[TowerTalk] Motorized tower auto-lower

[Jeff Stai WK6I]

hi Dave - nice writeup! I do see that your needs are different, and of course 
that's cool.

And for the record, poorly protected swimming pools and auto-lowering towers do
concern me equally - good analogy, actually. Both cause many tragedies around here, 
I'm sorry to say...

Regarding debounce: I was presuming the wind speed was indicated with a series
of pulses from the measuring device. Even if the measuring device pre-conditions
the pulses to be clean, noise can still be a factor (is it single-ended or
differential signaling?). Just taking a generic example, a pulse train with a
bad leading edge can make a 30mph indication look like 60mph wind, just from
double clocking. If you don't mind that then no big deal, but it sounded like
you care about maximizing up time, so accuracy is important. These simple counter
devices can be very sensitive to edges, so conditioning inputs is important,
as I expect you know.

The cool thing about a PIC (or something like it) is that you can make a lot
of changes and adjustments without making hardware changes. A PIC could be your
counter, timer, and receiver/conditioner - and could also be part of the process
to raise the tower later. Maybe this project would be a good vehicle for learning
about this stuff...?

good luck on the project - hope this helps!-) - js

ps: please educate me, because I am mercifully clueless about tornados, but it
would seem that if a tornado hits your tower, it is toast cranked up OR down...?

-- 
jeff stai
WK6I DM13
NAR #21059 TRA #3356 L2
jstai@home.com / wk6i@arrl.net
ROC web page: http://www.rocstock.org/

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