Stage issues with Leginon and Talos
Added by Adam Wier over 6 years ago
Greetings,
Recently I have been running into issues with stage motion in Leginon. After collecting an atlas, Leginon intermittently throws the following error when moving to a new square: Move failed: unable to set instrument. When this occurs, I can try and manually move the stage with the stage through the microscope control panel. Eventually after a few failed attempts I can get the stage to move and it works for a while before failing in a similar fashion.
Has anyone seen anything like this? I am unsure if the error is due to a communication error between Leginon and the microscope or if it is due to some problem from the microscope (throughout all of this the microscope never throws an error, even when the stage stutters and fails to move properely).
Thanks for any insight in the matter.
Adam Wier
| Movefail.jpg (4.26 MB) Movefail.jpg |
Replies (3)
RE: Stage issues with Leginon and Talos - Added by Anchi Cheng over 6 years ago
What version are you running ? Unable to set instrument is indeed due to a communication error, but it is very unusual that you see no error in TUI when this happens. The types we saw normally involves TEM server problems which would cause manual stage move with track ball also fails.
The description of stage stuttering is a very good observation. It does sounds like there is a stage problem. Leginon has a backlash correction in its movement. It means that it will move 2 um short of the intended x,y direction and then to the final position. The goniometer may have become weaker for some reason that it could not complete the final short move.
If you are at 3.3, you can try setting fei.cfg (In C:\Program Files (x86)\myami) to a different value. Larger value is likely what you want.
XYZ_StAGE_BACKLASH_DELTA = 2e-6
Eventually, it will need a service call on the stage. You can log a few more things that will help your service engineer to fix the problem.
1. Watch TUI stage position display when you see this. See if the number changes differently when it stuffers.
2. Record the positions when this happens.
RE: Stage issues with Leginon and Talos - Added by Adam Wier over 6 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions. We are using Leginon 3.3.
Yesterday an FEI technician came to look at the microscope. After testing a few things, he determined that there was something faulty with the X direction motor on the compustage (which was strange since that motor was replaced last month). With the motor replaced, the stage seems to be working well. So I think that was the issue.
RE: Stage issues with Leginon and Talos - Added by Anchi Cheng over 6 years ago
Glad that it is resolved. Thanks for the follow up.