Dear Howard and Gould,

Thank you very much for replying to my query, and also please accept my apologies for the delay in replying back as I was tied up with some urgent matters.

I must say that the LVB Tracker website is really great, and the materials (documents, pictures, etc) has helped me a lot when building the tracker. Before asking on the amsat-bb, I was trying to source for a Hitachi LCD but failed to find one. Since the complete kit that came from AMSAT-UK came with a Powertip LCD, I was pleased that this was available on from RS Malaysia. However, since the model number was slightly different and I could not find any mention about the instruction set, I thought it will be safer to ask here.

Thanks to both of you guys for the information about the Ethernet interface too. The circuit seems simple, and when I have finish building the other 2 units, I will try this out. Of course, I would have to obtain the Lantronix interface first. Thanks for the heatsink precaution too. I see that this Ethernet interface will provide me flexibility when experimenting with different software on different machines for satellite work in the future.

A special thanks to Howard for the effort in develop the LVB tracker and make them available for us to use. I must admit that this is a very affordable tracker that works very well. After building the first kit, I was very pleased with its performance that made me build the second one to use on my other rotator.

73, Sion Chow Q. C., 9W2QC.

-----Original Message----- From: Howard Long [mailto:howard@howardlong.com] Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:18 PM To: 9w2qc@9w2qc.net; amsat-bb@amsat.org Cc: 'Gould Smith' Subject: RE: [amsat-bb] Re: LVB Tracker Questions

Hi Sion Chow

Sorry, I only just noticed your post.

Putting my finger in the air, the LCD you suggest should work as it looks like it uses the standard Hitachi parallel interface.

Regarding the Lantronix Ethernet adapter, exactly as Gould suggests, essentially it's simply converting Ethernet to a logic level UART interface just like the FTDI device does. Like the FTDI device you need to install a virtual COM port driver on your PC.

I wrote up some (very) rough notes a few months ago.

It consists of a 3.3V LDO and some resistors to do 5V to 3.3V conversion from the PIC to the Lantronix device. The PIC inputs are compatible with the 3.3V levels provided by the Lantronix: this is why there are two unused TO-92 transistors on the board that I originally thought would be necessary to do the voltage upconversion.

http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker/Ethernet/IMG_0057small.jpg http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker/Ethernet/IMG_0058small.jpg http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker/Ethernet/IMG_0059small.jpg http://www.g6lvb.com/Articles/LVBTracker/Ethernet/IMG_0061small.jpg

The Lantronix takes a lot of juice so you must adequately heatsink the 5V regulator on the main LVB board. I don't think that a simple clip-on heatsink is sufficient if you adhere to the "too hot to touch" rule of thumb. The LDO doesn't need a heatsink.

73, Howard G6LVB

-----Original Message----- From: amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces@amsat.org] On Behalf Of Gould Smith Sent: 25 February 2008 20:33 To: 9w2qc@9w2qc.net; amsat-bb@amsat.org Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: LVB Tracker Questions

Hello Sion Chow,

I have placed information on LCD selection for the LVB Tracker on the LVBTracker.com . These were generated from problems we experienced in selecting LCDs for the complete tracker box.

The ethernet interface has only been tested by building a handmade interface board between the Lantronix part and the 28 pin Tracker box socket. The Lantronix software driver does essentially what the FTDI software does for the USB module - it converts the serial data between the LVB processor and computer serial port (real or redirected) to either USB or ethernet communication. The computer tracking software thinks it is taking out a standard serial port and the LVB Tracker processor thinks it is taking through a RS232 serial port.

If you have a special program on the computer to generate rotor data into a USB port or Ethernet port you can use the modules. Essentialy you are just faking the computer tracking software into thinking it is still talking through a serial port and using a USB or Ethernet connection between the two.

73, Gould, WA4SXM

----- Original Message ----- From: 9w2qc@9w2qc.net To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 2:53 PM Subject: [amsat-bb] LVB Tracker Questions

...

Dear All,

Greetings from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I have built one LVB Tracker complete kit from AMSAT-UK, and am extremely pleased with it. Now I would like to build another unit,

but

...

this time from scratch. I have two questions about this tracker, which I hope someone can help me clarify.

1. Can someone kindly advice a suitable LCD panel for this tracker?

Would the Powertip PC1602ARU-HWB-G be compatible with this tracker? (RS Part Number 466-6452)

2. I am also very interested into the Ethernet interface, but have no

clue on how this works. I know a suitable unit is produced by Lantronix but that is about it. Could someone kindly advice what do

I

...

need to get the Ethernet interface going? Is there an evaluation kit readily available like the one from FTDI for the USB interface?

Any help and advice is really appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

73, Sion Chow Q. C., 9W2QC.

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