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Configuration and Interface Software
Two Windows programs are available to use for configuration and interface between your PC and the CT-1 controller board.  Which program you need is determined by the version of the firmware in your controller board.
  • Firmware version 1.00:  Use the DrzSetup program (described below).
  • Firmware version 1.02:  Use the DrzCom program.

See the download page for information on determining your firmware version and downloading the correct program.

The rest of this page explains the use of the setup program, DrzSetup.exe.

Setup  |  Status  |  Manual Movement  |  Calibration  |  Track Testing  |  Tracking
 
Initial Setup

The DrzSetup program is used to set up the various parameters that are needed by the controller, and to test and calibrate the encoders. It does this by communicating with the controller via the serial port. Configuration data for the controller is selected by the user and saved in the controller's non-volatile memory so that once the configuration is done, it does not have to be redone unless a change is desired.

When the DrzSetup program is started for the first time, it is necessary to set up the communications port and baud rate before it can communicate with the controller. Click on the "Program Setup" button and select the desired com port options. Click "OK" or "Apply" to save your settings. The program will remember your settings so you only have to do this once.

Now you can click on the "Off" button in the "Comm to Controller" section of the main window. This button will change to "On" and stay pushed and the program will attempt to communicate with the controller. At this point no movement commands will be sent to the controller but it should attempt to display the current position and status of the controller board. Some status and communications indications will be operative as shown in fig 2, but they may not all work as the encoders have not yet been set up. However it is necessary for communication with the controller board to be working before the encoders can be configured.

Once communication is working, click on the "Encoder Configuration" button. The following window will appear:

When this window is opened, the setup program reads the current configuration from the controller board and displays it. If the controller does not respond, an error message "Unable to communicate with controller" will be displayed and the configuration dialog will not be shown. If this is the first time into this window, the values shown will be the defaults that are loaded into the controller when it is built. The defaults are shown above.

Initially all that is required is to select the correct encoder type for Azimuth and for Elevation, and set the appropriate ranges. The other settings are explained in detail in Detailed Settings.

If you change something and then want to see how the controller is actually set, click the Get button to reload the screen from the controller board.

Once you have adjusted the settings click the Set button. The new settings will be sent to the controller board and stored in it's non-volatile memory, and the configuration window will be closed. You will return to the main Setup window and can start communicating with the controller by clicking the Comm to Controller button to "On".

Figure 2: Below is a screen shot of what the setup program window looks like when in this mode:

Note that the Comm to Controller button is pushed 'On', the Current Readings box is showing the degree readouts, and the Movement enabled status 'LED' is on. Also, the 'LED' over the reset button is flashing on and off.

Status LED's
In the Controller Status section of the window there are 13 indicators that show controller status. You can think of these indicators as LED's (Light Emitting Diodes) that might be used to show status on a hardware board. For the remainder of this document I will refer to them as LED's.

Eight of the LED's are used to show Antenna Motion status. Four are for motion requests. These will be lit when the controller board has received a request to move the antenna but it has not yet initiated actual motion. This can happen in two circumstances:

a) The antenna has just stopped moving and the controller's stop timer has not yet expired. As soon as the timer times out the controller will start moving the antenna and the status LED will change from Requested to Current.

b) The controller has detected an error and has disabled movement. In this case the "Movement Enabled" LED will be off. This will happen only if the controller detects that the antennas are not moving when they should be. If no motion is detected after the Move Timeout period selected for the encoder, the controller board will stop all movement and disable further movement. It is necessary to reset the controller before motion can be re-enabled. This can be done with the "Reset Controller" button, or by power cycling the controller board.

The three Nova mode LED's will only come on when testing in Nova mode. They provide indication that the controller has recognized the Nova data stream and is responding to it.

The final LED is a communication indicator. When the program is communicating with the controller it will flash. The speed at which it flashes is an indicator that can be used to help understand what is going on. Normally it will flash very fast, the exact speed being controlled by the "Updates / sec" box. At the default setting of 10, a data exchange with the controller is attempted 100 times per second, except in Nova mode. When in the Nova test mode, the data exchange will be 10 times per second and the LED will flash much more slowly. The reason for the difference is that when in Nova mode, much more data is sent and received each time, so a slower repetition rate is required. Using the "Updates / sec" box you can change the update rate between 1 and 20. This gives a rate of 10 to 200 times per second for normal mode, and 1 to 20 times per second in Nova mode.

If the communications LED is only flashing once per second, and no data is being displayed, that means that the program is getting no response from the controller. Perhaps the controller board has no power applied, or the serial cable is disconnected or wired wrong. Or the wrong comm port or baud rate may be selected. As soon as the problem is corrected the LED should start flashing at the normal fast rate.

Manual Movement
At any time you may initiate manual movement of the antenna by using the U, D, R, L, and Stop buttons. If the program is not currently communicating with the controller, communication will be started. If the program is in one of the Track Test modes that mode will be stopped when manual movement is initiated. A request to move in the direction selected is sent to the controller and the position and status will continue to be monitored while it is moving. You must click on the Stop button to stop motion. However the movement timer will still time out and stop the motion motors if the antenna fails to move. Also the stop timers will work. For an example of this, suppose you have the stop timer set for the default value of 5 seconds. If you are moving up and you change immediately to down, the antenna will stop for 5 seconds before reversing direction. During the time it is stopped, the request Down LED will be lit but the current Down LED will be off.

Calibration
For any encoder type it is necessary to calibrate the controller to the actual antenna position in order to get accurate readings. This is done with the "Set zero" and "Set max" buttons in the Current Antenna Position box. These buttons will not work if the antenna is in motion. Also, there is an "enable" checkbox that must be checked before the sets will work. This is to prevent accidentally changing your setup.

Move the antenna to the zero or max elevation and click the corresponding button. When you click "Set zero" the display will change to read zero. When you click the "Set max" button the display will change to read the max range that you have selected for that encoder (in the Encoder Configuration" window). Once you have set zero and max, the readout should track with the antenna position accurately. Repeat for azimuth and you are done calibrating. The zero/max configuration is stored in the controller's non-volatile memory so it will be remembered after a power cycle.

There is one exception to the above. That is when using absolute encoders. In that case it is not necessary to do a max set. All that is necessary is to properly set the range and then do a zero set. The max button will operate but it does nothing if the encoder is absolute.

Tracking Testing
When tracking tests are running, the controller will be instructed to move the antenna to the position you have entered into the "Go to Position" azimuth and elevation fields. You may enter the desired position at any time (even when not actually communicating with the controller), but the values you enter will not take effect until you click on the "Go" button. Then, if a track test is running, or if you start a track test, the antenna will be instructed to move towards the position you have selected. When the antenna reaches the requested position, the program will issue the commands to cease motion and the antenna will stop. In Nova mode the program does not issue a stop command, but the controller board itself detects that the requested position has been reached, and stops the antenna.

Tracking the Moon or a Satellite
Once the controller has been set up, calibrated, and tested, you can use the F1EHN Tracker program, the Northern Lights Nova program, or the GM4JJJ MoonSked program to actually track a heavenly body. You can exit from the setup program and run one of the above programs if you wish, or they can be run right from setup. The advantage of running them from setup is that when you end the F1EHN or Nova program you will return to the DrzSetup program where you can test or reset calibration if necessary. This saves a lot of switching back and forth between programs. (Note that the setup program is not set up to run MoonSked. It is best to exit setup before running MoonSked.)

Before you can run F1EHN Tracker or Nova from setup, you must tell DrzSetup where they are located on your computer. This is done from the "Program Setup" dialog, in the Paths tab. Enter or browse to the location of the program. If you browse to the file, you can double click on the file or single click and then use the OK button. For F1EHN the file you want is "Tracking.exe" and for Nova the file is "NfW32.exe". Once you have set these locations the setup program will remember them for you so you don't have to do it again.

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