Reverse Engineering Photos

Hamamatsu Detector


The detector's power requirements matched easily with the Aramis Labram's main power supply. The control signals matched well to the Chipkit uC32 microcontroller. A computer power supply was used to drive the TEC (thermoelectric) cooling with enough amps at 5 volts. The computer power supply was not initially checked for noise in the CCD output.

Microscope Head


The microscope head contains motorized optical elements (polarizers, beam splitters, mirrors). The interface circuit board to the microscope head was reverse-engineered by holding it up to a bright light and mapping out all the traces.

Minicomputer


The Horiba Aramis Labram Raman Microscope had a little proprietary computer inside. It was replaced by an XP computer and the Arduino and Chipkit microcontrollers.

Oriental Controller and Linear Stage


The "Oriental" brand motor controller and the linear stage that rotates the diffraction grating turret. The Arduino Mega sends commands to the Oriental motor controller which moves the linear stage, and the motorized slit, and the motorized pinhole.

Spectrometer's Motorized Entrance Slit


The motorized slit has a electric shutter mounted on the back side. Ideally, this shutter should be closed at all times except during a CCD exposure. The slit sizes are not currently calibrated but that should be done at some point. The slit geometry should match the CCD pixel's.

Motorized Objective Turret


The motorized objective turret's connections have been mapped out but it will not be used. This turret does not have individually adjustable objective seats allowing precise alignment of each objective. Instead a U-P4RE turret will be used later.

Neutral Density Filter Wheel and Laser Selection Sled


The neutral density filter wheel does not have an encoding wheel. It only has a optointerrupter signalling a "home" position. So its positions must be mapped out in terms of stepper motor steps.
On the other end of the assembly is a sled driven by another stepper motor. The sled contains mirrors to deflect the beam from various selectable laser sources into the ND filter wheel.