Schlieren Photography - Building a Platform, Version 3
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I have been collecting parts and building this for a while now, and it's finally ready to use.
I built myself an x-y stage out of four heavy duty slides, two on top of the other two and rotated 90 degrees. This creates a platform that can move forward, back, left and right freely. Adding a screw to the front/back stage, and a 1" micrometer to the left/rigth stage allows me to position the entire contraption where it is needed with the turn of a dial.
Next I bolted on a nice little stage that lets me adjust the fiber optic light source up/down and left/right as well as adjusting the angle to aim it perfectly.
Finally I used a small slider and small micrometer to be able to move the razor blade or filter back and forth for final fine tuning.
A bar mounts the camera securely, and it can move forward and back as needed, and left to right as well if I turn the camera bar mount.
I wish I had a machine shop. Lots of drilling and thread tapping and cutting went into this, but luckily I had lots of parts to work with. Sometimes being a pack-rat pays off when you need to make something. The rest of the time it just makes you trip over crap all day. :-)
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