Display Degrees of rotation.

[Bobw55]

I am using a Phillips rotor and control. There is no feedback in the motor unit. When the controller energizes the motor, it is relying on a constant motion of the motor (1 rpm). The controller has a 2 digit led display to show the position by 10 degree increments, but this is time based only. In the cold and wind and the added weight of the antenna, the position gets off by 20 degrees on a regular basis. It does have the means to re-initialize the rotor and controller by driving the motor CCW for one minute, which in theory drives the motor against a mechanical stop.

I just love a good head scratch-er!

Bob

[Dave]

Bobw55, Wow Bob, I have never seen one like that... It makes sense though. At 60 hertz with the right gearing... I don't know of any way to get the position back from something like that without being concerned about the weather proofing aspect. I might consider some kind of string pot with the string wrapped around the rotating mast. That way you wont have to calibrate it but only once, plus it will give you a linear output. It's always hard to retrofit something that is already built... If you have it down, I would disassemble it and see if there isn't some way to get a pot connected internal... Personally I perfer a pot as a feed back source because of the absolute aspect. Just my thoughts....

Dave Purola,
N8NTA

[Bobw55]

Well I managed to make and fix a pulse disc to the back of the motor. The mouse encoder reads it, just not with any accuracy. Used the encoder from the mouse in my drill and it works fine.
Dave: I thought about using a multi-turn pot, there is room to mount one, it is finding a gear that would mesh up with the final output shaft. I know the high end rotors use a pot.

I also have a drive motor from a CD drive that has 3 hall sensors mounted about 10 degrees apart. I could use, not sure how to wire it so you can see the change in direction.

Too much time on my hands.

Bob

[mark_s]

Bob,

Maybe this would work, uses a hard drive motor as an encoder.

http://www.fleurey.com/franck/pmwiki...ain.HDDEncoder

[Bobw55]

Mark,
I have come across that link a few days ago. I think I may use the CD drive motoronly due to it being mounted on a pcb that would lend to easy mounting to the tail of the rotor drive motor, plus it would only require 3 wires to run it. Will try to post pictures of what I a working with later then maybe all of this will make sense.

Bob

[Bobw55]

Thanks for all the replys.
I ended up using a hall sensor and the magnets from a CD drive motor for the sensor part. I used a 16F1827 PIC, a 2x16 LCD and other hardware. I now have a rotor controller that will allow me to go from -90 of North to 360 rotation plus an additional +90 of north 540 total degrees of rotation. To give me a HOME position I used a IR emitter detector with a reflective strip to light an LED on the controller panel. I can increment/decrement the "GOTO" poition by either 1 or 10 degrees at a time. I am really happy.

Bob

[Archangel]

Thanks for all the replys.
I ended up using a hall sensor and the magnets from a CD drive motor for the sensor part. I used a 16F1827 PIC, a 2x16 LCD and other hardware. I now have a rotor controller that will allow me to go from -90 of North to 360 rotation plus an additional +90 of north 540 total degrees of rotation. To give me a HOME position I used a IR emitter detector with a reflective strip to light an LED on the controller panel. I can increment/decrement the "GOTO" poition by either 1 or 10 degrees at a time. I am really happy.

Bob

Hi Bob,
Lot's of Hams on this forum. Your project looks useful as all getout to me, might make a great article or entry into one of this forums contests. Food for thought. If you do not intend to make a commercial product, perhaps you would write it up with code and submit it.