Re: interface board

Gar.... 360 will work! In the setup screen in the dro program
you can enter a number to count by.... and it supports a number
up to 14 places right of the decimal. The 360 cpi would
quaduture to 1440 and 1440 divided by 1" is 0.00069444444444
Enter this number into the dro axis setup. To get to the setup
screen after the program starts....hit R "Read Encoders" and then
X or Y or Z to get to that axis setup. In this setup you can also
tell it how many numbers to display right of the decimal on the readout
screen so all 14 places don't clutter your screen.

Back when I was writing the program the most HP had for linear encoders
was 200 and then HP told me they don't make the strips and I would have
to find another company that made them. I do have a HP big encoder book
and called lots of those numbers in the back finding a company
that would sell what encoders I was after (since HP won't sell direct).
Later
I found US digital. They are just another reseller of HP stuff but I
thought
their web pages layout describing what HP had was helpful... At
least compared to the luck I was having calling all the suppliers/resellers
in the back of HP encoder book. Also the way I understood it they were
making the linear mylar strips. I haven't looked at US Digitals web pages
for a long time but if they are coming across like they are big stuff
without
HP I would find it cold too.

Steve
Digital Read Out 4.0 (encoder reader)
http://www.angelfire.com/biz3/handengraving/dro.html

> Date: Sat, 08 May 1999 23:52:42 -0700
> From: garfield@... (Gar Willis)
> Subject: Re: interface board
> I even had a chat with one HP 'marketing droid' type about this, and
> couldn't seem to get across to him the value of a 250 (X 4 = 1000 in
> quadrature) cpi sensor. Since they make a 200 and a 360 cpi model
> presently, there's no reason they couldn't build a 250! And NO,
> unhappily, their engineering guy told me (hope springs eternal) you
> couldn't USE a 250 cpi optical strip with a 200 cpi sensor to get 0.001"
> native resolution. The sensor arrays are specific to almost exactly the
> optical resolution, so they need to MAKE the bloody thing!! 8(

> I trust most everyone realizes that pretty much all US Digital does is
> make the mylar discs/strips that are compatible with the HP sensors (as
> well as a line of 'encoder' interfaces for these sensors, to be fair
> about it), and then resell the HP sensors? HP has a VERY nice
> book/catalog on these "HEDS" sensors of theirs, and I find it much
> better a reference than the US Digital "re-makes" of HP's data sheets.
> HP's book also shows that building the 'encoder' interfaces is merely a
> matter of collecting a few off-the-shelf parts, just incase you're
> interested. B)
>
> [not to diminish USD's contribution with the optics ; just that them
> 'shielding' their clients from HP leaves me a tad cold]