Gel doc system: made easily from an old UV transilluminator & $200 worth of stuff!

thingiverse

I've made two of these for use across my department. ***Yes, you still need to wear UV-protectrive lab goggles.*** What you'll need: - an (old) UV transilluminator - an iPhone 6S. $160 refurbished in June 2019 on Amazon. What's important is the phone size and the camera quality and position. - A deep yellow telescope filter. $10 in June 2019 from telescopesplus.com. - a half-sized 6-inch-deep steam table pan. $25 in June 2019 from restaurantsupply.com. What's important is that the box be sturdy, opaque, and the right size. You'll need to drill a 1.5 inch / 35 mm hole in it, and since my box was steel, I went to my college's machine shop. - A 3D-printed adaptor (The necessary stl file is here.) to hold it all in the right places. ~$10-15 - glue and opaque tape. For glue, I used two-part epoxy. Directions: - Drill the aforementioned hole in the center of your pan/5-faced box. - Glue the adaptor to the pan aligning the drilled hole with the round hole of the adaptor. - Once the glue has dried, place the telescope filter in the adaptor's hole. - Put the phone in the adaptor so the camera aligns with the filter and hole. - Put some opaque tape over the still visible parts of filter to eliminate glare off the filter into the phone's camera. - Put your gel on the transilluminator, turn it on, put the box and camera over it, and take a picture. (I like Mono (black-and-white) mode, but it isn't that important.) - Email it or AirDrop it where ever you want it to go! FAQ: - Does my iPhone need a phone plan? No. That would be expensive. You'll need a SIM-card briefly when you first set it up, but it only needs wireless internet. I set up a gmail accounts that our systems use to mail gel images. - Occasionally my images are blurry. What's up? Likely you've left a gel under the box for many minutes and water vapor from your gel has condensed on the filter. Take the box off the transilluminator and your gel for a minute, and in a minute the condensation will evaporate. - Do I still need UV-protective lab goggles? *** Yes. ***