Installation:

Open, Compile and upload the sketch to the arduino using the arduino ide (https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software)


All Commands:
"S" - start aquisition
"Z" - Stop aquisition
"R" - reset arduino to original settings
"M0" - Set arduino to basic slave mode
"M1" - Set arduino to master Mode
"N[Loops] [Steps 1] [Repeats 1] [Loop time 1] [Steps 2] [Repeats 2] [Loop time 2]..." - set number of loops and details
"A[Loop No.] [Laser Seq] [Pause time]" - Add step details to loop


Basic Usage:

Controlling Laser sequences is done with four steps:


(1) The mode is switched from the basic mode to master mode using the command "M1".


(2) The details of loops are input using the command "N[Loops] [Steps 1] [Repeats 1] [Loop time 1]

[Steps 2] [Repeats 2] [Loop time 2]...", where [Loops] is the total number of loops, [Steps 1] is the

number of steps in the first loop, [Repeats 1] is the number of times the first loop is repeated, [Loop

time 1] is the total loop time for the first loop time. This order is continued for the details of all loops. To

simplify the setup of Nicolase, the total time taken for each loop is input which then calculates the

pause time of the final step in the loop for the user.


(3) The details of each step are added sequentially using the command "A[Loop No.] [Laser Seq] [Pause

time]" where [Loop No.] is the loop which the step belongs to, [Laser Seq] is the is a string of 1's and 0's

corresponding to whether a laser should be on (1) or off (0) during the acquisition for that step (for

example, 101010 would activate every second laser).[Pause time] is the time to pause before running

the next step. Pause times are measured between the start of each step. As such, all pause times must

be greater than the sum of the exposure time and dead time of the camera (~65 ms for the Andor iXon

Ultra 888 used in development).


(4) Start the acquisition using the command "S".