These tiny, stepper-driven, XY stages were obviously manufactured for... something? We're not sure what they were made for, but they looked too cool for us to pass up. With a travel of 2.4mm on each axis, this mechanism is great for projects that require precision movement, such as automated microscopy. The assembly is mostly plastic and slides on metal pins. Each axis is pushed by square nut on a threaded shaft with a return spring. There is a photointerrupter on each axis that essentially acts as a homing switch.

Both axes and both photointerrupters are broken out to a single 15-position, 0.3mm pitch flat flex cable. We do sell a breakout board for the mating connector, but you can also solder directly to the motors and ignore the ribbon cable if you want.

• 2.4mm Total Travel in Both Axes
• 0.01mm Linear Resolution
• Stepper Motor Parameters:
  • 5V 100mA
  • 18° Step Angle
• Photointerrupter Parameters
  • 5V 18mA

• Datasheet