually fabricate the holder/reflector/lenses? Are you going to
write up a step-by-step of how to make this unit?

Thanks, Grant

I bought the molded plastic collimators. They're only 3 or 4 bux
each. They're Fraen FLP-HMB3-LL01-0, available from several
suppliers. I made everything else.

I don't think I'll write a step-by-step because there are many ways
this could be done, most probably a lot simpler than the way I did it.
Also, what fits a Meiji EMZ scope probably wouldn't fit other
scopes. The only drawings I made had just enough information so I
could remember dimensions long enough to make the various parts.
Some were just back-of-envelope sketches. I do have more photos,
though.

For example, I thought the little spheres would be cool and look neat,
and they were fun to make, but the lights could probably be
hard-mounted to aluminum tabs, just bend the tabs to aim the lights.
Ya should only have to aim them once and aiming is not at all
critical. I made the spheres with a boring head and tilted rotary
table (actually an indexing head) in the mill.

The spheres are held in place with little molded plastic (poured
urethane) clamps that I made a pattern and mold for. A couple of
pieces of wire and a couple of screws probably would have worked as
well but I wanted to play with the plastic molding material and
technique. I didn't get that right the first time, but I learned a
lot and got it right the second time. And so on. Now I know
how to do that for future projects. That's pretty neat stuff!

The constant-current drive and control elex are of very
straightforward design. I would be glad to share the schematic if
anyone is interested.

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:22:12 -0500, Mark Jones
wrote:

Don Foreman wrote:
Nothing anywhere runs even warm, much less hot.

Really? A 1W LED is going to get warm if ran at full power... don't the Luxeons
have integral heatsinks?

The Luxeon Stars do, but they're not quite enough to run barefoot. I
used bare Luxeon emitters epoxied to aluminum slugs about 0.690" dia
that fit in holes in the spheres. I smeared a wee dab of Arctic
heatsink grease on the slugs before putting them in the holes. That
design centers the emitter on the collimator so each sphere is both a
light mount and a collimator mount. Just shove the slug in the back
until it mates up with the collimator. The spheres seems to be
ample heatsinks. They probably transfer some heat to the mounting
ring as well. They feel barely warm in operation, probably about 20F
above ambient.

If the stars were mounted on sheetmetal tabs that are part of the
mounting ring, that could work well also. Bend tab to aim light.
One might then use the molded plastic collimator mounts that Fraen
offers. I thought that would look clunky, but it'd work.

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:54:35 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 18:50:49 -0500, Boris Mohar
wrote:


On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 01:41:56 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I finally finished my ringlight project. I can't take photos thru my
scope with my camera, but I have put up a brief webpage with a couple
of pix of the light.

http://users.goldengate.net/~dforeman/ringlight/


Nice work Don. I have B&L microscope and take pictures regularly right thru
the eyepiece. When properly focused, the microscope projects image at
infinity. I just place the camera objective lens against the eyepiece and
shoot. Make sure that yo have some kind of rubber guard as not to scratch
the lens.

What kind of camera? That doesn't work at all with my Olympus, and
even with the little Kodak I get pretty marked vignetting. Maybe
your B&L has a larger exit pupil than my scope. Do you have 10X or
5X eyepieces?

It is a Fuji 3800 digital. The 10X objective is 18mm diameter.



Regards,

Boris Mohar

Got Knock? - see:
Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things) http://www.viatrack.ca

void _-void-_ in the obvious place