I referenced your thread a lot as the ~$200k total for everything you got was quite jaw-dropping! Do you mainly do fixed imaging where the atypical lines of the cheapest LDI doesn’t matter as much? Switching 470 to 488 and 555 to 577 would have added a fair amount to the price, and the main intended use case will be fast live cell imaging of weakly expressing FPs.
I do mostly live cell, 2 camera imaging. My signal is always decent so I’m wasn’t too worried about the LDI being off peak excitation.
One additional consideration in our case are FRAP capabilities–as I understand it, those units need single-mode fibers, so buying extra lasers can get quite expensive, especially if 561 is among the list. Depending on who’s sourcing the lasers (and how many you need), utilizing a galvo switcher is possible and might close the cost difference gap between the X1 and V3.
If you just need a simple FRAP setup, I know the Rapp AiWon and the UGA-42 Geo both work with the LDI.