Hello friend and moderator,
First , sorry for my approximative english.
Second, i'm here in Belgium
Third, humbly i will try to add somes pieces of this brilliant idea you have.
I don' say it's the best solution with a tv set in the living room or in the day to day life.
Simply it's a way to bypass the controler via ethernet.
So,
One day one of my bestss friends gave to me an old Egis with the controller and the wire harness ( crane câble)
After cleaning and greasing the bearings and regarding the quality of the mechanic and the quadratic sensors,
My objective was : minimum:0.5 ° resolution on a 1..8M offset with ethernet control.
Solution: take out the obsolete controller. ( by the way, i have two EGIS controler for sale ...) and replace it by a cheap alternative.
Question:
Cheap , easy for a non programmer like me , ethernet controlable motor with quadratic encoder interface ?
Yes possible.
Look at :
github.com/k3ng/k3ng_rotator_controller
Yeah, flashing a arduino mega with a ethernet card is easy... But, when you try with the Egis on your table you say :
Hoooo the Arduino Mega is too slow to handle the interrups created by the encoders ( 400Hz each à motor speed max.)
A Arduino is not able to handle this level of interrupts with ethernet.
Solution applied :
Trash the arduino and put a Teensy 3.6 ( it's arduino IDE/ CODE compatible).
Now, my EGIS is functionnal in Azimuth and elevation with the resolution of 0..1°
The motors encoders permit a resolution of 0.01° (readed and validated in test by software reading)
Actualy, I command the antenna via a telnet server or via a software ( i run it on Win7) :
www.qsl.net/yo3dmu/index_Page346.html
For info : Yes you have geosyncronious sattelites and position memories in this soft .
To the moderator :
The idea to port the EGIS on rasperry is a brilliant thinking.
Your project is excellent because you will give to the hardware a new live.
You have developped a interface to the encoders and to the motors, i will give here somes of my " hardware improvments" ;
For my hardware interface, we are similar, i use two BTS7960 bridge for each motor and fast opto isolators.
The encoders cables are separated and shielded apart the motors cables ( 2mm schielded section for motors)
Main power supply is a 10A @ 24V for the main system.
Protections : motors pwm filtered, all interfaces ( in /out) opto isolated by high speed ( 10 MHz bw) optos.
Protection of overcurrent of the motor : MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor, count 30V@ 4A)
May be theses infos can help you, I dont' know...
But continue in your projetct: the principe is evidfent !
Bests Regards,
JF.