Andor iQ USER GUIDE

Andor iQ USER GUIDE

A3.5 The Prior Motorized XYZ Stage

A3.5.1 Start Up of iQ

At the start up of iQ, the panel below is shown if one of the active auxiliary devices is a Prior motorised stage. The user is requested to identify the home position of the stage. This operation need only be carried out at the start of an iQ session or when the recognised stage position has been lost and the device needs to be reset.

The home position of the stage corresponds to an (X, Y, Z) position of (0, 0, 0). To zero the stage, move the joystick accordingly. In general, driving the joystick to the top left corner of its travel and clicking on the OK button achieves a zero stage position.

If the zero stage position has previously been set, click on the Cancel button to continue.

The Prior pages can be accessed by pressing the Device Setup button on the

Acquisition page of your Andor software and clicking on the Optiscan tab. These display the current settings of any active devices and also enable the stage to be zeroed without the necessity of exiting the iQ software and starting the session again.

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Andor iQ USER GUIDE

A3.5.2 Optiscan Tab

A3.5.2.1 XY Stage

Clicking on the XY Stage tab displays the panel shown on the left and enables the Device

Resolution to be specified for the

X and Y axes.

At the bottom of the panel, the current (X, Y, Z) position of the stage is displayed. For the example shown, the (X, Y, Z) stage coordinates are -8251, -3199 and

0, respectively

To allow the stage position to be adjusted manually using a joystick; the Enable Joystick checkbox should be ticked.

Commands being written to and received from the COM Port of the PC are also displayed at the bottom of the dialogue. Communication may be monitored by observing the status of the respective Transmit and Receive messages.

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Andor iQ USER GUIDE

A3.5.2.2 Z

Clicking on the Z tab displays the panel shown on the left.

This allows the resolution of the Z motor to be specified.

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Andor iQ USER GUIDE

A3.5.2.3 Settings

The Settings page is used to configure the Prior stage.

For the example shown, the current devices in use are an XY stage and a Z motor. The appropriate checkboxes Stage and Z motor have been ticked for each device together with the checkbox

Reconnect At Start. This ensures

that the devices are recognised at the start of the next iQ session.

The stage is controlled through one of the serial ports on your computer. From the

Control Port dropdown list select the port that is being used for the control of the

stage. Similarly, the Controller Type should be specified. For the example above, a ProScan controller is being used.

To save the current settings to file press the Save button. This will open a standard

Windows save file dialogue, from which you can specify the filename, drive and directory in which to save the current settings. The settings can be reloaded at a future date by pressing the Load button.

The Zero All Axes command is used to reset the stage as described previously in

Section A3.5.1 above.

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