I don’t know what came over me during the holidays but at some point the kids and I decided Monica needed a new microscope. New of course is relative; truly new clinical microscopes are expensive pieces of equipment and while that would be lovely are out of my immediate reach. That of course didn’t mean quality couldn’t be had. A quick look at Martin Microscope back in South Carolina and a refurbished Leica ATC 2000 compound microscope was acquired.

The ATC, which as I understand was considered an advanced teaching compound microscope (hence, the ATC) has been around at least since the 1990’s (the manual I have is from circa 1996) and was found in many colleges. This lovely refurbished model has a faint #16 label on it from which ever classroom or lab it originally came for just that touch of nostalgia.

Given the high quality objectives, oculars, and a lovely mechanical stage the microscope is quite the joy to use. To share some of the wow factor over the Zoom classroom world we now exist in Monica needed a camera mount. In most cases I’d just buy a C-mount adapter and be on our way, but between timing and availability (finding an original 35mm camera adapter for the ATC 2000 has proven difficult). It was time to build a very quick phone mount.

I grabbed a pair of calipers and measured the oculars to see if I could come up with a quick slip mount. At 1.128 inches, they’re just three thousands off an inch and eighth which was too much for a friction fit. I fell back to instead a set screw pin-style mount instead.

I grabbed a bit of 3/4 inch single sided melamine finished MDF off the scrap pile and cut a 1.25 inch hole with a forstner bit. A quick punch with the drill press allowed me to throw a spare thumb screw as a pin, and a little medium rubber seal offers protection on the inner ring for ocular.

The end result mounted onto the scope while not perfect suffices in a pinch to be able to stream via your Google Meets of the world.

This rig is heavy to say the least (MDF is not a light material) and would likely benefit from a second set screw to hold things a little firmer. In the short term this 20 minutes in the shop workaround suffices and fits the initial need to stream. Remember: sometimes, you just have to use what you’ve got on hand to get things working. 😊

Happy sciencing!