Skip to content

Setting up the microscope from scratch

Jump to bottom
Julius Winter edited this page Nov 2, 2023 · 2 revisions

It's possible that you have to set up the microscope from scratch, either because a drive fails, or because you might want to run the microscope from a different computer, like your laptop.
For this you will need a few drivers before you can dive into setting up a configuration.

Micromanager

You can get the camera drivers from Photometrics and the program is called PVCam, found here: https://www.photometrics.com/products/pvcam The CoolLED illumination system requires specific files that you copy to the micro-manager folder. You can find all the files linked in the start guide for µManager on this page: https://www.coolled.com/products/pe-800/#imaging-software

With this installed you should be able to set up a configuration file in micromanager:

Find out which COM ports the microscope (COM XX) and the CoolLED lamp (COM YY) are connected to. Use the device manager for this.

In the hardware configuration wizard you need to add the following components:

  • ZeissScope (COM XX, change the BaudRate to 57600 and leave everything else unchanged)
  • ZeissReflectorTurret
  • ZeissObjectiveTurret
  • ZeissFocusAxis
  • ZeissXYStage
  • ZeissSidePort
  • ZeissDefiniteFocus
  • ZeissDefiniteFocusOffset
  • ZeissHalogenLamp
  • ZeissReflectedLightShutter
  • ZeissTransmittedLightShutter
  • CoolLED/pE-800 (COM YY)
  • PVCAM/Camera-1
  • Utilities/Multi Shutter

Continuing on, micromanager should detect all the objectives and filters correctly.
You can now customize micromanager the way you want setting up groups and presets for the different illuminations, etc.

If you want to just use the ones we already have you can navigate to the micromanager folder at C:\Program Files\Micro-Manager-2.0, open the configuration file in a text editor and copy paste everything beyond the point "Configuration presets" from the config file in this repository into your new configuration file. Restarting micromanager should now show all the settings you need to image.

VisiView

Still working on this. But all the information can be found on the USB stick provided by Visitron in the clear box above the microscope.

Clone this wiki locally