Macro setup

[AndrewC]

One of the macro benches I've been building for the last few months, shown here without the camera:



Camera end is a Nikon PB-6 on a linear bearing driven by a stepper motor which I can move in 3.2um increments. Lighting is pretty flexible - in this configuration it is two Nikon SB-R200 flashes with a Cree MC-E modelling light. The lights are held on Loc-line modular pipe.

The subject end is another linear bearing I reworked into a stage. It can step in 0.4um increments and is also adjustable left/right up/down with micrometers:



The whole thing is built on a CNC T-grooved bed plate embedded in a "butcher block" of oak and resting on Sorbothane buffers:



Edit: More info is on a page on my website:

http://www.tirpor.com/macro/macro_benches.htm

[lothman]

One of the macro benches I've been building for the last few months, shown here without the camera:

Well done - hat down. Do you use a software solution for automatic camera movement and frame aquisition, so fully automatic?

Regards
Lothman

[AndrewC]

All controlled out of a PIC 18F microcontroller. I manage the stepper motor rotation, actual position through a shaft encoder, camera mirror and shutter commands and, depending on the lights, the timing, intensity and duration of the lighting systems:

[Eric F]

Wow -- looks to be a fantastic system; excellent craftsmanship too! Looks like your subject is the robber fly (with background behind). The z-step part is a cylindrical piston - type apparatus, with incredibly fine movement? I'm afraid the stepper motor and electronic controls would be way, way beyond my abilities to configure.

Eric

[AndrewC]

Thanks Eric and Lothman - I'm rather pleased with it

Yes - my friendly tail-less robber is on the stage.

The z movement is a Melles-Griot TEZ stage http://www.cvilaser.com/Catalog/Pages/T ... 4&filter=0. They are basically a micrometer pushing a lifting cam driving the cylinder up a precision slide.

I've been collecting the eBay for several months

Andrew

[elf]

What size/brand stepper motors did you use? I was experimenting with some larger unipolar motors and they had quite a bit of vibration when they were in the hold mode. How do you get the .4um increments, is it a single step of the motor?

[AndrewC]

I've not seen any vibration problems, but then I haven't tried anything greater then 5x mag yet. I'll run a stack at 10x later this week. I use unipolar & bipolar motors run at 8x microstepping, they seem to hold at those size microsteps with no problems but when I don't need the less than unity step size I move in multiples of whole steps.

When you say "vibration" can you physically see it or just hear the stepper whining when stationary ? What kind of driver are using ? If a chopper are you giving it enough volts - you can safely run over 4x the rated motor voltage with a chopper driver. I run my 5V coils at 24V.

The 0.4um microstep comes from the miniature slide which has a 0.025" pitch, so it can move whole steps of only 3.2um or ustep at 8x for 0.4um , but so far I haven't had to use it. The big slide is a 0.2" pitch

The vertical stage I'm building right now may well be incarnated with a 30x reduction gear which will deliver 0.33um/step even before I start microstepping.

Andrew

[lothman]

I've been collecting the eBay for several months

Have you seen this (Ebay Item 270317900034), I'm not shure wheter I ever would manage to control that drive, but mechanically it looks excellent.

[AndrewC]

Looks impressive but might be hard to work out how to control, there are a lot of outputs on a single connector - and you can get cheaper if you are patient. Just watch out for slides that are sold with 5 phase stepper motors - they are a pain to get drivers for.

Andrew

[rjlittlefield]

At Andrew's suggestion, I moved this topic over here into Equipment Discussions, from Macro and Micro Technique.

This reply is to bump the topic, so that people notice it's been moved.

--Rik