[Health] $30 microscope

Sridhar Dhanapalan sridhar at laptop.org.au
Mon Feb 7 08:53:21 EST 2011 

On a related note, does anyone know if the $1 microscope is being
successfully used in the field?

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Microscope



On 21 January 2011 10:20, Kevin Gordon <kgordon420 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks:
>
> We've been able to get the Veho USB 400x 1.3Mp/2.0Mp interpolated to work
> on  the XO 1 and XO 1.5 under 10.1.3 with 'Cheese'.  However, with this high
> resolution webcam, you just need to make sure it attaches itself to the USB
> 2.0 bus.  If for some reason it comes up and attaches to the 1.1 bus, one
> gets get what looks like a 1970's color TV test pattern when starting the
> camera software..
>
> I can't speak to the specifics of the DIgiMicro; we bought a bunch of
> different microscope samples from various HK based ebay vendors before
> standardizing on the Veho.  It is fully uvc compliant and also works on
> Ubuntu, Windows and the Mac.  On Ubuntu, we use guvcview to control it.  Due
> to the fact we needed to support multi-continent co-curricula, we needed one
> that ran everywhere on everything.  It  can cost between $40 and $75 from
> ebay depending on the day of the week, it seems.  Be careful, the one one
> wants is the '004' product not the '001' or '004'.
>
> On the XO, Mikus Grinbergs has since done some magic for us to get guvcview
> to load on the XO, since guvcview only has an Fc12, 686 RPM.  It gets more
> complicated since some of the dependencies for guvcview need the FC12/686
> rpm versions which one has to go out and find manually,  while other
> dependencies need the FC11/586 standard repo versions.  For us, we are still
> in the process of bullet-proofing this so young users can mod their 10.1.3
> box to install guvcview.  guvcview has way more user-definable parameters
> than does Cheese.
>
> So, for simplicity, one can just install Cheese for now.  It works from
> Sugar if called from the terminal prompt.  It wont run properly as root,
> just stay as default OLPC user., dont know why, dont really care. Personally
> I run as little as possible as root.    A bunch of weird messages come up
> once invoked from Sugar, but it does eventually come up.  It will flash the
> built-in cafe camera light then proceed over to the USB camera.  You can
> edit the preferences in Cheese to default to the USB camera.  If the USB
> camera isnt seen in teh camera device drop-down, then for some reason it
> isn't being handled properly at the driver level.  In terminal, check the
> output of the lsusb command, the camera should be seen there with a nice
> description and USB vendor./eqpt number. Once you are doen in cheese on the
> the sugar side, unfortunately you have to stop it 'inelegantly'' as it has
> no sugar activity button. You can use the ctrl-q, or function key back to
> the activity wheel and kill it from there.   However, this seems to leave a
> little stub up and running, so you may have to reboot to get it going again.
>
> On the other hand the successful yum install of cheese puts itself nicely
> into the graphics submenu on the Gnome side, and behaves nicely there. You
> can then save your microscope photos ot the fiel system (preferably on an
> external SD card or a USB stick, then look at the photos from the Sugar
> side.  Just remember INSTALL it as root, but run it as the normal default
> user.
>
> Summary.  USB uvc compliant webcams (microscopes) should just plug in and be
> seen by both the XO 1.0 and XO 1.5. Then yum install cheese, and use the
> Gnome side to do any 'photos'.
>
> All caveats with respect to the snails-pace of the yum install are still in
> effect ont the 1.0, we do a yum install downloadonly to a stick on a 1.5
> (which does yum nicely), then yum localinstall from the stick to all the XO
> 1.0's to eliminate those install hanging and memory full issues.  As an
> added benefit, Cheese has no other dependencies when installed to 10.1.3.
>
> For those who saw our little tech-geek table at the SF summit, this is
> exactly what we were demoing on the 1.5.  Daniel Drake and Paul Fox have
> since done yeomen effort to bring the  uvc, sisusb, and ldusb drivers all
> back into sync on the 1.0's and 1.5s at 10.1.3 .  Have fun, it really is
> cool stuff.
>
> KG
>
> O n Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> [Copying everyone.]
>>
>> I haven't tried this with the new 10.1.3. But before that, it didn't
>> work on the XO-1 without having to get into kernal hacking. Paul Fox
>> confirmed that they are looking into adding support. I don't know if
>> they have.
>>
>> I bought my Digimicro from DealExtreme for $31.10. The catch is they
>> ship from Hong Kong (as I recall). It took 3-4 weeks to get the
>> 'scope.
>>
>>
>> http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11743
>>
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Cherry Withers <cwithers at ekindling.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Mike,
>> >
>> > I just ordered mine from Amazon. But we were discussing this on our
>> > Squeakland meeting today
>> > and wondering if you've tried this on the XO 1.0 as well and if you've
>> > tried
>> > other brands?
>> > The Digimicro is hovering around $37-$45 at Amazon (without shipping and
>> > tax). Where have you found
>> > them for $30?
>> >
>> > Thank you for your help!
>> > --Cherry
>> >
>> > On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 8:14 PM, Mike Lee <curiouslee at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi all,
>> >>
>> >> I ordered this Digimicro 1.3mp USB microscope and it arrived from
>> >> China today. I was able to pretty easily get it running on an XO-1.5
>> >> in Gnome. Photos and details here:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/5188951606/in/photostream/
>> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/5188951710/in/photostream/
>> >>
>> >> Here's the reference I used for the installation:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> http://www.stealthcopter.com/blog/2010/03/digimicro-200x-zooming-usb-digital-microscope-in-ubuntu-linux/
>> >>
>> >> Mike
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 10:49 AM, Beth Santos <beth at waveplace.org>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > Interesting microscope I found via Woot! today:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.suntekstore.com/1-3-mega-pixel-led-usb-digital-microscope-video-camera-10x__-230x-.html?&utm_source=woot&utm_medium=paid&utm_content=deals&utm_campaign=s0003
>> >> >
>> >> > For less than a solar panel you could be sending one or more of these
>> >> > out
>> >> > with every deployment...
>> >> >
>> >> > Beth
>> >> >
>> >> > ---
>> >> > Beth Santos
>> >> > Outreach Coordinator
>> >> > Waveplace Foundation
>> >> >
>> >> > Tel: +1 610 797 3100 x 44
>> >> > Fax: +1 610 797 3199
>> >> > Cell: +1 603 661 1273
>> >> > http://www.waveplace.org
>> >> > Waveplace on Facebook
>> >> > Twitter: @waveplace
>> >> >
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > Health mailing list
>> >> > Health at lists.laptop.org
>> >> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/health
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> Health at lists.laptop.org
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>> >
>> >
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