Inside the Main Control Unit
The Main Control Unit consists of three primary components: The power supply, the System Controller and the Motor Controller.
| Component | Description |
| Power supply | Switching power supply. Accepts a wide array of input
voltages and outputs 5v and 12v. The 5v output drives all system logic. The 12v supply feeds the stepper motors |
| System Controller | The System Controller provides most of the system I/O
capabilities. It also contains the main system processor. As indicated in the picture, the programming port is a 10-pin connector that allows field-upgrades of the system software. |
| Motor Controller | The motor controller drives up to six small stepper motors.
In this system, the motors are: objective focus, condenser focus, filter
wheel and neutral-density wheel. Two motor drives are available for future
expansion. Power control: Each motor controller has two small adjustments allowing control of the average power going to each motor. It also provide options for setting the micro-stepping, allowing: full-stepping, half-stepping, quarter-stepping and eighth-stepping (default). The objective controller also takes an input directly from an optical encoder, allowing direct control of the motor from a control knob, providing extremely smooth operation. |
Links:
Cable Details Upgrading the Internal Software ETC Creations Main Page