How to transform a smartphone into a high-power digital microscope?
The world is so beautiful, but there are many beautiful things we cannot see. If you have a high-power microscope, the door to the micro world will be opened to you from now on, and the beautiful micro world will surely leave you lingering.
Now we don't have to spend a lot of money on expensive professional equipment. With just a simple DIY, we can transform your smartphone into a high-power digital microscope, with a maximum magnification of 375 times, allowing for clear observation of plant cells and even nuclei. You can also obtain microscopic photos through your phone and enjoy them on your computer.
This is what it looks like after production, mainly a workbench made of wooden boards and acrylic (organic glass) boards. The smartphone is placed on the top layer, and below the camera lens of the phone is the stage for holding the samples that need to be observed. Below the samples is a strong light source. The two layers of acrylic plates are fixed to the screw by nuts, so their height can be easily adjusted.
The principle of transforming a mobile phone into a microscope is actually very simple, just adding a high-power lens to the lens of the mobile phone camera. There have been many related posts, such as this: simple Macro photography lens on mobile phones
In this DIY project, the high-power lens is removed from the Laser pointer. It is easy to buy Laser pointer in the market, and the price is not expensive, only a few yuan. Unscrew both ends of the Laser pointer, use a pencil to lift out the parts inside, and finally remove the lens.
Fix the lens of the Laser pointer outside the lens of the mobile phone camera with two elastic metal wires, such as a hair clip, and you have got a microscope!
Note that the flat side of the Laser pointer lens should be close to the phone lens, so that the field of view is relatively large. You can try observing objects on both sides separately and find the side with a wide field of view.
Please note that this does not result in a microscope with a magnification of 375 times. To achieve such a high magnification, you need two Laser pointer lenses stacked together.
And there is also a problem. If the magnification is so high, even slight shaking can cause blurry vision, so you also need to create a specialized workbench.
The completed workbench. The modified mobile phone lens is placed in the top lens hole, and a slice of the observed object is placed on the stage below the lens. The stage also has a light source hole to allow strong light from below to pass through and illuminate the observed object.
I won't go into detail about the specific processing process. Those with hands-on experience will understand at a glance, while those without experience will be speechless. Acrylic (organic glass) board is sticky and difficult to process. The original author also said that the lens hole should be closely matched with the lens, otherwise it may cause deviation. In China, those screws, nuts, and washers are easy to buy in the home decoration market, and they are all used to make ceilings. But the precision of the screw used for the ceiling is not high, so you can also spend more money to go to the electromechanical market and buy the stainless steel screw shown in the photo.
For friends who do not have electric tools and are not convenient to make such exquisite workbenches, there is actually a simpler choice. Please refer to the post on "I Love Production Network": Homemade simple microscopes, where the simple workbench can also adjust distance and provide another way to obtain high-power lenses.
The following image shows the modified mobile phone microscope from another perspective.
Finally, please note that this self-made high-power digital photography microscope does indeed have a good effect, but the prerequisite is that you are proficient in using it. Firstly, you must know how to process sample slices of the observed object, and then perhaps you should use the delay shooting function of your phone when taking photos to avoid blurry images caused by vibration.
