Digital Designs and Scientific Hardware - Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs - page 181

FIGURE 6.18 Parametric automated filter wheel changer.

6.2.1 Benefits of the open-source approach for physics

research
The OpenSCAD designs and STL files for the entire open-source optics library were posted
on Thingiverse (see footnotes for direct links above), a digital design repository, which also
provides links to all the control software for the Arduino. In addition, I maintain a Thingiverse
collection of open-source optics equipment that is routinely updated as researchers from all
over the world share their own designs. 29 For example, Thingiverse user kovo recently shared
an even lower cost optical rail system, which could be useful for many experimenters. His sys-
tem uses 3-D printed optical mounts for extruded aluminum angle, which can be purchased
from most local hardware stores. 30 The aluminum angle design is shown in Figure 6.19 . This
system would be of particular use to anyone working in remote communities without ship-
ping access to specialized extrusions like OpenBeam. Similarly, simple designs can also be
coupled together to make much more complicated systems. Consider the optics setup in Fig-
ure 6.20 , where Thingiverse user ordaos uses several of the kinematic mounts shown in Figure
6.13 to make a Michelson interferometer.