Manual Dichroic Filter Wheel for 30 mm Cage System

Mounts Five Rectangular Dichroic Filters
Input and Output Ports at a 45° Angle to the Filter
Removable Filter Wheel
Light Tight

CDFW5

Shown with Cover Removed

CDFW5

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Overview
Feedback

Features

Click to Enlarge
The CDFW5 includes 5 removeable filter holders.

Mounts Five 25.2 mm x 35.6 mm Dichroic Filters or 25 mm x 36 mm Dichroic Mirrors up to 1 mm in Thickness
Compatible with 30 mm Cage and SM1 (1.035"-40) Lens Tube Assemblies
Magnetically Coupled Filter Holders

Delrin^®* Clamps Flex to Reduce Stress on Filters and Prevent Damage

Light-Tight Filter Wheel

Thorlabs' CDFW5 Manual Filter Wheel is designed for use with dichroic filters for fluorescence or wavelength separation applications. The mounting block has four light ports, all of which are oriented at 45° to the plane of the filter. This allows the user access to the through and perpendicular light paths.

The filter wheel is equipped with four 6mm holes and SM1 threading on each port for compatibility with our 30mm cage and SM1 (1.035"-40) lens tube systems. Two 8-32 (Imperial) or M4 (Metric) mounting holes on the bottom of the mounting block allows the wheel to be post mounted.

The light-tight filter wheel cover is magnetically coupled and can be easily removed by hand, exposing the five filter holders. Each magnetically coupled filter holder can be pulled free from the central hub to facilitate removal and replacement of a filter without disassembling or disturbing the setup. By removing one 1/4"-20 shoulder screw on the front of the housing as well as loosening the thumbscrew on the back of the housing, the entire wheel can be removed from a fixed cage setup.

An indent at each position secures the wheel in position when making a filter change. A small window on the filter wheel housing indicates the current filter position, as shown in the image at the top of the page.

Mounting Service
If a compatible microscopy filter is ordered at the same time as the CDFW5, Thorlabs will premount the filter at no additional charge. In order to take advantage of this option, please contact Technical Support prior to ordering.

*Delrin is a registered trademark of DuPont Polymers, Inc.

Click to Enlarge
The filter inserts may be removed without removing the cover.

Click to Enlarge
The CDFW5 features input and output ports at a 45° angle to the filter.

Posted Comments:

Marco Lamperti (posted 2024-01-19 13:25:26.567)

Hello, I would like to use the wheel in a multi-color home made confocal microscope. Any news on the angle accuracy in different positions? Also, is there a way to motorize it (e.g. can i connect a stepper motor to the central hex screw and that will rotate the wheel)?

jdelia (posted 2024-01-23 11:51:45.0)

Thank you for contacting Thorlabs. We do not currently have a specification for accuracy for the CDFW5, but I have reached out to you directly to discuss whether this part may work for your application. Additionally, these are currently not intended to be motorized, but I have logged your request for a motorized version in our internal suggestion forum.

Eric Lin (posted 2020-08-18 13:05:10.357)

Hello, I'm interested in a motorized version of the CDFW5 filter wheel. Best regards,

YLohia (posted 2020-08-19 09:31:58.0)

Hello, thank you for your feedback. I have posted your suggestion on our internal product engineering forum for further consideration as a future product in our catalog.

maxime.dubois (posted 2017-03-10 04:44:46.78)

I am also looking for a motorized version of a dichroic wheel, with or without cage system. Do you provide that ?

tfrisch (posted 2017-03-13 07:34:19.0)

Hello, thank you for contacting Thorlabs. I will reach out to you directly to update you on this proposed product.

dale.fried (posted 2016-12-17 20:18:04.003)

I would really like to find a motorized version of this filter wheel. Alternatively, find a way to mount your motorized wheels at 45 deg relative to a cage setup.

tfrisch (posted 2016-12-23 10:47:16.0)

Hello, thank you for contacting Thorlabs. I have posted your idea in our internal engineering forum.

user (posted 2014-03-20 23:25:14.663)

Would the motorized version of this dichroic filter wheel be released any time soon?

msoulby (posted 2014-03-21 11:39:27.0)

Response from Mike at Thorlabs: This particular product is still currently under development and unfortunately there is still a fair amount of work to do before we will be able to release this product. However we appreciate your feedback and are always grateful for new product ideas that come from our customers.

cdaly (posted 2012-12-05 19:30:44.08)

Response from Chris at Thorlabs: Thank you for your feedback. We are in the process of releasing a motorized filter wheel which can be used in the cage system at 45 degrees, but as this is still only a prototype, we do not have a clear release date which I could provide.

user (posted 2012-11-22 16:03:07.917)

I'd like to add to the requests for a motorised version of this - hugely useful for multicolour fluorescence microscopy. Isaac

bdada (posted 2012-03-01 14:33:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs to rwollman: Thank you so much for your product suggestion and for visiting us at BioPhysics. We appreciate your discussion of how you would use the motorized version in your application. The motorized version is currently being considered due to customer feedback. I will check with our production team on the status of this project and post an update later. Thank you again for your feedback.

rwollman (posted 2012-03-01 13:41:02.0)

Hi, I just talked to your guys in Biophysical and wanted to follow it up with an email. I proposed an improved product that will be very important for many users. I suggested you motorized your manual dichroic filter wheel for 30 mm cage systems: http://www.thorlabs.com/NewGroupPage9.cfm?ObjectGroup_ID=5109 Many custom microscope systems suffer from the lack of automated dichroic changers and are confined to the use of a multi-band mirrors. For example, incorparating such motorized dichroic wheel with emission and excitation wheels into your T-scope could make it a highly versatile fluorescent microscope. Another example is the ability to use this dichroic wheel as an alternative to a flip mirror in the light path with one open and one reflective mirror and there are many more of these examples... We are in the process of planning two new imaging systems in the lab and for both of them having motorized dichroic wheel in addition to "regular" emission and excitation will be awesome. Thanks for help and I hope you will pick up and this proposal and develop this product! Best, Roy

bdada (posted 2012-02-24 15:11:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs to christian.tardif: Thank you for your feedback. We do not yet have test data on the angle tolerance for each dichroic position but we have had several requests for this data and are working to provide it. We will post an update when we have the data.

bdada (posted 2012-02-08 20:04:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs to j.hohlbein1: The CDFW5 Cage Dichroic Filter Wheel is designed for our rectangular dichroic filters and mirrors. The mirrors are 3.0mm thick, so this filter wheel would be suitable for optics that are up to 3mm thick. Please contact TechSupport@thorlabs.com if you have any questions.

bdada (posted 2012-02-01 00:05:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs: Thank you for your feedback. We have shared your suggestion with our design engineers and will post an update soon as we get more details about the product line expansion of the manual dichroic filter wheel. Please contact TechSupport@thorlabs.com if you have any questions.

bdada (posted 2012-01-25 15:01:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs: Thank you for using our feedback forum. We apologize for the late response. We do not currently specify the positional accuracy for each dichroic position but we will look further into this and post an update in this feedback forum and also in the web presentation.

bmangum (posted 2012-01-25 13:24:25.0)

If there are plans to make a version that would accommodate round dichroic mirrors, I hope that it would also be able to accommodate a standard mirror as well (BB1). It would be even better if the front surfaces of any filter/mirror (regardless of thickness)could sit in the same plane. If so I would definitely buy at least two or three of them.

user (posted 2012-01-25 13:17:51.0)

I would like to echo the concerns of christian.tardiff: Is the reflectance angle going to be different for each dichroic position - any word on this yet?

j.hohlbein1 (posted 2012-01-22 09:04:34.0)

Is it possible to mount thicker dichroics? >=2mm would be great! JH

christian.tardif (posted 2011-12-20 16:21:45.0)

I was wondering what is the angle tolerance on the reflected beam. Is that reflectance angle is really different for each dichroic position? Thank you

user (posted 2011-12-01 12:02:03.0)

A response from Tyler at Thorlabs: I looked through our pending design projects and didn't see a motorized version of the CVDFW5 listed but based on your feedback I submitted the idea of a motorized dichric filter wheel as a project to be considered. I was wondering if you could provide some additional information about how the end product should preform. How fast do you need to be able to switch filters? How sensitive is your application to vibrations caused when the filter is being flipped? Do you need compatibility with a software interface like micromanager? Would you like the motor and controller integrated into the filter wheel or would it be better to keep the filter wheel as compact as possible with the controller being a separate unit? Are there any other criticle specifications that you need met? Thank you for the product suggestion, Tyler.

gyg2101 (posted 2011-12-01 11:43:59.0)

Are you planning on developing a motorized version of this item (CVDFW5)? I would be very much interested in one. guy

bdada (posted 2011-11-17 13:31:00.0)

Response from Buki at Thorlabs: Thank you for your feedback. We are glad to hear you like the new manual dichroic filter wheel. We are already working on expanding this product line to include the circular dichroic filter holders and we are considering a motorized version as well.

cbrideau (posted 2011-11-16 21:28:36.0)

This looks pretty neat! Can you make alternate filter holders that hold 1" round instead of the rectangular style? That way you could mount 1" round and rectangular, or just one or the other type on the same wheel. Is there a plan to build a motorized version of this in the future?