Thorlabs FilterWheel

From Micro-Manager

[edit] Thorlabs FilterWheel adapter

Summary:	Interface to Thorlabs FilterWheel FW102B and FW212B
Author:	Brian Ashcroft, ashcroft at physics.leidenuniv.nl
License:
Platforms:	Windows (depends on USB to serial port driver)
Available since version:	1.3.38
Default serial port settings:	BaudRate 115.2 k DelayBetweenCharsMs 0 Handshaking Off Parity None StopBits 1

This adapter controls the Thorlabs FilterWheel FW102B and FW212B. A manual can be found here. Note that the filter wheel has a USB connection. The software that comes with the filterwheel will install a driver for USB to serial converter that appears as a serial port in Micro-Manager. If such a driver can be found on Mac or Linux, this adapter will work on those platforms too (please share experiences here).

Problems with carriage return

If you are finding that your filter wheel is not moving it may be due to the carriage return being incorrect. This can be checked using a serial port monitor. It should be "\r" (0D in Hex) not "\n\n" (0A 0A in Hex). If this is the case replace the dll file for the ThorLabs Filter wheel with this one:

http://valelab.ucsf.edu/~MM/mmgr_dal_ThorlabsFilterWheel.dll