Talk:DIYbio:Notebook/Open Gel Box 2.0/Transilluminator

Just registered today. I did a little digging, and was wondering why one couldn't use something like Roscolux. Granted the performance is no where near as good as a thin film bandpass filter, but in reviewing page 25 of the Chemical Patent for the dark reader, it doesnt seem like a great deal of precision is needed. A downside is Roscolux can drift over time, but with the very lower power levels in this application, it would seem to be pretty limited. Roscolux typically being a disposable used in theatre lighting is very inexpensive. Any thoughts? *Ron Amundson 21:37, 6 March 2009 (EST)

Well - I've only used this approach in a very rough way - blue handheld LED light, no excitation pre-filter, and just a small peice of cheap amber acrylic (#2422) for emission filtering. This is more than good enough for my purposes (gel band cutting and GFP bacteria colony counting) but higher-power LEDs do emit more out-of-band light and it could be tough to scale up for a gel-doc or whatever you might want to build. My acrylic piece has a transmission spectrum similar to Roscolux Deep Amber. I tried using some blue acrylic (2424) as an excitation filter but it doesn't seem to help at all, and the transmission of blue light is reduced as well. *Jonathan Lake 12:19, 16 April 2009 (EDT):