New illumination dovetail
As discussed on the forum the illumination mount needs some improvement. Problems with the status quo are:
- The illumination is easy to misalign if knocked
- The plastic dovetail loosens over time and the condenser slides down into the sample
- The condenser interferes with the sample clips in the default version of the stage.
- The illumination cable waves around, which is unreliable and ugly
We'd like a solution that:
- Slides up and down, and friction-locks in place for easy adjustment
- Can be locked in place, ideally with one screw, once it's adjusted - ideally with minimal change in position.
- Makes it possible to add in nice cable management
- Self-centres to get as close to "aligned" as possible without too much tweaking
- Separates XY and Z adjustment of the condenser
Additional nice-to-have features include:
- Ability to add/remove sliders from the dovetail at any point in the track (i.e. without sliding them in from the end)
- Minimise breakable parts, and make sure breakable parts are easy to replace
- Make the mechanism reliable enough to use for the optics module as well, in the future
The version of the dovetail in this MR tries to incorporate a bunch of the features that have been suggested on the forum, and I think it ticks most of the boxes. It will need some iteration before it's fully ready, and it's currently unfinished.
Steps that are required:
-
Convert my separate repo to use the libraries and dictionary convention in this repo -
Strengthen the locking flange -
Fix the flexure cut out in the internal bridge (thanks Julian for spotting these) -
Integrate the female dovetail with the illumination post -
Integrate the male dovetail with the condenser
Additional steps that would be nice but aren't required
-
Add in cable management to the illumination post -
Add in cable management to the condenser -
Experiment with XY adjustment options (this may be a separate MR in the future)
Edited by Richard Bowman