Alp Ünlü
Reviving a Laser Microfabrication Station: Moving to a new motion controller
The stages of our laser microfabrication station stopped responding. I moved it to a new controller and brought it back to life.
Our lab's laser microfabrication station moves the sample under the laser on Newport motorised stages: two linear stages for X and Y, a vertical stage for Z, and a rotary actuator axis (a PR50CC rotation stage) that turns the attenuator setting the laser power. A Newport XPS motion controller drives all four axes and opens and closes the laser shutter.
The motors stopped responding to the controller. I moved the whole system over to a second XPS controller, connected each stage to the driver card it needs, and updated the drivers and configuration until the software could drive the X, Y and Z stages, the rotary axis and the shutter again.
To make the next repair easier, I backed up both controllers and every configuration version, and put together a small kit with check, backup and restore scripts and the known-good configuration.
