Developer 0x23 has published an open source motorized XYZ micro-manipulator on GitHub, built for optical alignment, probing electronic components, and microscopy. It uses a parallel kinematic structure with miniature ball joints for stiffness and a large range of motion.

The motors are off the shelf steppers run by a 30 kHz closed loop controller. A magnetic gearing trick multiplies the resolution of low-cost magnetic rotary encoders by 30, giving steps down to 50 nm. The project page is clear that resolution is not accuracy, and absolute accuracy is significantly worse.

Control is by G-Code over USB serial, so the stage drops into other projects without much work. The firmware is C++ with look-ahead path planning and 6DOF pose interpolation. A Python API and a GUI with live camera feed are provided. CAD is in FreeCAD, electronics in KiCAD, and the board uses only through hole modules, so no SMD soldering is needed.…