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Motor Housing for Multiple Individual Driver Boards

I guess currently for the motorized version of the microscope, one of the hardest parts to source is a populated Sangaboard. Of course it makes totally sense to integrate the darlington arrays, connectors and Atmega onto a single board. However, currently it's way more practical to just use the provided ULN2003 driver boards shipped with the ULN-28BYJ-48 stepper motors and an Arduino Nano and wire everything up with Dupont cables. At least it's easy to source.

It would be great if we could have a version of the motor driver housing for all four boards and wires. With mounting holes for all four boards and openings for external connectors. For my first openflexure I tried to do this and everything fits just fine. But I would still improve some details.

housing_board_layout

I didn't have Dupont cables at optimal length, so the cabling more messy than it has to be:

housing_wiring

The cables and extra connectors require a little bit more space and so I increased the height of the case. Probably a little bit more than necessary.

housing_side_view housing_full_scope

For a better version I would improve the following things:

  • Better placement and sizing of the case openings.
  • Resize the mounting holes for the Arduino Nano. Don't know the optimal size.
  • Some mounting points for zip-typing external USB cables and internal cabling.