Rotator Preset - microHAM ARCO Manual

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Now you can proceed to the rotator connection. If you are connecting recent Yaesu rotator, you
just need to connect cable end with the 6-pins (2x3) rectangular plug to the rectangular jack (10)
on your ARCO. No other connections are necessary, you can reconnect back power cord, plug
it to the wall socket, turn the controller ON and proceed to the calibration and software setup.
If you are connecting rotator, having different connector cable end, you need to build an adapter
between mating cable jack and 10-pins ROTATOR terminal on ARCO, or cut it and connect
wires to the terminal directly. Terminal is industry standard 5.08mm (0.2") pitch pluggable screw
terminal block.
We understand, that some users may be hesitant to cut connections to the old controller. As a
solution, use the female version of the screw terminal block. As you cut wires of the cable, one
by one, and connect their rotator end to the male terminal block for ARCO, simply connect the
other end of the cut wire to the respective terminal of the female terminal block. In this way,
whenever desired, the original connection can be simply restored by plugging in the cable into
the stub on the original controller, ending with the newly installed female terminal block.
Take your time, make nice, clean and solid connections. We recommend to use isolated wire
ferrules crimped to the cable wire ends. Wiring diagrams for various rotators included in the
MODEL menu, can be found at the end of this manual, Appendix B. If you are connecting
unlisted or custom rotator, please make connections according to the charts in Appendix C, with
respect to the motor and sensor type.
Once rotator is connected, you can connect back the power cord, plug it to the wall socket, turn
controller ON and proceed to the rotator preset and calibration.

Rotator Preset

In order to know position of your antenna, antenna rotator must be equipped with a position
sensor and controller must be "synchronized" to this sensor. This synchronization process calls
calibration. This requirement applies to any rotator and controller and must be done properly.
Rotator can be equipped with one of two types of the sensors; absolute sensor as
potentiometer, rheostat, PWM sensor, absolute encoder, geomagnetic sensor OR relative
sensor like magnetic reed contact, Hall sensor or incremental encoder in any form.
Absolute sensor always provide absolute value of rotator orientation, relative sensor provides
value of the orientation change. ARCO supports both sensor types and internally converts
relative sensor values to an absolute by counting pulses and constant storing last position value
since calibration.
Rotators with relative sensor and without limit switches has free rotation center, but rotators with
an absolute sensor or rotators with hardware limit switches have an exact center and is
desirable to preset rotator to this position to simplify calibration. It is important to realize that
such rotator has its center of orientation fixed, in other words, absolute rotator center is set by
its mounting orientation on rotator's plate. While it is not necessary to mount such rotator in any
specific direction, important is to set rotator to its center and adjust antenna rotation center by
rotating antenna around the mast separately.
Calibration procedure allows to safely find and set such rotator to its center and calibrate
antenna position individually, unrelated to the actual mounting orientation of the rotator.
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