Hello all,
I am a junior faculty at a relatively small-ish university in the Southwest. I am in the process of assembling a customized microscope to enable confocal instrumentation. One of the key requirements for the "imaging" in a confocal microscope is the ability to scan. Most of the commercial microscope confocal scanners use scanning galvos as well (Olympus, Zeiss and Nikon). However, these instruments run $300K+, something I have no budget for (did I mention I am a "Junior" faculty with a limited budget? :-) )
Anyway, long story short, I am in a fairly advanced stage of the microscope build as we speak. My stumbling block has been the scanning galvo. Commercial solutions run $2-$3K, which I probably could afford. However, I also needed additional components which is when I hit on the brilliant idea of purchasing an older gen confocal from ebay for parts. It has worked FANTASTICALLY well. I purchased an Olympus Fluoview 300 (introduced 20 years ago) for a total sum of $1K. It has a BEAUTIFUL set of XY Galvos inside with the mirrors. I have attached some pictures I took today. As far as complexity goes, it seems to be a standard type of a galvo.
At this point, I am wondering if it is worthwhile to put in an effort to revive these galvos or just bite the bullet and purchase one. So basically, I would need to be able to somehow 1. Drive the galvo 2. Provide enough power to the galvo without ANY specs on the item. Is it even feasible? Any resources? I would appreciate ANY honest feedback you may have.
Thank you all! I am an optics nerd and am looking forward to participating and reading on this forum...
- Quantrix