Re: On beamline motor control

[Mark@Bessrc.msd.anl.gov (Mark S. Engbretson (BESSRC-Cat))]

Tim Mooney writes . . .

>
>What I'd really like to do is to support an infrared serial (or some
>pulse code) link so we can program a TV/VCR remote-control to run
>motors and other devices.  Channel numbers might map to motors, volume
>might map to tweak-step size or motor speed, and forward/reverse would
>make something move. 
>

Over here at BESSRC, we were also thinking of what would be required to
control, say, a Huber or any other devices inside the Hutch with a TV/VCR
remote control.

Obviously, the remote itself is no problem - buy one at any grocery store
with as many buttons as you want on it.

The problem lies on what is actually 'seeing' the IR signal from such a
thing. Most of the common (i.e. 'cheap') IR receivers only detect 16
distinct 'codes' at a time on any of 256 settable addresses. To handle the
number of distant commands that probably will be set, you either end up
needing multiple receivers, or else you have to multiplex the receiver to
'scan' for certain address ranges. I'm not sure which would better.

Whatever, we have a prototype kit for building a IR transciever/receiver
device if you would want to play with it some. It looks as if linking the
receiver to any BI/MBBI BO/MBBO would be very trivial.





Me