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How to use Shutter box Control Application from TVIPS

Background

• Tietz shutterbox has separate beam blank and camera shutter controls
• This allows beam to expose sample without hitting camera
• After a set pre-expose time, camera shutter is opened and image is taken
• Taking exposures in this way may reduce drift caused by beam-induced specimen movement
• This should only be used on stained samples
• However, these controls are NOT compatible with Tecnai Low dose software, and inappropriate settings can cause confusion

Instructions

Setup

• Tecnai low-dose software messes with Tietz beam-blanking box, so you need to make sure the following boxes are open:
  • Shutter Coil External Driver
  • Shutter Coil Driver
  • CCDBlank Enable
  • The control panes for these are found by running Feispy.exe, then looking under HalDriverManager
  • Do no click "OK", since this will cause the control to disappear

Setup for Tecnai Low Dose

• If using Tecnai Low Dose mode, settings are as follows:

  Shutter Coil External Driver	OFF
  Shutter Coil Driver	OFF
  CCDBlank Enable	ON

• When you start Tecnai Low dose, CCD Blank Enable will probably disable itself. Re-enable

• Do not try pre-exposures when running Tecnai low-dose software, as switching between search-focus-expose changes the above boxes

Setup for ability to pre-expose images

• Be sure that Tecnai Low Dose software is not running!

  Shutter Coil External Driver	ON
  Shutter Coil Driver	ON
  CCDBlank Enable	ON

* Note: If you run low-dose with these settings, Shutter Coil External Driver will turn off, and blank the beam (post-specimen)

Manually controlling Shutter

• Manual Control of shutter is done using shutterboxcontrol.exe application, on the desktop
• Set pre-expose value to desired time, and check the pre-expose box in the application
• The EMMenu3 application is unaware of the pre-exposing setting of the shutter, so you must set the total time to pre-expose time + expose time
  • Example: for a 1 sec pre-exposure and a 1 second exposure, set the EMMenu exposure time to 2 seconds
• To test if shutter is actually working, make sure that varying pre-exposure time does not significantly alter total dose in image

• Be sure to uncheck Preexposure box before closing shutter box application

Using SerialEM

• SerialEM is aware of the ability to pre-expose, and calls this beam settling
• You should not run the shutterboxbontrol.exe software when running SerialEM
• In the camera setup- you separately put in the exposure time and settling time
• The following setup is for a 1 second exposure and a 1 second pre-exposure

• SerialEM will leave any pre-exposure time running after you quit it,
• therefore, After you finish your SerialEM session, manually run the shutterboxcontrol.exe application and ensure that pre-exposure time is disabled