Notes to myself: where I saw that thing I now need

With all it’s botched updates, Nikon has finally managed to make the new NIS Elements version completely useless for my application (calcium imaging). The format in which “Time Measurements” exports data has changes (once again…) so that it now exports probe values without information about the measured area (making it impossible to normalize the data - and therefore useless). If you select “full” data you get the area, but only data from the  probe #1… Bravo Nikon !!!

I’ve repeatedly talked to Nikon about NIS Elements and had a long chat with their product manager Michael Davis at the 2007 Neuroscience meeting. He made LOTS of promises (better documentation, courses on scripting in the NYC area, new functionality), but didn’t hold a single one. The release of 3.0 was held back by our dealer until SP1 came out, beacuse even our dealer was embarrased by all the bugs. I send Michael several friendly emails - but never got a reply. GREAT customer service Nikon, keep on listening to the users of your software!

Please also read the comment.

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In a way similar to the old printed McMaster catalog, MSC Industrial Supply Co. publishes ‘the big book’, a 4 1/2 thousand page catalog filled with tools, material, parts, etc.

Marinus Scientific fishes for and supplies a number of different marine species. They are based in Garden Grove, CA and very friendly.

I found two new suppliers for mechanical components:

W. M. Berg, Inc. specializes in miniature motion control and linear power transmission components. They will happily send you a (very thick) catalog that includes technical drawings of the offered components as well as reference material for gears, bearings, fasteners, materials, etc.

Reid Supply Company also offers a variety of mechanical components as well as tools.

Roither LaserTechnik, an Austrian company, offers a wide selection of laser diodes, photo diodes, LEDs and associated products.

Casio announced an interesting digital camera. At a MSRP bellow $1000 the EXILIM pro EX-F1 can record a burst of 336×96 pixel images at a frame rate of 1200 fps. That makes it potentially interesting as a very affordable system for high-speed motion studies.

Melcor offers a line of Peltier elements for cooling( or heating) that have a convenient hole in the middle. They come in square or round and with different power ratings.

Nichia’s latest UV LED NCSU033A has a typical output rating of 190 mW at a peak wavelength of 365 nm. More information is on their website.

Two random observations regarding script languages. CGI Programming 101 gives a straight froward introduction to the CGI script language; the first chapters can be downloaded for free. ActiveState offers a (free) Pearl distribution which runs on Windows and many more operating systems for download.

Micro-Tools has hard-to-find tools that typically would be used by jewelers and watchmakers. They also offer nice sets with cleaning supplies for optical equipment and CCD sensors.

The so far best speaker for building (low precision) simulators comes from Electronix Express. It is part # 26SPPC which can be directly driven with a Grass S44 stimulator and SIU.

Step tablets are not only useful to calibrate photographic film, but also provide defined densities (like ND filters) to check and calibrate all kinds of imaging equipment (read: microscope detectors). As I an alternative to e.g. the Kodak T27 (Q-58) Step Tablet, Stouffer offers a number of different products with a significantly lower price tag.

Devcon / Permatex offers a number of different “Flexane” products, a castable urethan. Flexane 80 or 94 (used together with Flaxane Accelerator) lets you set  the hardness the finished product. Good instructions are provided in the book “How to Cast Small Metal and Rubber Parts” by William A. Cannon.

Spark Fun Electronics sells the BlueSMiRF card, a small Bluetooth modem that should greatly simplify the implementation of a wireless control. Also, for those modern computers without serial port, the Keyspan USB High Speed Serial Adapter (USB <> V24) is supposedly nice.

The newest release of NIS-Elements (AR 2.30), Nikon’s microscope imaging software, fixed quite a number of problems that existed in the older versions. However, it unfortunately also introduced some new ones. While the Time Measurement function now reports the correct data, it switches units if more than one minute of data is recorded (making importing the data to other software a pain in the neck). The new background measurement function is great - but doesn’t report the area of the probe which renders it almost useless. Customer support is still non-existent. Well maybe some day NIS-Elements will actually become a great product… (see also old entry and mad.liny’s comment )

These are the results of a web-search on mini machine tools (lathe and mill). The smallest and most precise alternative is a watchmaker’s lathe (info can be found e.g. here). If precision is not as much a topic as cost, you can upgrade your Dremel with the Vanda-Lay ACRA Mill. Also not very precise, however probably OK for wax and plastic is the Unimat 1 or it’s Chinese copy. TaigTools produces a real miniature mill (they also have a CNC version). A step up are the products from Sherline (see also Sherline Direct and the Tabletop Machineshop). They offer complete packages, lots of accessories, and apparently great customer service. Proxxon is a German manufacturer of very high quality precision tools. They offer e.g. the PD 230/E and PD 400 lathe systems and the MF 70, FF230, and MF400 mills (as well as an excellent Dremel alternative). In the US you can get them e.g. though 46 Jewelry Supply. Suitable for machining larger junks of metal, however probably not the most precise machines, are the the “Mini Lathe” and “Mini Mill“. A lot of information can be found here. They are all manufactured by the Chinese company Siegind and sold under various brand names, such as Grizzly, Harbour Freight, Micromark, Cummins Tools, and Homier. Several companies offer parts to improve these tools. Look e.g. LittleMachineShop.com. More general information on full sized machines can again be found at the amazing “Machine Tool Reference Archive.

Travers Tool CO., INC. has a >1300 page catalog with metalworking tools. From small hand tools to milling machines.

It looks like Axon Instruments, well Molecular Devices, has discontinued the Axoclamp 2A intracellular amplifier. Apparently, the only options are the (fully computer controlled) Axoclamp 900A or to switch over to amplifiers from NPI.

The EXFO X-Cite 120 PC “Fluorescence Illumination System” is a mercury halide lamp that provides a broad spectrum with somewhat less pronounced peaks than a (regular) mercury vapor lamp. Besides a build-in shutter, it has some electronics to stabilize the light (not as stable as a Xenon lamp though, however more efficient) and to prolong the bulb’s life.  After using it for a while I realized a major drawback: the bulb will produce light for 1200 hours, but that does not mean that it maintains its stability (BTW the lamp is guaranteed for 1200 hours however, according to EXFO “the lamp warranty does not cover [light] output issues“).  If you intend to measure intensity you will encounter increasing arc wandering which basically renders the bulb useless after only 300 hours. According to EXFO this is “inherent in these lamps”. For  measuring intensities one seems to better off with the mercury arc lamp that offers the cheapest replacement bulbs (they run over $600 a piece for the X-Cite 120) and frequent bulb changes.

The Roper Scientific / Photometrics CoolSNAP HQ2 camera turned out to be a good choice for calcium imaging in Aplysia. The 1392 x 1040 (6.45 ym) pixel CCD sensor can be ‘binned’ to increase sensitivity, while setting a ‘region of interest’ allows for higher frame rates. This flexibility comes in VERY handy during experiments. The camera is incredibly sensitive (it does not have an image intensifier or ICCD) and has a very low noise level. A firewire port, good software support, and an I/O port that gives access to almost every TTL signal imaginable, make it very easy to integrate.Very nice.

Less impressive than its optics is Nikon’s new NIS Elements (AR 2.10 HF8) imaging software. Obviously a re-branded version of LUCIA from the Czech company Laboratory Imaging Ltd. The software is developped by an excellent and motivated team of programmers and runs very stable and quickly. However, there a still major flaws, such as the lack of an export function for images and movies (yes, you have to use a screen capture tool…) or a faulty measurement function that reports wrong timing information. I am confident that these issues will be fixed in future versions, but Nikon’s efforts to shield its customers from competent technical support are less than helpful. Furthermore, the package is way overpriced and additional ‘modules’ add further significant cost. A real-time deconvolution module (2D RT decon) is marketed as an industry first, but does not really hold up to the promised usefulness - during my tests it merely had the effect of a sharpening filter. Alternatives we considered included IPLab (Scanalytics / BD Biosciences), Imaging Workbench (formerly Axon Instruments, now INDEC BioSystems), Slidebook (Olympus), and (the ridiculously priced) Metamorph (Molecular Devices).

The Nikon FN1 fixed stage microscope is one of the few alternatives to the Olympus BX51WI and BX61WI when doing electrophysiological and imaging simultaneously. Although many of the promised accessories (e.g. the mag(nification) changer option) are not yet available, it is a very stable and practically designed microscope. Combined with the pricy but good Narishige stage, microscope XY-mover (both specifically design for the FN1 and avaiable through Nikon), and NMN 21 micromanipulators, it is a great system for combined imaging.

LSS is another supplier of general lab products based in WI.