Microdiffractometer (MD2-S, MD3, MD3-UP) Motors¶

Micro Difractometers designed by EMBL and commercialised by ARINAX are used to perform crystallography experiments. In bliss their control is separated in two parts: motors and equipment. The configuration below only concerns motors.

MD2-S MD3

Some information about the device: https://www.arinax.com/md2-s-x-ray-microdiffractometer

Supported features¶

Encoder	Shutter	Trajectories
NO	NO	NO

Underlining Control¶

There is a java application, running on windows OS, which provides an API with Commands and Channels. Bliss is interfaced to this API via the Exporter Protocol - TCP/IP sockets communication, using ASCII request and replies.

Example YAML configuration file¶

controller:
  class: MD2
  module: mx.md2
  exporter_address: "widxxmicrodiff:9001"
  axes:
      -
        name: sampx
        root_name: "CentringX"
        steps_per_unit: 1
      -
        name: sampy
        root_name: "CentringY"
        steps_per_unit: 1
      -
        name: phix
        root_name: "AlignmentX"
        steps_per_unit: 1
      -
        name: phiy
        root_name: "AlignmentY"
        steps_per_unit: 1
      -
        name: phiz
        root_name: "AlignmentZ"
        steps_per_unit: 1

Configuration¶

The configuration yml file should provide those parameters:

class: always MD2
exporter_address: should contain hostname:port - the name of the computer where the java application runs and the socket port configured in the application.
axes should map name of each motor object in bliss with root_name defined by the API.

Usually the only parameter that needs to be changed is the exporter_address.