Figure 6. Components of the XY-tilting stage. The large box in the center of the image contains the two programmable Vexta controllers for the X- and Y-axes stepping motors. This component can be connected to the PC for controlling of the motors via software. Alternatively, it can be connected to the logic switch-box for manual control of the motors (small blue box to the left side of the image). This second combination is entirely independent from any computer and makes the stage portable. The switch-box allows the user to select between forward/backward and slow/fast movement of the motors. When pressing the red contact switches, motors move by a selected number of steps. The blue box in the background contains the power supply.