Turn Your Smartphone Into a Digital Microscope! 

I did this 8 years ago . I tried to patent it but I was only 15. Great job I've been waiting for someone to do it also.. I use the laser pointer at wall mart checkouts has a led and laser diode. Yes adding another lens makes it 4 times as powerful. A third lens obscures it. Like he said u have to use it closer and def takes a steady hand if not stationary. I found using different back lights can give better detail. Also a front light and no back light can give you surface images. I got my best one up 2400× mag. I calculated it using the screen pixels. My theory was that with perfect high quality lenses and more mega pixels you could reach 100 x photon size do to the fact that the light is not inverted/crossed. Like a real microscope with mirrors and prisoms. I could see red blood cells at medical quality. Oh and if u use the defused laser diode without the lens it can be a projector microscope. Any ways enjoy .. Oh PS polish ur lens . and avoid touching it. And remove glass protector from camera module the closer u r to it the better . and use flat side of the lens facing the camera . adios

This is a fantastic tutorial, well done! I hope to see more of your work in the future! Keep up this level of quality and you'll do very well on RU-vid.

Congrats on the 2mil+ views, man! You've made something really awesome here, and the high quality video emphasizes the professional nature of this project.

To convert inches to metric, just multiple by 25.4. 3/4" x 25.4 = 19.05mm If you want to convert to cm, just go with 2.54.

I will be teaching soon! This is awesome! I could think of a number of ways to use this!! Great video! Keep them coming!

I love this! I own an optical microscope and a cheap digital one, but this build turned out better than both! I'd buy you a beer if you make a video about preparing specimens at home :)

It's for backlight which gives you the ability to look through things such as leaves so you can see the cells within. If you did it from the top the cells within the leaf would look blurry and fuzzy.

Yes! Check the Instructable that is linked in the "about" section.

How do you know that the total magnification is 40x ond so on? How do you calculate the total magnification?

Brilliant. Now only if i could find a similar way to build a telescope..

Most helpful yet easy microscope I found in youtube till now. Thank you.

Hi! Explained better in the actual instructable (see the link above) is the process of embedding the lens in the stage. Measure the diameter of your lens and start with a hole a little smaller than that. You can always go larger. I used a small file to make it a tight fit. Most cheap laser pointers are about the same size. Avoid the dual LED/LASER combination. The lens for the laser on that tends to be really small. Ideally the lens should be the size of the camera. Good luck!

oh great, now i need a smartphone...

As awesome use of common sense as it gets!!! Thanx!

now you have to learn to make this video audible.

I am not sure which stains were used on some of the slides (elderberry, megaspore etc) but the red onion cells were not stained at all. The outer layer with the red pigment was used. The blueish color in most of the pictures were due to the LED light.

sound???

I tried using two lenses for extra magnification. It only gave me a very unclear image that I could not focus. I followed all instructions exactly, and used all the same parts. I noticed MANY other people are having this same problem and many more still are asking how to resolve it. Please can you tell us how you actually did it and got it to work? Because nobody else seems to be able to do so. I'm hoping to have 2 holes drilled side by side...one for one lens...and the other for stacked lenses. Giving the ease of choosing which magnification you want without any tweaking necessary.

Man these kinda videos get easily viral around the globe, in this generation. All one need is a little curiosity..! It's worth it, man, good job..! :)

Truly amazing! Thank you, for taking the time to show step by step how to make this possible :) You've definitely done an outstanding job sir!

Why aren't ready-made kits already available on Amazon? I'd pay $20 easy since I don't have all these tools...

I wonder how could I use it with a dslr since they have much more distant minimum focus range and would require a bigger lens. Does anyone know the parameters of laser pointer lenses so I could find bigger lens with such properties?

I live in Ireland, we use the metric system, but there's room on a ruler for both metric and imperial, on 1 side we have cm divided into mm, and on the other we've Inches broken into either 16th's or 8th's, either is divisible by 4 to get a quarter inch

Found this in 2020, and I love it! I'll definitely build several of these. For myself, for my class and for my science teachers colleagues.

It's scientific project, why do you use medieval measurement system in your explanations?

I already have a microscope, but I'm so doing this!!

Just finished making mine and used a leaf from outside to check out, next thing i noticed was some sort of small bug running around, pretty awesome.

A table saw will cut plexi fine. There is probably a blade specific to plastics but I have used multipurpose blades without any problems. Also a band saw could do it if it has a guide.

I'm more interested in the people who gave this video a thumbs down. Anti-science?

Thanks, I think I will try this out.. but I also wonder when Americans will finally adopt the metric system. I need to look up what an inch is ;-)

You can also put a mirror at the base and use the phone's led instead of a separate light.

I have done this experiment with front camera lens, if you transfer a drop of water to the lens, make sure the drop forms a half sphere, then turn on the camera. Now you can focus on object one centimeter away from the lens.

1:37 starts the manufacturing

Okay, though the video has been here on youtube for quite long time, I cannot expect someone to reply my question. However, I hope someone can help. Actually, I tried the same and almost accomplished the construction but unfortunately, the lens of the laser doesn't seem powerful enough to magnify as similar as shown in the video... Is it that I need more powerful lens or what could possibly go wrong? please help me

Amazing. Hope they find a way to improve further the magnification.

Yes. You want to hold the lens steady.

Can you observe amoebas with this?

I like how Google+ posts take viewing priority over ACTUAL COMMENTS for the video. And by "I like how", I mean fuck you google. On topic, it goes without saying that this video is awesome, great upload.

This is AWESOME! I love you your philosophy behind building this and will look forward to having my students build one to use for their experiments in class this year! One question, what's the best way to cut the plexi to size so it doesn't chip or crack? Can a table saw do it or is a jig saw better?

Thanks for posting this - public and high schools can have so many cheap microscopes now to study science. Brilliant and well produced video. Kudos.

Foldscope

...but can you turn a microscope into an iPhone?

This is one of the most amazing constructions I've seen in a very very long time !!

Amazing! This is so exciting, not only because of its accessibility, but also that it opens up a new set of capabilities due to inclusion of the smartphone. As demonstrated, it should be possible to take a time-lapse and see biology in motion. New apps should be able to take these capabilities farther, and mixed with robotics, it could yield novel and very interesting uses! Amazing!

ok step one, get a smart phone. :/

The lens OP uses is 45x. However, he can achieve 175x magnification using digital zoom (with a loss of quality of course). If you have sufficient resolution of your camera, all you need to do is to zoom/crop the image.

Put a ruler on the specimen stage next to the sample. A cheap (thin plastic) transparent ruler could be cut to fit.

Awesome awesome video. I just wished you would use scale bars instead of or atleast in addition to the magnification factor. My old supervisor was really really not happy with me when I used magnification factors...

This is a great idea. One suggestion though: wingnuts are only easier to use if you need to tighten them. Normal hex nuts would be easier to use in this application.

this is amazing thank you so much, i have spent the past 2 hours looking for an affordable and decent digital microscope but this is a way better option for me

Drill a hole a little smaller than the lens. I used a small round file to make it fit exactly. For more specifics on the build click the instructables link in the comments.

Okay, the LED light at the bottom provides the light source that is so common amoung microscopes. Without this light, your specimens would simply appear black or very dark. The glass does not magnify the image, the LASER focusing lens does. It uses the same technology that focuses your LASER pointer to focus the image of your specimens. Does that answer your questions?

When the video is re-uploaded to fix the volume issues there will be measurements in metric will be added. Thank you for the comment.

I don't live in the US either and I can tell you that all rulers have centimeters and inches in them, so, in rulers inches are divided into 16 "parts", just like centimeters are dividen into 10 "parts", so just grab 4 out of those 16 parts and there you have one quarter of an inch (4/16 = 1/4)

volume in youtube has been broken for months. you can click it, and then use up and down on the keyboard arrows to work around the bug.

I can't ever seem to get it to focus! I haven't gone all the way and made the whole rig just took the glass from laser pointer and embedded into wood which sits on two perpendicular pieces.

What an amazing project. Heading to Home Depot first thing in the morning. Do you have a tool list on this with exactly what you used....just for simplification. Awesome idea. Huge pat on the back to you. Way awesome.

Excellent idea I am so building me one of these , well now that I have thought about it I will make two and use different lenses in each .Thank you

Great idea made this today, I used plastic from a container instead of the clear sheet that you did doesn't look tidy but it works!

I'm pretty sure, that the Fresnel lens gotta be useful in that stand.

RU-vid video's should have a volume control in the bottom left hand corner of the window or perhaps you can use your pc's volume control.

Awesome vid, thank you so much for sharing the building instructions!!!

there is a knob on your speakers, turn it clockwise and you should hear more from them... (if you dont have a knob, the turn the wheel and the volume should go up)

You should do a kickstarter to make and distribute some really cheap pre-made stations. I would buy.

This is a very nice video, the only thing is that with that lens you don't even reach macro magnification ratio 1:1 (subject image size to real life size) ... I honestly don't know what kind of magnification you were measuring - digital zoom maybe ?

You will not see much cell detail if you don't stain, even with a microscope. Cells are mostly transparent, even if you can make out the cell structures. Looks like Coomassie Blue and Cresyl Violet were used in a few of these.

This is a great idea, could more then one lens from a laser pointer be used to get increased zoom?

Would something like the Nokia "PureView" phone have an even better result? I mean 41MPX and a very powerful image processor should be a good thing in this case, right?

I built two of these and they work very well with a Nexus 7 tablet. I have two nieces on Easter Island. I plan to send one to them since they enjoy science. Thanks for the tutorial.

Check the link in the other video to the instructable. No, its not a video, but the step-by-step there oughta show how its done!

I have an inexpensive Magiscope which I have taken around the world with me for 25 years. You can "Digiscope" photos by holding your camera next to the 'viewfinder'. Maybe used ones on Ebay?

can you plz plz plz show in detail that how to pick out the lens from lesser. plz because i cant do it. when I try it always the lens broken. so plz help me

The audio is fine. I think there might be a problem with your speakers/headphones.

Very inspiring. Going to make one myself. Keep up the great work

Can you give the theory behind the working of this microscope,I know the basic phenomena behind magnification but is there something noteworthy to know about it's working?

Ah! That makes sense... but what about stuff such as "coins"? They would be pretty opaque, though? Thus unaffected by the backlight?

This project is invaluable, I think. All kids should own one. I also think someone should sell a pre-assembled version of this, as well as a kit. Non everyone owns a driller and it can be tricky to find a lens of the proper size.

I suspect it would... and I certainly hope so because that's the one I plan to use!

Great video, thanks so much for posting it, I see if I can get my kids interested on it. Can I suggest that to satisfy those that use the metric system, you could add comments with the measurements when you talk about those? That way it would be easier to keep track. Thanks.

You need the focus lens from the laser. Its whats acting as a macro lens for the camera.

The sound of the video is nearly silent. I turned my desk loudspeakers to the maximum and it is only a bit louder than i like it. I think with my laptop the maximum would not be loud enough to undestand everything, because the fan would be louder.

What a way to make science accessible! Thanks for posting this!

Can you provide a parts list for exactly what you use in this video?

How long the bolt should be? How thick the glass should be?

Can you tell me what the level of magnification is while using this on the iPhone 5. Thanks

What other common things have more powerful lenses? Will compounding lenses also work to get more powerful magnification?

Just assembled this today and it works AMAZING! Definitely a neat project. Thanks!

I've heard you can also make calls on those

Working on getting this fixed.

Amazing. I might suggest my prof to show this in the optics class ☺

I agree, and its not just about money. This can be seen by group at the same time, because it has a fairly big screen instead of a view finder. And it can take photos! I don't know how much a microscope that allow you to take photos costs, but I can imagine it is way more expensive than a smartphone. My father is a science teacher in El Salvador and this is is something he definitely can use, since public schools here don't have budget for microscopes.

Hey! Great work! Congratulations! Just a quick question, what app are you using for the camera? Thanks a lot

Great stuff Kenji, keep it up.

This is one of the best things I've seen in a while.

Wish the sound was a little better, but thanks!

Thank you for your video posting! I will try it.

A friend told us that lenses of CD-ROM or DVD-ROM results are better. May use up to two to further expand.

Can you list all the stores that sell these items that would b much appreciated Thx

That's great! I'm excited about doing this project.

Too awesome! I will definitely make one when I finish exams :3