Optical Table / Breadboard Bases for Cage System Plates

Overview
Cage Overview
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CP08 30 mm Cage Plate Mounted on a CPB1 30 mm Mounting Base

These bases allow 30 mm and 60 mm cage plates to be directly mounted to an optical table or optical breadboard surface via two 1/4" (M6) slots on 1" (25 mm) centers. Each base has a lip in order to prevent the rotation of the cage plate when subjected to a torque. The image to the right shows an CP08 cage plate mounted on a CPB1 base.

Options

System Size of Compatible Cage Plates^a	Item #	Description	Optical Axis Height
30 mm	CPB1	Cage Plate Base for 30 mm Cage Plates	1.15" (29.2 mm)
60 mm	LCPB1	Cage Plate Base for 60 mm Cage Plates	1.75" (44.5 mm)

Compatible cage plates are square and have an 8-32 (M4) tapped hole on the edge for our or 30 mm and 60 mm cage plates.

Cage System Overview

The Cage Assembly System provides a convenient way to construct large optomechanical systems with an established line of precision-machined building blocks designed for high flexibility and accurate alignment.

16 mm, 30 mm, and 60 mm Cage System Standards

Thorlabs offers three standards defined by the center-to-center spacing of the cage assembly rods (see image below). The 16 mm cage, 30 mm cage, and 60 mm cage standards are designed to accomodate Ø1/2", Ø1", and Ø2" optics, respectively. Specialized cage plates that allow smaller optics to be directly inserted into our larger cage systems are also available.

Standard Threads

The flexibility of our Cage Assembly System stems from well-defined mounting and thread standards designed to directly interface with a wide range of specialized products. The three most prevalent thread standards are our SM05 Series (0.535"-40 thread), SM1 Series (1.035"-40 thread), and SM2 Series (2.035"-40 thread), all of which were defined to house the industry's most common optic sizes. Essential building blocks, such as our popular lens tubes, directly interface to these standards.

An example of the standard cage plate measurements determining cage system compatibility.

Standard Cage System Measurements
Cage System	16 mm	30 mm	60 mm
Thread Series	SM05	SM1	SM2
Rod to Rod Spacing	16 mm (0.63")	30 mm (1.18")	60 mm (2.36")
Total Length	25 mm (0.98")	41 mm (1.60")	71.1 mm (2.8")

Cage Components
Cage Rods	16 mm	These rods are used to connect cage plates, optic mounts, and other components in the cage system. The SR Series Cage Rods are compatible with our 16 mm cage systems, while the 30 mm and 60 mm cage systems use ER Series Cage Rods.
	30 mm
	60 mm
Cage Plates	16 mm	These serve as the basic building blocks for a cage system. They may have SM-threaded central bores, smooth bores sized for industry standard optics or to accommodate the outer profile of our SM Series Lens Tubes, or specialized bores for other components such as our FiberPorts.
	30 mm
	60 mm
Optic Mounts	16 mm	Thorlabs offers fixed, kinematic, rotation, and translation mounts specifically designed for our Cage Systems.
	30 mm
	60 mm
Cage Cubes	16 mm	These cubes are useful for housing larger optical components, such as prisms or mirrors, or optics that need to sit at an angle to the beam path, such as beamsplitters. Our cage cubes are available empty or with pre-mounted optics.
	30 mm
	60 mm
Post and Breadboard Mounts and Adapters		Mounting options for cage systems can be found on our Cage System Construction pages. Cage Systems can be mounted either parallel or perpendicular to the table surface.
Size Adapters		Cage System Size Adapters can be used to integrate components from different cage system and threading standards.
Specialized Components		Thorlabs also produces specialized cage components, such as Filter Wheels, a HeNe Laser Mount, and a FiberPort Cage Plate Adapter, allowing a wide range of our products to be integrated into cage-mounted optical systems. Explore our Cage Systems Visual Navigation Guide to see the full range of Thorlabs' cage components.

Posted Comments:

Hao Zhang (posted 2019-10-01 12:55:23.857)

I bought this product for mount LCP01T/M and LCFH2/M, but when I got this, I found it cannot mount on LCP01T/M and LCFH2/M. The little stage prevents the mounting. It seems it only design for pieces with a certain thickness such as LCP01. Could you provide the horizontal Mounting Base for LCP01T/M and LCFH2/M. Thanks

YLohia (posted 2019-10-02 10:14:35.0)

Hello, thank you for contacting Thorlabs. The back support lip on the CPB1 and LCPB1 is meant for alignment of the back surface of the cage plate to the line of holes on your breadboard/table. If the presence of the lip is not essential to your application, you could use the M4 counterbored holes on the UBP2/M to mount your LCP01T/M and LCFH2/M.

ivan.skachko (posted 2017-12-20 19:36:54.187)

If, while using LCPB1/M to mount 60mm cage plate on a breadboard, I also need to support cage rods (let's say they are long), which height spacer(s) should I use between the cage rods and the breadboard? Thanks Ivan

tfrisch (posted 2018-01-04 02:17:11.0)

Hello, thank you for contacting Thorlabs. The height between the table and center of the cage rods would be 14.5mm. The easiest way to support all the cage rods at once would be to use a second unit of LCPB1/M with another cage plate. However, if you just wanted to slide a block under the cage rods, it would need to be 11.5mm thick to support the bottom two rods. I will reach out to you directly about alternatives to support the rods.

mazlin.slava (posted 2017-12-12 21:08:13.797)

We would appreciate, if there would be one more item like CPB1/M, but with more common 50 mm distance between the M6 counterbores instead of 75 mm. 75 mm is too bulky to fit on many manual stages.

nbayconich (posted 2017-12-15 04:03:11.0)

Thank you for your feedback. We are happy to here suggestions from our customers on how to improve our variety of products. I will contact you directly to discuss our custom capabilities.

jlow (posted 2012-08-01 17:02:00.0)

Response from Jeremy at Thorlabs: Thank you for your feedback. I have put this into our internal forum and we will look into the possibility of adding this.

aoki (posted 2012-08-01 12:59:53.0)

I would appreciate it if you would release the cage plate base like CPB1 with an optics hight of 1.5" or 2". It would be easier to use the cage system with other optical components such as KM100.

Thorlabs (posted 2010-09-13 11:37:03.0)

Response from Javier at Thorlabs to yuj210: the KC1-T kinematic mount is not compatible with the CLCPB1 base; the reason is due to the slightly larger thickness of the back plate of the KC1-T, as you mentioned. As an alternative, I would suggest using one of our 1" post assemblies, the part number is RS05P8E (http://www.thorlabs.com/NewGroupPage9.cfm?ObjectGroup_ID=851). This will raise the optical axis height of the KC1-T to 1.65". You could use an extra washer to adapt the height to 1.75".

yuj210 (posted 2010-09-12 12:07:14.0)

Is CLCPB1 able to mount KC1-T? I found there is small overlapping area when I assembled virtually in solidworks. It looks the real plate of KC1-T is too thick to mounted on CLCPB1. I wonder it apears just in virtual world. Thanks.

technicalmarketing (posted 2008-02-26 16:35:05.0)

Thank you for noticing the inconsistency between our metric and imperial dimensions on the pdf drawing. We have updated the file to show the appropriate information and apologize for any confusion.

ghegenbart (posted 2008-02-18 10:49:05.0)

There is a mistake in the drawings of LCP3 and LCP3/M. The size is 2.80" which is about 71 mm. However, the metric dimension is given to be 64 mm.

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Optical Table / Breadboard Bases for Cage System Plates

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Cage System Overview

16 mm, 30 mm, and 60 mm Cage System Standards

Standard Threads