Control system for the 2nd generation Berkeley AutoMounters (BAM2) at GM/CA CAT macromolecular crystallography beamlines.

GM/CA CAT at Sector 23 of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) is an NIH funded facility for crystallographic structure determination of biological macromolecules by X-ray diffraction.A second generation Berkeley automounter is being integrated into the beamline control system at the 23-BM experimental station. This new device replaces the previous all-pneumatic gripper motions with a combination of pneumatics and XYZ motorized linear stages. The latter adds a higher degree of flexibility to the robot including auto-alignment capability, accommodation of a larger capacity sample Dewar of arbitrary shape, and support for advanced operations such as crystal washing, while preserving the overall simplicity and efficiency of the Berkeley automounter design.