Rail Carrier Cross-Section

Features

"Snap-On" Rail Carriers Mount Components to Dovetail Rails
Thumbscrew Clamp with Rounded, Stiff Plastic Tip Prevents Marring
Counterbore Adapter Rings Allow Use of #8 (M4) Cap Screws in 1/4" (M6) Counterbores
Spacers Mount Dovetail Rails Back to Back for Vertical Assemblies
Build Compact Single- and Multi-Axis Optomechanical Structures

Rail Carriers
Thorlabs' selection of rail carriers is designed to enable one- and two-dimensional movement of optomechanics mounted to our RLA series of dovetail optical rails. They are precision machined on all surfaces in order to maintain good lateral alignment while being translated along the length of the rail, and can be easily snapped into any existing rail system without requiring access to the rail ends.

These convenient rail carriers are provided in three varieties. The RC1 is a basic, 1" long rail carrier platform that features a 1/4" (M6) counterbore for mounting simple, lightweight optomechanics. The RC2(/M) is 2" long, accommodating larger components, and provides two 8-32 (M4) tapped holes in addition to the 1/4" (M6) counterbore. Finally, the RC3 provides a dovetail perpendicular to that of the RLA rail it is mounted on, allowing an RC1 or RC2 to be attached on top to provide coarse X-Y adjustments.

Both the rails and the carriers are machined from an aircraft-grade aluminum that ensures good dimensional stability during manufacturing.

Counterbore Adapter Ring

Counterbore Adapter Ring
For additional mounting flexibility, the SD1 adapter ring (shown schematically to the right) allows a #8 (M4) cap screw to be used within the 1/4" (M6) counterbore of the rail carriers. This allows small optomechanical components, such as the KMS compact kinematic mount shown at the top of the page, to be directly mounted to a rail carrier.

Spacers
Our spacers provide the additional support needed to create straight, stable vertical structures using our dovetail rails. See below for more details.

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Posted Comments:

Poster: t.j.l.schreurs

Posted Date: 2013-04-03 08:35:39.11

STEP files or at least pdf drawings of all the dovetail rail parts would be very convenient. Could you please provide these? Thanks a lot!

Poster: jlow

Posted Date: 2013-04-03 13:09:00.0

Response from Jeremy at Thorlabs: Thank you for contacting Thorlabs. The PDF drawings and STEP files should be located on this page under the "Documents" tab.

Poster: james.macpherson

Posted Date: 2012-03-09 11:45:29.0

You should include some longer carriers, even if they require two thumbscrews to work properly. I have a tube that I want to mount paralell to the translation axis at about 7" height. A 3 or 4" long carrier with inch spaced mounting holes would be ideal.

Poster: jpalmer

Posted Date: 2011-05-22 10:55:22.0

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Features