The 2800 rotator controller circuit is, to be polite, a kludge. Besides
serving as reference library for bad logic design, slight bends in the
dial pointer assembly's electromechanical sensors can cause all manner
of strange behavior. All that junk from the rotator motor driver back
could be replaced by a an 805X microprocessor and a commodity LCD
display -- at a fraction of the cost, not to mention radically-improved
reliability and a "free" RS232 interface. I spent my early years
designing and debugging commercial minicomputers, microprocessors, and
associated peripheral interfaces, but never could get this "simple"
rotator controller to operate reliably. I finally replaced it with an M2
Orion, which has served flawlessly.
73,
Dave, AA6YQ
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-admin@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-admin@contesting.com] On Behalf Of UpTheTower@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 8:04 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com; gary@radioplace.com
Subject: [Towertalk] Yaesu indicator
Greetings, TowerTalkians --
I've got a question on the NEW Yaesu rotators. About a year ago or
so
they changed some of the rotator design to include DC motors and they
went
from a 5-wire control to 6-wire. My question has to do with the NEW
set-up -
not the old one.
Observing a 2800 rotator, everything looks normal. It starts, stops,
and
goes in the desired direction when you ask it. The problem is that the
control box acts kind of weird. Sometimes the indicator when started
will
back-up in the opposite direction before heading in the right one.
Sometimes
the indicator will keep going and overshoot the actual heading when it
stops.
Sometimes the rotator heading and the indicator don't match but toggling
the
rotation switch will get it to catch-up to the correct heading. Is this
"normal" for the new configuration? Or is there a control box/indicator
problem? The indicator and rotator headings can be up to 45 degrees off.
Like
I said, the rotator actually appears to be operating just as you'd
expect.
The rotator is less than six months old. Any ideas?
Cheers,
Steve K7LXC
Tower Tech
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