As promised I have started slowly on the USALS project for my Birdview. I have been a bit slow going since its been a busy spring around our household. What I want to do it use the control board in one of the Ku dish movers to control a second high current relay board that will run the H-H motor in my Birdview dish, thus enabling me to use USALS on my big dish and not having to search for a satellite and program a V or G box.
Here is what I have accomplished so far:
1) I have correlated the feedback pulses that a small USALS Ku dish mover sees to the feedback on the Birdview. How I did this was moving the small Ku motor rotational degrees, I had connected my Fluke data logger to the Hall Effect sensor and would have the mover rotate various degrees and take measurement. I then calculated how many pulses I would see per rotational degree. Then I did the same with my birdview. I borrowed a digital rotational arc meter from work and performed the same task… measuring pulses.
2) Now calculating the difference between the small Ku mover and the Birdview dish, for my application I would need an encoder that delivers 95 pulses per revolution. Now I don’t have an encoder that does 95 pulses/rev however I do have one that does 96 pulses/rev so I figure that will have to do for now. Now I decided to actually pick two satellites and move both movers, move between the satellites, and count the pulses on both dishes and run the numbers backwards just to verify if I did the math right, and it checked out.
This is as far as I have gotten, so this is what my plan of attack is next:
Thanks to stogie5150 he sent me a couple extra boards that he had so I don’t have to totally trash the new Ku USALS small dish mover I bought for this experiment! Now I need to build a High current 36 volt relay board that will control the motor on the birdview and be controlled by the USALS dish mover board. What my plan to do is connect my 96 pulse/rev rotary encoder to the USALS mover where the hall effect sensor connected. This will be the feedback from the dish to the mover. Next I will connect where the USALS mover board drove the little DC motor to my high current board. Since the motor is a small DC motor and the polarity would change to send the motor to run CW or CCW, on the board I will have two diodes that will connect to one lead of where the motor would connect. One diode will have it’s polarity in one direction, the other in the opposite. Each diode will then connect to its own high current relay’s coil, the relay will then connect back to the other “motor” lead on the USALS board. What this will do is if the polarity is in one direction that intended the motor to drive a certain direction, only one relay will fire, the other diode will not let voltage to pass to the other relay, then the polarity is reversed, which originally would make the USALS motor drive the opposite direction, the other relay will fire, and the first relay will not fire due to the diode not letting voltage pass. I have a 40 volt power supply that I will connect to the high current relays that will run the motor in the birdview dish. The other thing I need to do is install a micro-switch on my birdview that will close when the dish is facing due south (the USALS 0 point). This I believe is the 0 reference point so the USALS controller “knows where its at” So that is going to take some engineering and some fab.
I have not gotten any further, it seems my yard needs mowed about every 3 days, garden needs weeded and spring outdoor activities have taken a front seat! As soon as the weather cools off (it was 97 here yesterday and humid) and my spring yard work slows down I am going to get back on this project. I will post when I make headway.
Here is what I have accomplished so far:
1) I have correlated the feedback pulses that a small USALS Ku dish mover sees to the feedback on the Birdview. How I did this was moving the small Ku motor rotational degrees, I had connected my Fluke data logger to the Hall Effect sensor and would have the mover rotate various degrees and take measurement. I then calculated how many pulses I would see per rotational degree. Then I did the same with my birdview. I borrowed a digital rotational arc meter from work and performed the same task… measuring pulses.
2) Now calculating the difference between the small Ku mover and the Birdview dish, for my application I would need an encoder that delivers 95 pulses per revolution. Now I don’t have an encoder that does 95 pulses/rev however I do have one that does 96 pulses/rev so I figure that will have to do for now. Now I decided to actually pick two satellites and move both movers, move between the satellites, and count the pulses on both dishes and run the numbers backwards just to verify if I did the math right, and it checked out.
This is as far as I have gotten, so this is what my plan of attack is next:
Thanks to stogie5150 he sent me a couple extra boards that he had so I don’t have to totally trash the new Ku USALS small dish mover I bought for this experiment! Now I need to build a High current 36 volt relay board that will control the motor on the birdview and be controlled by the USALS dish mover board. What my plan to do is connect my 96 pulse/rev rotary encoder to the USALS mover where the hall effect sensor connected. This will be the feedback from the dish to the mover. Next I will connect where the USALS mover board drove the little DC motor to my high current board. Since the motor is a small DC motor and the polarity would change to send the motor to run CW or CCW, on the board I will have two diodes that will connect to one lead of where the motor would connect. One diode will have it’s polarity in one direction, the other in the opposite. Each diode will then connect to its own high current relay’s coil, the relay will then connect back to the other “motor” lead on the USALS board. What this will do is if the polarity is in one direction that intended the motor to drive a certain direction, only one relay will fire, the other diode will not let voltage to pass to the other relay, then the polarity is reversed, which originally would make the USALS motor drive the opposite direction, the other relay will fire, and the first relay will not fire due to the diode not letting voltage pass. I have a 40 volt power supply that I will connect to the high current relays that will run the motor in the birdview dish. The other thing I need to do is install a micro-switch on my birdview that will close when the dish is facing due south (the USALS 0 point). This I believe is the 0 reference point so the USALS controller “knows where its at” So that is going to take some engineering and some fab.
I have not gotten any further, it seems my yard needs mowed about every 3 days, garden needs weeded and spring outdoor activities have taken a front seat! As soon as the weather cools off (it was 97 here yesterday and humid) and my spring yard work slows down I am going to get back on this project. I will post when I make headway.
