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Emulators

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Technical innovations has put the control codes  to use there hardware into the public domain.  This allows third parties to support their hardware.  It also allow people to write emulators to make custom hardware appear to be a robofocus unit etc.

In my case a single program running on a windows ME machine emulates both a robo focus and a digital dome works and control the actual hardware though a single parallel port.

 

The port connections are

Serial 1 DDW emulator

Serial 2 Robofocus emulator

Serial 3 Dome position mouse

 

Parallel port

D0=dome direction

D1=dome power

D2=Shutter direction

D3=Shutter power

D4=Focuser motor winding 1

D5= Focuser motor winding 2

D6= Focuser motor winding 3

D7 = Focuser motor winding 4

 

S0= Focus Handpad button 1

S1=Focus Handpad button 2

S2=Dome home sensor

S3 = Rain sensor

 

C1 = Scope power relay

C2 = Cameras and cooler power

C3 =  Dew heaters

C4 = spare relay

In order to have both the system mouse and the dome position mouse used at the same time window needs to be stopped from using its driver with the dome mouse.  This is done in hardware manager by disabling the device.   Visual basic can then open the com port and communicate directly with the mouse.

When I have time I will write up the program properly and put it on the site for down load.  Let me know if this would be of interest.

 

 

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Copyright ©2006 Steve Chambers. All Rights  Steve@pmdo.com

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