Category: device automation
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The CNC Machine is done!
So after 6 months of watching the guys at mydiycnc complete their manual, and roughly 4 months of building, I’m happy to post that I’ve finished the machine. I’ve written an extensive post on the last few days of building, on the build log here. I couldn’t have completed this project without the major…
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Lumencor Sola Driver for NIS Elements
Yesterday we received our first shipment of Sola white light LED driven sources for microscopy. I had a chance to snag one and write a driver for it. Price is $300 USD. The driver controls both the shuttering and ND on the box, and integrates easily into Elements as a shutter and ND filter wheel.…
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How to Align a Dualview 2
Walking through the alignment procedure of the DV 2, narrated by Jeff Harris from Photometrics . Great video and great explanation Jeff! For those of you who have a DualView, I’m certain this video will come in handy. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJC5_DdaH80
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Acquisition crashes, and power settings in Win7
Windows 7 has a new power management interface, and the design of modern motherboards, along with win7 Automatic Power Management (APM), can cause some insidious device-based software crashes if power options aren’t set correctly. Here’s how to make sure your system is running in the best mode. Open the Windows Control panel Search for and…
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Voltage output from NIS Elements, MetaMorph or uManager for under $200
I posted briefly about this a while back, in my explanation of the demise of the parallel port. I finally got my hands on a National Instruments USB-6008 box, and have found the unit to be 100% compatible with any NI-DAQ controlling application. What follows is an example of how to set this up using…
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ASI MS-2000 Flat Top Stage
Apparently ASI has had a flat top variant of it’s MS-2000 stage available for a while now. News to me! If it’s anything like the current stages they sell I’m sure it’ll be a frequently recommended product from me. – Austin
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Nikon DS U3 Series Controller Install Guide
The new Nikon controllers for DS Series Cameras run on Firewire. As with other firewire adapted imaging cameras, there are numerous small issues to awtch out for during the setup and operation process. Once they are up and running, they should be fine – but for those of you who perform installations, you’ll probably find…
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Photometrics LVDS cards on Win7
I recently slogged through a tough install with a customer (Thanks Sean!!) in an attempt to run an older Photometrics camera using a PCI card in windows 7/xp. What we found was that the latest driver, (as of this post v. 2,7,10) is not working with PVDS cards! The solution for now is to roll…
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*UPDATED* Micro-Manager Tethered to a Nikon Digital SLR
***UPDATE 3/3/2014*** After a few requests for a report on x64 capability using this tethering technique, I tried installing the NK Remote software on a rather fresh copy of Windows 7×64 – it did not communicate with the camera at all. On the other hand, the open source application “DigiCamControl“, worked perfectly. Now, as far…
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Parallel ports wont work in 64bit windows!
After speaking with several software vendors I’ve learned that win 7 64 bit will not operate a parallel port with any device automation software. So gone is the ttl access needed for so many of our devices! Fortunately there are low cost alternatives. The guys at metamorph recommended this national instruments io controller, which sells…