LBL/ALS-Type Sample Changer Development and Implementation at SER-CAT (Sector 22, APS)

John Gonczy, John Chrzas & James Fait (presented by Gerd Rosenbaum) Southeast Regional CAT at the APS, University of Georgia, Dept. of Biochemistry

SER-CAT chose to adopt the LBL/ALS sample changer as the basis for its own development because it would allow for creative control of future adaptation to their beamlines. The openness of all information about the robot, support by LBL/ALS staff and the projected price of the final product made this a preferable choice over a commercial product. While building the sample changer, we designed a new Dewar with much reduced heat loss and less icing, improved the registration between Dewar rotation, puck plate and gripper. We also added lockable precision adjustments of the Dewar translation slide, the gripper slide height and angle and the whole instrument relative to the beam. The most recent development was the integration of the robot control with the beamline control.