beam and to increase the angular resolution of the instrument. Since this is an intensity compromise, two items of 5' and 10', respectively, can be interchanged or fully removed by an automated mechanism. The collimators cover the full size of the beam delivered by the neutron guide. Monochromator The monochromator is made by slabs of [115] oriented Germanium crystals which are inclined towards each other in order to focus down the Bragg reflected beam. The device has been acquired from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the US after the shutdown of their neutron facility. Secondary collimator Optionally a secondary collimator with 10' angular acceptance and can be placed in the monochromatic beam between the monochromator and the sample, which again influences the resolution function of the instrument. Slit system Two automated sets of horizontal and vertical pairs of absorbing plates allow to cut down the size of the monochromatic beam prior to the secondary collimator and sample size. They remove unwanted neutrons and reduce the background near the detector. In addition, they allow selection of the sample position to be studied. Beam monitor A 235U fission monitor measures the amount of neutrons incident to the sample. The efficiency is 10−4 and most neutrons traverse the device undisturbed. The monitor counts are important to correct for beam flux variations due to changes in the reactor or at the upstream instrument. Sample stage The sample is supported by a heavy load goniometer consisting of a 360° vertical omega rotation axis, x-y translation tables and a chi-phi cross tilt stage of ±20° range. It can hold a few hundred kilograms in order to support heavier sample environments, such as cryostats, furnaces, magnets, load frames, reaction chambers and others. A typical powder sample is filled into vanadium cans which give little unstructured background. The mentioned sample environment allows measurement of changes in the sample as a function of external parameters, like temperature, pressure, magnetic field, etc. The goniometer stage is redundant for most powder diffraction measurements, but will be important for single crystal and texture measurements, where the orientation of the sample plays a role. Detector collimators A set of 128 detectors each equipped which a 5' collimator in front are arranged in a 160° sector focusing to the sample. The collimators select the scattered radiation into the well defined ranges of 128 angular positions. The whole collimator and detector setup is mounted on