Question from a physics undergrad

[bro...@gmail.com]

Hello all,

I am a senior in the physics dept. and, as part of a research requirement, am trying to automate control of a linear actuator. I believe that this should be a fairly simple task, but I have little experience with circuit design and a lot of experience with screwing up simple projects. What I want to do is to replace the pushbutton in photo1 with an equivalent relay. photo2 shows the board which the pushbutton plugs into. It would be fantastic if I could find a relay to simply plug in place of the pushbutton, without destroying anything. 

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or advice!

-Joe

Background

I'm currently working, as part of UIC's condensed matter program, with a Brewster Angle microscopy experiment, investigating the thermal density transitions of a surfactant at buried liquid-liquid interfaces. We are able to generate images like those in the attached TOC.png (whose structures are comprised of just a single atomic monolayer!) in order to provide direct observational evidence for current and proposed analytical theory. 

The problem is that the image-capturing process is tedious. Produced images are actually composites, requiring manual (via remote) adjustments of a precision linear actuator a hundred or so times for focusing shifts. To fix this, I am trying to PC-automate control of the actuator. Due to the potential role of kinetics in our observations, temperature adjustments are ideally made on a carefully regimented schedule, so decreasing the time of imaging is not only more convenient for the observer but also improves the quality of experimentation. Additionally, computer controlled focusing would enable finer adjustments and, therefore, higher quality pictures.