PHR-803T Alternative

[doherty515]

I was wondering if there is an alternative I can use for the laser scanning microscope? I have a few spare drives lying around which I was wondering if I could use?

[nup002]

As far as I can tell from researching this topic (OPU hacking), it is a significant effort to reverse engineer an OPU. You should stick to the PHR-803T or the two other in this article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssensors.8b00340

The schematic would definitely need to be edited to work with anything else than the PHR-803T.

[Rushabh-Kavaiya]

Hii @nup002 as I am just looking every corner that one perfect working Laser scanning microscope. As I remember you commented somewhere and you also want to start this interesting project. did you started and any challenge coming ? becas I want to start but looking for someones functional PCB layout and part list. ( as I know someone got issue by using Gaudi Labs layout )

[nup002]

Hello @Rushabh-parth, I never got around to making this microscope, mostly due to a lack of good documentation.

[megadeth924]

@Rushabh-Kavaiya @nup002

Were you able to get the microscope up and running? I’ve assembled the PCB with all components and I have two PHR-803T pickups. I’m considering replacing the unit that handles the Y-axis motion with a different OPU. What do you think?

If you’ve tried a mixed-model setup, are there any gotchas I should watch for—pinout differences, tracking/focus coil specs, drive voltage/current, or firmware/driver tuning? Any specific OPU models you’d recommend (or avoid) for the Y-axis?

Thanks a lot for your advice!