Hello OCRA and Tabletop community, in this blog I will share the actual development status of the OCRA Tabletop MRI System hardware and the OCRA/Relax2.0 software. The 2024 OCRA Tabletop MRI System hardware development was mainly driven by the AgriPETMRI project at the Research Campus STIMULATE, were I work as leader for the MR System…
A4IM OSI² STM32L476RGT compute module
Hello OCRA, Tabletop and OSI² community, In this blog post I want to share my micro controller STM32L476RGT compute module for the OSI² 2MHz Halbach MRI as part of the A4IM project. The module will be used for the open-source SAR hardware monitor to sample the applied RF power, calculate the running averages and switch…
A4IM OSI² TR-Switch
Hello OCRA, Tabletop and OSI² community, In this blog post I want to share my Transmit-Receive (TR) switch design for the OSI² 2MHz Halbach MRI as part of the A4IM project. The A4IM OSI² TR-Switch is based on my OCRA Tabletop MRI System TR-Switch. The schematic is basically the same and only a few components…
Power supply of the OCRA console
Hello OCRA and Tabletop community, In this blog post I want to share our console power supply for the OCRA Tabletop MRI System. The console is driven by a Mean Well RT-50C switching mode power supply with a universal 110/230V AC input and +15V, -15 and +5V DC outputs. To connect the power supply to…
Gradient Coils for the OCRA Tabletop MRI System
Hello OCRA and Tabletop community, In this blog post I want to share our gradient coil design for the OCRA Tabletop MRI System. Gradients fields are necessary to encode spatial information to the spin signal. As the origin of the spin signal is the homogeneous magnetic field (B0) it is possible to variate this field…
Relax2.0, a graphical user interface for OCRA
Hello OCRA and Tabletop community, In this blog post, I will share the news about the first GitHub publication of my Relax2.0 graphical user interface (GUI) for OCRA. Relax2.0 is based on the original OCRA server for the Red Pitaya by Thomas Witzel and the PyQt GUI Relax by David Schote. Relax2.0 can be downloaded…
Transmit-Receive Switch for the OCRA Tabletop MRI system
Hello OCRA and Tabletop Community, In this blog I will share my Transmit-Receive (TR) switch design for our OCRA Tabletop MRI system. As it’s a general design, it also can be used for small RF-power applications in other MRI systems. The TR-switch is used to connect the RF-coil (antenna) to the RF Power-Amplifier (RFPA) in…
The OCRA Project in Magdeburg, Germany
Hello OCRA Community! My name is Marcus Prier and I’m working at the Research Campus STIMULATE of the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany). I’m a physicist and specialized in MRI RF electronics development. A few years ago, I had a short-term scholar at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center in Boston supervised by Larry Wald in Boston where I…