Keeping an algal culture at a constant turbidity requires expensive and complex devices. We designed a low-cost, user friendly but also highly configurable phototurbidostat using 3D-printing, open-source software and electronics. The device is able to monitor in real time a culture in photobioreactor, and dynamically adjust the conditions to maintain the turbidity at a desired value. It can accommodate to a large set of volumes or laboratory equipments with little effort thanks to its modular and scalable design. Each module (such as light, pumps or sensors) are autonomous and controllable via Wi-Fi. Furthermore, our phototurbidostat is fully open-source and can be remotely controlled by a smartphone or a computer via a web-based graphical user interface. Finally, the device can be reproduced easily for a cost ranging between 1/20th and 1/50th of the price of a classical commercial device.
CCS Concepts• Hardware➝Communication hardware, interfaces and storage➝Sensors and actuators.
Bright field microscopes are particularly useful tools for biologists for cell and tissue observation, phenotyping, cell counting, and so on. Direct cell observation provides a wealth of information on cells’ nature and physiological condition. Microscopic analyses are, however, time-consuming and usually not easy to parallelize. We describe the fabrication of a stand-alone microscope able to automatically collect samples with 3D printed pumps, and capture images at up to 50× optical magnification with a digital camera at a good throughput (up to 24 different samples can be collected and scanned in less than 10 min). Furthermore, the proposed device can store and analyze pictures using computer vision algorithms running on a low power integrated single board computer. Our device can perform a large set of tasks, with minimal human intervention, that no single commercially available machine can perform. The proposed open-hardware device has a modular design and can be freely reproduced at a very competitive price with the use of widely documented and user-friendly components such as Arduino, Raspberry pi, and 3D printers.
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