scAnt for DSLR cameras

The following changes were made to the original design to house DSLR cameras, to make construction easier, and to avoid the use of special parts (not yet complete):

• replaced all press fittings with readily available store products
  • increased hole size in laser cut base plate to house M5 screws
  • changed hole design in the gimbal stands to house M5 bolts and M5 hex-nuts at their connection to the base plate.
  • added three more holes in base plate because now the M5 bolts act as feet of the whole scAnt and otherweise the base plate would bend
  • increased hole size in gimbal weight container lid so the can house M3 screws
  • changed hole design in gimbal weight container so it can houe M3 screws and M3 hex-nuts.
• increased length of the endstop holder along the focus stacking rail so that the z-axis endstop can be moved further away from the specimen to prevent crashing of DSLR lenses into the specimen sphere
• increased distance of the new sliding z-axis endstop holding side from the focus rail so that it can move along the endstop holder in case a camer setup is in use that needs to get close to the specimen
• increased the screw slits in the camera stands so longer screws can be used to attach the focus rail to it

The following changes will be implemented in the future

• increase the size of the specimen sphere viewing window to allow a large DSLR lens to take photos and maybe even move into the sphere
• change motor holding part of the big gimbal stand so the NEMA17 motor can be installed with more ease
• add a second indentation in the z-axis endstop holder to allow additional PCB components to sink in

Available DSLR camera mounts:

• Nikon D850
• Nikon D3500
• Nikon D7200 (not tested)
• Canon EOS RT (not tested)

Laser-cut parts can be downloaded from the original design.

Check out the accompanying code at GitHub which does not ask for FLIR camera drivers and skips all FLIR-related checks of the original code does.

A mount for the Raspberry Pi HQ camera model is available here, and code to control it via a Raspberry Pi here.

Update 2024/12/06:

• SVG files are unchanged so I removed them here. Please download them from the original design page. Only the baseplate is left here because it has new hole sizes and locations to house M5 bolts. I lasered it at 379.599 x 254.746 mm.

Update 2024/11/17:

• SVG files should have the right dimensions now.

s. above.