Scan Function and Stage Motion Questions

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Hi all, I’ve been trying to better understand the scan function and have come across a few issues that I could use some help with.

  1. What is a normal number of step motion with a properly centered stage? Plus/minus 30,000 - 40,000 steps seems to be approximately the answer?

  2. It appears the position of the stage isn’t updated during the scan. During a scan the navigate tab always shows the stage position as the start position (e.g. 0,0,0) even though it is moving around scanning. I don’t obviously understand the software so perhaps a silly question but is there a way it can be updated so you can have some idea where you are on the slide and if you are approaching some limit but more importantly, if you cancel the scan at some point the stage doesn’t travel ‘home’ as it does when a scan automatically finishes. Therefore you are now in an unknown stage position as the navigate stage tab position is no longer in sync with the stage.

  3. Autofocus doesn’t update the z motor potion, this means when using the ‘move to’ function you will lose focus as the z motor will move to the z position which is usually a long way from being in focus. I don’t imagine many people would use the move to on the z axis so perhaps that could be split from the x and y option. As in two separate move to boxes, one for x and y and one for z. Just a thought!

Thanks.

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2 and 3 are the same underlying thing that also came up in another thread. The webapp does not poll the microscope position, it requests an update when it thinks that it needs to, which is only on a move commanded by the cursor keys for x-y or page up/down for focus. Sometimes it will update the position before the move is finished. The Sangaboard always knows where it is in steps since the last time you reset the zero. Currently to update the displayed position, the simplest thing is to do a small x or y move forwards then back to where you were, using the cursor keys.

2 if a scan stops and the position has not updated, you can get back to the start by pressing `move’ as that will go to the position displayed, which you say is the start position. Alternatively you can do the forward-back x or y move which will update the display with where you currently are.

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Thankyou, I had no idea I could force it to re-poll by just commanding a movement. This is very helpful.