Frequently Asked Questions
Below are answers to our most common questions. If you still have a question, please email us direct at sales@sci-microscopy.com
Shipping/Sales
How soon can I expect my product?
Most products ship within 5 business days. For custom designs, lead time will be significantly longer depending on design and fabrication time and your constraints.
Can I purchase through my University?
Yes! Please have your university purchasing department contact sales@sci-microscopy.com to have us added to your purchasing database.
Do your illuminators come with a warranty?
All of our illuminators come with a 90-day warranty from the delivery date for defects in parts and workmanship provided the user does not exceed defined operating criterion (e.g. exceeds current draw limitations). Devices will be repaired or replaced at no charge to the user during this period. Please contact support@sci-microscopy.com for warranty claims.
Do you ship internationally?
Yes! Please allow additional time for shipping, and note that the customer will be responsible for all shipping, insurance, and customs duties related to international shipping.
Compatibility
Will it work with my camera?
Our system will work with any camera which is properly matched to the system NA for sufficient sampling (per the Nyquist criterion). For more information, click here or contact sales@sci-microscopy.com
Will your LED illuminator fit my microscope?
Our system will fit most modern inverted microscopes, including those from Nikon, Zeiss, and Olympus. We sell machined adapters for common microscopes and are happy to work with you to to designs custom mounts for your system. For more information, please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com.
How do I attach it to my microscope?
For inverted microscopes, the LED illuminator is designed to be mounted to the existing condenser mount of your microscope as a replacement of the existing condenser. A complete LED array installation consists of two parts – the standard LED array device and a machined dovetail interface designed to match your microscope. We have successfully mounted microscopes to all major microscope brands, and are happy to work with you to design mounts for additional microscopes. Please note that mounting hardware manufacturing may delay your order 1-2 weeks and is provided at an additional cost.
Does your illuminator work with fluorescence imaging?
LED illumination is generally not well-suited for fluorescence excitation due to broad illumination spectral and low temporal coherence (wide spectral bandwidth) compared to laser illumination. However, our system is compatible with existing epi-illumination configurations for fluorescence imaging, providing simple multi-contrast imaging. Additionally, can also design custom illuminators with laser-diode illumination. For more information, please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com
Do you offer custom illuminator designs?
Yes, most of our device sales are custom designs! Please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com to discuss your needs.
Technical
Why is this better than standard microscope illumination (halogen lamp, arc lamp, etc.)?
A conventional transmission microscope typically uses a broadband (white) lamp to illuminate the sample. The image is captured by a digital camera and stored on a PC for viewing. The process of forming an image is rigidly set by the optical hardware – adding more functionality requires at best expensive hardware inserts, and at worst, an entirely new system.
A coded illumination microscope, in contrast, uses a programmable light source to illuminate the sample dynamically. Imagine adding hardware functionality with a software update – no more expensive inserts or prisms to buy and handle. A coded illumination microscope allows upgrades on the fly, simply by modifying the pattern on an active light source such as an LED Array. Now, changing the light source completely changes the way the microscope works. Brightfield, darkfield, phase, and super-resolution become as easy to use as a conventional system – no touching the microscope. The end result is a more durable, easier to use, and less expensive microscope.
How do I communicate with/control the array?
Each LED array is controlled by a serial interface using text (ASCII) commands via a USB (or Bluetooth, if equipped) connection. All of our LED illuminators (including custom designs) are controlled using the open-source Illuminate software package. Since we use an industry-standard serial connection, our devices can be controlled by any platform and through any programming language which supports serial communication (including Python, MATLAB, etc.).
Which objectives can I use with your illuminator?
LED illumination works with most brightfield, phase contrast (Ph1, Ph2, and Ph3), and DIC objectives. For maximum resolution, please use an objective with a Numerical Aperture (NA) which is less than the illuminator Numerical Aperture. Computational techniques may require the objective NA or magnification to be within a certain range to match the Nyquist criterion. For additional information, please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com
Will you be offering firmware upgrades for LED illuminators?
Our LED illuminators are powered by the open-source illuminate project, which is licensed under the BSD license and actively maintained by SCI and other contributors. You can access the repository and installation instructions on Github.com
Will my device work with (X) method?
Probably! Our devices provide a simple software interface which provides complete control of LED illumination patterns. While we do not yet provide software modules for specific computational imaging methods (We’re working on it!), the user can use any open-source example code they find useful with our devices through this interface. As pioneers in computational optical microscopy, we also offer consulting and custom software solutions to aid you in implementing specific techniques. Please contact our sales team for more information.
Will you support (X) method in the future?
One of the great things about LED array microscopy is the flexibility to adapt the hardware to many coded-illumination techniques. We plan to offer software modules to enable a variety of computational imaging modules in the future. If you need assistance implementing a specific algorithm or targeting a specific application, please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com
Do you offer OEM licensing?
Yes! Please contact sales@sci-microscopy.com for more information.