Contents of this document:
Features
Windows
How to start pyPL
How to shut down pyPL
Joystick explainer
Position and marker log details
Image navigation
Known issues


Features:
Control stepper-motors for stage coarse positioning
Control piezos for fine positioning of objective
Joystick control (with support for multiple joysticks)
both piezos and motors
push-button toggle between WinSpec and the camera windows
Position logging, with move-to-click
Position markers, with ability to move back to the markers
Image navigation (load in a low-mag picture, calibrate to some easy-to-find features)
Raster-scanning (in all three dimensions) using either the spectrometer or APDs

Windows (with exception of main window, all can be closed and reopened through the menu):
Main pyPL window
pyPiezos window (mouse & keyboard control over piezos)
Position Log
Image Navigation
pyRaster (for raster scanning using either spectrometer or APDs).

How to start pyPL:
Turn on piezo and motor controllers
Plug in joysticks
Double-click on pyPL.pyw
The first window to pop up will be a reminder to zero/home the motors and piezos
This is only necessary if you have turned off the controllers; once homed/zeroed they stay that way until you turn them off
Homing (This is only for connected motors—the window will display a “front panel” for each card detected in the controller even if there is no motor connected to the card. I have no idea what happens if you try to 'home' a motor when there isn't one... For the current stage setup, we only have X and Y motors connected and not Z.):
On main pyPL window, click the 'Home/Zero' button and wait while the stage moves to the end of its range. When it reaches the end, a switch will be depressed that will automatically stop the stage and reset the position and display to 0. Once that happens, you're good to go.
Zeroing (like homing, but for piezos).
On main pyPL window, click 'zero' for each connected piezo. Wait until done.
I generally move the piezos to the middle of their range (so 10 um; range is 0-20 um).


How to shut down pyPL:
	File menu-->Exit, or just close the main window.


Joystick Explainer:
Here is a list of the joystick buttons and their associated actions. (The buttons actually have a number on them, which is what this is referring to).

Button – Action
trigger – toggles between controlling the motors and piezos
1 – centers the X and Y piezos in their range (so sends them both to 10 um)
2 – n/a
3 – STOP MOTORS IMMEDIATELY. Also, this forces the joystick to control motors.
4 – force joystick to control piezos
5 – 


Position and marker log details:
You can save position and marker log to a file to know where you measured various things.


Image navigation:
Load in an image of your sample, drive to two reference points on the sample (e.g. opposite corners), and then you can click on the image to navigate around the sample.

Known issues:
The motors sometimes lock into a state in which they claim to be moving (i.e. the 'moving' indicator light on the fake “front panel” in the pyPL main window will remain lit up) but are not actually moving. When this happens, the motor gets hot and the only thing for it is to shut off the controller. I don't know why this happens, but I suspect it is joystick related...