What happened
The lab's Cary 5000 (UV/VIS) has stopped working. has failed after roughly 20 years. For this, we carefullly disassembled it to traced the problem to the diffraction grating: The glue holding the mirror had failed, and the grating had simply fallen off. Replacing the entire instrument wasn't an option. So we decided to build something to mount the grating, while allowing for all the fine tuning and gentle movements required for assembly.
The mount design inside the instrument.
A kinematic mount, using readily available components
I designed a custom kinematic holder for the grating with fine tilt and rotation adjustments so the alignment can be recovered after install. The fit had to be exact: the assembly shares a tight volume with delicate optics.
Isometric views of the kinematic grating mount.
