External Panels and Controls

Front Panel and Scanning Surface

Power On/Off Button: Briefly pressing this button turns the instrument on and off, when the imager is not connected to the Image Studio™ SoftwareLI‑COR® Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio™ Software or LI‑COR® Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio™ Software or LI‑COR® Acquisition Software. If the imager is connected, pressing the button results in the red error light blinking along with a warning sound to alert the user that the imager is connected to the software. Continuing to hold the power button for 5 seconds will turn the instrument off and the software connection will end.

Green Image Acquisition Indicator: This indicator light blinks during image acquisition and is continuously on at other times, as long as communication with Image Studio SoftwareLI‑COR Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio Software or LI‑COR Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio Software or LI‑COR Acquisition Software is maintained. The indicator light is off before the instrument is connected to the software and if Image Studio SoftwareLI‑COR Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio Software or LI‑COR Acquisition SoftwareImage Studio Software or LI‑COR Acquisition Software is closed or communication is otherwise lost.

Red Error Indicator: The error indicator light illuminates when a particular process could not be completed.

Rear Panel

Power switch
Power receptacle		CDRH regulation compliance label
LAN networking port		Manufacturer label

Scanning Surface

The scanning surface is a 25 cm x 25 cm glass plate (Figure 65), upon which the samples to be scanned are placed. The scanning surface is sealed from the instrument interior so no moisture can penetrate to the detection optics and electronics below.

Optical System Description

Solid state diode lasers simultaneously provide light excitation at 685 and 785 nm. Collimating lenses, optical bandpass filters, and a focusing lens focus and tune the laser beams to produce an excitation spot on the scanning surface. The microscope electronics then modulate the laser beams to discriminate the infrared dye signal fluorescence from background fluorescence. The scanner detection optics focus on the excitation spot and collect light from the fluorescing infrared dyes.

The light is passed to a dichroic mirror after collection by the microscope objective. The mirror splits the light and essentially sorts the fluorescent signals by transmitting the light above 810 nm and reflecting light below 750 nm. Transmitted and reflected light travels two independent paths through optics designed to remove scattered and stray light. The light is ultimately focused onto one of two avalanche photodiodes that converts the light to an electrical signal for processing by the microscope detection electronics.

In the microscope electronics the signal is amplified, filtered, and finally converted to a digital value by an analog-to-digital converter. The digital signal is demodulated, filtered again, and coordinated with the microscope position by a Digital Signal Processor (DSP) to produce the image file.

The entire compact laser/microscope assembly travels on a platform that moves beneath the scanning surface along both the X- and Y-axes. It is adjustable in the Z-dimension to allow for focusing at the scan bed up to 4 mm above the scan bed to accommodate membranes, gels, and microplates.

The Odyssey® DLx Imager has two modes for dynamic range, Automatic and Manual. In Automatic mode the Odyssey DLx acquires images with virtually no saturated pixels on the first attempt with no user adjustments. More than six logs (22 bits) of dynamic range are available for each image. In Manual mode the intensity of each channel can be manually adjusted across a 12 bit dynamic range.