Hello all,

had a talk with James Harris, he told me about a website with an open source downland able software that is designed to track satellites it gives up to date information such as altitude longitude azam and elevation that i could integrate into my project.

Half way point of the week, did the interim report and gave it in yesterday wasn't to bad now I have started a block diagram of the overall project had a bit of trouble getting hold of Visio but got it now just putting it together, getting a bit worried as still havent really started the actual circuit design.

Had my meeting with martin today and we had our tutorial i spoke with him about my market research and who i could aim this product at it was suggested aiming at educational facility's, places that do a similar course. it was also mentioned that when i do my interim report that i should adjust my gantt chart to suit my new deadlines for example according to my current chart i should be building my control box however when i started my project i though it would have been a simple case of using this chip and conecting a few wires i didnt think about the rest of the parts needed and the level of design required so Im gonna have to make changes to my chart but it does give me a discussing point for my project.
other than that im still doing my intrium report few hundread words in looking to the weekend to finish it.

Started the interium report

Hello meant to do this here entry on Thursday but have been slightly busy with cracker jack day and helping out with industry day and all, I have now installed XP on my mac which I slightly despise but need it do to use certain programs such as this easy PC but what ever done now, I have spoken to a contact from my work experience at TLS about helping me in the future which is extremely good news.

spent the afternoon trying to use easyPC and made some progress with it by next week I need to have windows on the mac so I can install easy pc in my machine and carry on because I have been using Gings.

Hello spent the lesson looking at PCB design software that will allow me to send my design of to a board manufacture and they can print me off a nice looking PCB,

So easyPC which is what I looked at today is quite hard to get my head around but the plan of action is to spend some time on it before next lecture this mean's drawing the chip from RS and adding it to the board.

James Uren is going to help me design the board as far as putting caps and resistors in because I am a bit lost with that.

Also checked the power consumption of my motor which is 36v at 0.8amps so 28.8watts the chip is rated a 3 amp at 55v which is 165 watts so I'm okay.

So as far as budget is concerned I am looking at a chip that costs, £14.56 each and I may need to by two of them so that's gonna cost, £29.12 which is about 30% of my overall budget,

Hello it's Thursday, tomorrows you know what, unfortunately I am working from outside the college today sorry Ging, but I am still researching about my project.
Looking today at the spec sheet for my chip, the chip is effectivly a H bridge and allows the user to control a DC motor which is greate for me. the voltage goes up to 55 which is good becuase I am going to have to run the power cable probearly from Pres or CAR so I am expecting a loss over distance as far as power goes, gonna have to work it out, this also brings in the problem of getting the feedback from the dish, cant really do a lot about so i hope its not to bad might have to amplify the feedback.

the chip is from RS and the chips number is

LMD18200T

Half way through the day tommorows crackerjack day yippie, been quite a productive day james uren has helped me find a chip I have spent a few hours going through websites such a RS canford and farnell found a few chips however james recomended a certain chip for my project that is from RS
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=searchProducts&searchTerm=LMD18200T&x=0&y=0

this chip does everything I want it to do and takes a load off my mind because I dont have to build a circuit to do it plus this is a benifit because it makes servicing it alot easyier in future you just replace a chip as gorden ramsey says "Done".

found video on youtube looks interesting seems he has bought a motor control board and the running it from VB
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=m8VZGD7fgvg

H Bridge???

Hi

its now friday (cracker jack day) and im looking at what a H-Bridge is but have found some interesting videos on yourube such as,

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OvId3krjEHA

so from the videos the H bridge is an arrangement of MOSFETs in a circut to control the direct of the motor it seems that most people control the speed of the motor with a variable POT ummm this is not really my aim to be honest i want to control the motor with a computer program so I guess i might need an DtoA converter but thants the next thing to look into it, also think im going to need 2 power supplies in the box one for the actuator and the other for the circut I wonder if i can get hold of a computer power supply that might do everything I need, more researh needed

H Bridge

Just starting to look into what I need for my control box and need to look into H Bridge this will enable me to change the DC voltage so I can control the motor in both directions

a forum or two

Forum mentioning the Vbox II

http://www.techwatch.co.uk/forums/32306-gregorian-dish-and-diseqc-1-2-control.html

Here seems to be products from superjack
http://www.jaeger.com.tw/tvro/superjack/positioner_superjack.htm#ez6000

Some Research

it's thursday morning (i need a cup of tea) but just doing some research on some avalible produts that do very similar jobs that I want to achive and I came across this product that looks exciting,

http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/vbox.htm

now reading a bit about it there is a senser in and 36v motor power which looks cool this might mean I could place the control box in CAR all depends on how far I can send the power to the motor alos means I wouldnt have to find any power on the roof which looks a bit more promising. Below is a diagram that simply maps out how I am going to set out the parts to my project how ever this all might change looking at the product above but I'm not interested in presets.

Super Power Jack

Hi

So the actuator well there's a bit of good luck I was going into this project thinking I'll have to kinda build one from a kit or something, thank god not, below is a picture of the SPJ

How ever if you think this puts me miles ahead then think again there's a lot I have to do to get this working and implemented into my project for example someone along the way has cut the wire coming from the SPJ so I had to take the box apart to get an idea what cable went where below is a picture,

So after tracing all the cables I now have marked them and on the inside there is a reed sensor that detects the actuator is moving and sends a signal back out of the box, this is damn usefull in the sense I need to relay informartion like this to the user so they know where the dish is pointed at the time although I am not sure how accurate this is going to be so ill look into mounting a compass sensor on the dish instead.

Whats At College

Yo,

So from the last post I said where the idea came from, now looking at what kit is already in the college there already exits a "Super Power Jack" actuator so that got taken for this project and I'll talk a bit about that later on, there was also a large concrete block under some stairs with a pole bolted to it that also got taken for this project (Cheers Dan C it was heavy) how ever I don't think it's going to live up to the job so over the Xmas break I might look into constructing one from ally scaff which seems to be everywhere.

Where The Idea Came From

Hi,

Well here it is I guess my third year project blog, suppose I better explain it all really, so it goes something like this,

During Rave On Air last year I was head of lines for the event and it was my job to supply, check and guarantee all output feeds from OBs and studios as well as heading up Comms which was basicly looking after Hannah Chambers and making sure she was happy, I guess she was it was all okay and worked (thank god).

Any way I to the point, one of my roles was to head up a downlink from Intel Sat 801, the feed was comming from an Arqiva SNG truck out and about in the local area supplying content for the news team.
As a result of this my part to play was,
A, find a dish and bloddy fast in the end Paul M and myself welded two together to make one frank-en-dish, sounds kinda funny but it did work, just looked a bit odd.
B, run new coax from the dish to CAR where with the help of Kristian Webb we set up decoder box and PAL syncroniser to give the downlink to studio B

During this event there was so much running back and forwards to the roof I wished there was a dish up there with an actuator giving a user the ability to move the assembly remotly,
this is where my third year project steps in

My plan is to assemble and build a remotly acssesable dish mounted on the roof of my college so that you can find birds with out going to the roof with a compass and get coverd in rain as I did.

In order to do this there are certain steps I must take into consideration before just throwing kit together, Firstly how am I going to do this what parts do I need and what do I have to make????