Team:TU-Delft/Zephyr

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Zephyr: DIY low-cost fluorescence scanner

Zephyr is a low-cost Do It Yourself (DIY) machine which can scan petridishes and 96 well plates for expression of fluorescence at micrometer scale. The Typhoon is the commercial machine that does the same, only it is priced around 120.000 dollars. The main difference is the use of low-cost optics. This allows you to pick exactly which fluorescence you want to detect and not to pay for the ones you do not use. Furthermore, it does not have confocal optics, as this is not that often when scanning bacteria and protein gels. This DIY machine can be built by anyone with one or two days on their hands and the costs are around 1500 dollars.

Why? Reason d’être

Research is not cheap in general and synthetic biology is no exception. Much of the lab equipment has a price running of ten thousand dollars. For some teams this is no hurdle, their lab has all the equipment they possibly may need, while other teams may struggle with their characterization because of lack of needed equipment. This may be an explanation why in the iGEM competition For most of the mentioned equipment, only the high tech versions are available, which make it so costly. However the simple versions of these machines would be enough in most cases. As an analog: there are only high tech Bentleys available and no Ford Fiestas, while these Fiestas would be enough for simple transportation.

Therefore we decided to build a low-cost Typhoon, which would be easy to make on your own. This machine is of course not as high-tech as the Typhoon, but it measures at the same scale and has roughly the same performance.

What? Working principle

How? The Zephyr DIY guide

How to make the Zephyr can be broken down in different modules: first the buying of materials and parts, then the making of several parts, assembling them, wiring the electronic circuit, programming the microprocessor, controlling the set-up from the pc and calibrating the image stitching to make a complete image.

Part list

In Table 1 the parts are listed into three categories: optical-, electrical- and mechanical components with a possible online store to buy the components. The plastic PMMA sheets are difficult to acquire online, it usually works the best to contact a local plastic supplier. Most of the mechanical parts can be swapped out for ones with the same dimensions, e.g. the bearings.

Note that in this list only dichroic parts for GFP are listed, for other wavelengths other parts are necessary. The dichroic parts are the excitation- and emission filter and the dichroic mirror itself. For many fluorescent proteins Edmund Optics has listed a good choice for these. If your fluorescent protein is not on there, the following guidelines may help you: Find out the emission frequency of your protein, pick the frequency of the 25 mm emission filter as close as possible. Pick the dichroic 25.2 x 35.6mm mirror 20 nm lower than this frequency and the 25 mm excitation filter 40 nm lower than the emission filter.

In addition to these filters and the mirror, you will also need a high power LED. The emission frequency of this LED should be very close to the frequency of the emission filter. Many of these LEDs are available on superbrightleds.com.

Mechanical parts
PMMA clear 6mm thick, 870 mm x 540 mm	The plastic for the frame	1	-
PMMA clear 6mm thick, 515 mm x 290 mm	The plastic for the frame	1	-
PMMA clear 3mm thick, 300 mm x 150 mm	The plastic for the frame	1	-
Linear bearring 15 mm 8 mm 24 mm	Bearrings allowing sliding	8	link 1
Pouley 30 tooths, 6 mm diameter hole	Pouley to move the belt	8	link 2
Belt 950 mm, 380 tooths	Drive belt	4	link 3
Axis 8MM diameter 312 mm length	C19	4	link 4
Axis 8MM diameter 335 mm length	C20	2	link 5
Bearring inside diameter 6 mm outer diameter 19 mm	Bearrings to hold pouleys	4	link 6
Fixation rings 8 mm	To fixate the axis	12	link 7
SM1V10 - Ø1" SM1 Lens Tube, 1" Long External Threads	Lens tube allowing focussing	1	link 8
CP4S - SM1-Threaded 30 mm Cage Plate, 4 mm Thick	Plate mounting for the lens	1	link 9
SM1A3 - Adapter with External SM1 Threads and Internal RMS Threads	Adapter between different threads	1	link 10
M6 bolts x 40 mm +nuts	4 to support the pouleys and 4 for the holding of the objectie plate	8	-
M3 bolts x 20 mm + nuts	To tightent belts to sliders	8	-
Black paint	e.g. exhaust paint	1	-
Heat transfer double sided tape	To fixate the high power LED	1	link 11
Glue	To fixate webcam	-

Table 1: The parts to buy of the Zephyr, including dichroic parts for GFP detection.

Making of the parts

In total 41 unique parts must be made out of plastic using laser cutting. These parts are dived into four categories: A to D. A are the parts of the dichroic holder including the LED holder. B are the parts of the optical holder, C are the frame parts and D are the parts that hold petridishes and the 96 well plates. In the table below the parts are listed with their name and their coding (e.g. B3).

For all these parts technical drawings are available below or bundled in this pdf. Note that these are the dimensions that result from using the laser cutting method.

Figure 1: The Individual technical drawings of the parts to make

So, how to make these parts? For laser cutting the parts to make must usually be supplied a ‘dxf’-format, this is a file containing the 2D structure of the different parts. For all the different parts these files can be found in this zip-file. These digital files can be directly sent to a company that can make them for you or a technician at a university. The three plastic plates will suffice to make all the parts according to the quantity. You will have to ask them to combine them in a smart way for you on the plate. This would look something in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Example of the collection of the different parts in the laser program


Figure 3: Example of the collection of the different parts in the laser program

After these parts are cut, all the A and B parts must be painted. Paint both of the sides like in Figure 4, this will prevent reflection of light inside the optical tube and interference of outside light.

Figure 4: Example of painting the A-parts.

Assembly of the parts

Wiring the circuits

Arduino code, microprocessor

The Arduino controls both the LED, all the motors and communicates with the PC. Attached is the Arduino code file [link_to_arduino_file], which can be uploaded to the Arduino using the supplied software link.

Control software

Image processing

Explanation of the design

Desired specifications

Specific justifications

Results

Sensitivity and linearity

Petridish reading

Conclusions

Design in general

Resulting specifications

Discussion / Future aspirations