At 08:03 PM 1/1/2008, Andrew Rich wrote:
I have made a script that asks predict where GO-32 is.
It runs once a second.
It works out if it has to turn off the battery charger and engage the radio.
The script also uses a file to simulate rotator position (till I get the hardware setup).
It makes a diciscion to turn on and off any of 8 relays, hanging off the parrallel port. (Power ON/OFF , Rotator CW/CCW)
I figured I have to have some sort of computer controlling the rotators, so push the process control back to the PC instead of the outboard controller.
In this case, any old A/D would do for the rotator sense.
Hi Andrew,
For what it is worth, you do not even need an A/D, just a cheap digital pot (dual pot for Az/El) and 3 bits on a parallel port. You can use this idea to run any type of motors. It is not fancy or sophisticated, but it is real cheap:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/downloads/iROTOR1.zip
The included source code is for DOS but it would not be hard to make it work under LINUX.
Best of luck with your projects and 73, Tony AA2TX