[OpenSPIM] Temperature control for the SPIM chamber

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi Edgar,

On Tue, 17 Sep 2013, edgar.escobar.nieto at ipt.fraunhofer.de wrote:

> I would like to add a temperature control to the SPIM chamber, so I was
> thinking to build a new SPIM chamber but made of aluminum instead of
> acrylic because of the better heat transmission of the aluminum. The
> think is that I don't know if the illumination of the sample will be
> affected (the lightsheet could be reflected inside the aluminum
> chamber). Do you think would make sense to to add some glass windows to
> the chamber?

Interesting idea about the temperature control! We had the idea already
but too many other things to do so far.

Regarding the reflection: yes, I would expect the scattered laser light to
provide reason for a lot of problems.

Depending how fast your temperature control needs to react (i.e. do you
need to keep the temperature just stable? In that case, a big peltier
underneath the plexi glass chamber should be good enough), you might need
to anodize the side of the chamber, or put in a window as you say.

Another idea would be to embed the peltier *inside* the chamber rather
than underneath, so that you do not have to go through the complete
centimeter or so of plexi glass.

Also keep in mind that you need to have a precise temperature sensor
inside the chamber, preferably two: one close to the peltier, one as far
from it as possible, to account for temperature gradients.

But please keep in mind, too, that I am a software guy, not a hardware
guy, so hopefully scientists with more experience in the matters at hand
will respond soon (I know that PAvel is at a workshop these days,
introducing the OpenSPIM to yet another crowd of scientists, so he'll be
busy, I suspect).

Ciao,
Johannes