I continued on the hack of the optical mouse, first i installed an RGB-LED to be able to choose the color of the illumination. The using the blue LED i tried to detect fluorescence using a fluorescein solution. I got some signals, but still need to test the amount of reflected light and fluorescence. got some filters laying around somewhere… i could easily detect the loss of fluorescence, when following a tiny little drop that dried out, see image below.
Furthermore I improved the code to read out the registers for the frame-grabbing. it seems there is a limit to at what speed i can dump all the pixels of the frame. But still i could improve it by reducing some of the delays down to 1 µsec. It lookes much smoother now, but haven’t checked the worm yet.
Also i hacked another chip, the Avago 2610, very similar, 18×18 pixel array, And looking at the datasheet I should be able to get a lot more data out, such as, maximum and average pixel intensity, shutter speed, info about focused image etc.
I am currently investigating to use the sensor of an optical mouse for various applications in microfluidics, nanosensing or motion detection of microorganisms. first results look really promising.
Thanks to some instructions and protocolls found on these sites: “How to connect an optical mouse to an arduino” by Martijn The and “Optical Mouse Cam” using an arduino and connect it to your PC, by Bidouille.org. And thanks to Gaudi for inspiring me for some worm-on-a-mouse hacking. Also there is some great documentation in the Avago Datasheets.
The video shows a screen-capture of how i recorder the motion of a nematode using a hacked cheap optical mouse, 16×16 pixel.
at the moment, the students at FHNW, Life science Technologies, are looking how to use the optical mouse sensor to detect flow speeds in microfluidics channels. more info can be found on my micro/nano lecture’s wiki.
So first things to do: replace LED with some RGB or UV for fluorescence detection, code a more decent data visualization, add a speaker…
From the Datasheet
Notes:
The ADNS-2610 is designed for optimal performance when used with the HLMP-ED80-xx000 (red LED 639 nm). For use with other LED colors (i.e., blue, green), please consult factory. When using alternate LEDs, there may also be performance degradation and additional eye safety considerations.
Happily we (allthough we doesnt really include myself, thanks to gaudi, stahl und gäss), meaning SGMK, organized another issue of the diy* festival. This year as a diy* day and night in Dock18, Rote Fabrik. As much as i heard and saw through the online stream it was a great success. Numerous open.theremins were built and lots of solder smoke inhaled.
Proudly, Keith Lam, aka the demos, and me were invited to start the evening performances by a remote performance from out hotel room in Taipei, where we just finished with PlayAround09 | TechNomads. So 5 o’clock in the morning, drunk and tired, Keith and me built an ultra-diy-experimental-improvised audio/visual setup… somehow his iSight from his macbook pointed towards my eeePC stuck onto a chair on top of our hotelrooms table. onto the latter the webcam was attached which was used to shoot some visuals during the performance from the electronic toys’n’synths or even pointing back to keiths screen…
full stream of the remote performance can be viewed on tv.dock18.ch
look for older projects here…
Mechatronic Art
Hackteria
Open Source Biological Art
funded by the Bundesamt für Kultur
Migros Kuturprozent
