Moving Motors

All cryo STXM stepper motors are controlled by the MM3000 which is the Newport Motion Master. It drives the x, y and z motor. This controller allows changing the numerical value of absolute motor positions, therefore there are no fixed limit values. When a motor hits its limit switch, it will beep and display that on the MM3000 front panel. In addition, the motors can be moved with buttons on the front panel.

To position the sample with the stepper motors using the sm software:

1. Start the sm program.
2. From menu select Motor $\longrightarrow$ Move Stepper Motor. The motors are called XSTG, YSTG and ZSTG.
3. The pup-up window lets you move the motors either to absolute positions in $\mu$m (Move to), by a relative distance in $\mu$m (Move by), or they can be stepped by fixed amounts of $\pm$ 1 - 500 $\mu$m.
4. After a scan, you may click on a point on the image and select Move motor to mouse on the main window.

Note: You cannot move any motor by more than 500 $\mu$m at a time, due to a software restriction. This is to avoid catastrophes due to motor position typos.