That's a candidate for sure, my efforts slightly predate the 3d printed microscope revolution slightly, and I had to MacGyver my way to prove I can image cell cultures long-term without spending 2-300k (since I was doing wild goose chase hypotheses) and hence this solution.

Are you playing with it in a garage or in an academic / industrial setting?

I'm not yet ready to start but my goal is to try and set up an actually productive garage lab - maybe use some neighbouring univ core facility on occasion but not to set up a lab there. Not a fan of academia in general and hope to not contribute money/ideology towards perpetuating that ponzi scheme!

Garage. The goal is to build a prototype which could then be scaled to a warehouse-sized robotic biological experimental system. But, I have also worked with such things in commercial settings.

I'd say that for most real scientists, it makes more sense to raise the funding to buy a professional scope because a lot of the dumbness is engineered out so scientists can just sit down and be productive.