New arrivals - Amber Raytheon Radiance 1 camera and DIOP 75/250mm DFOV lens

[CatalinaWOW]

Very nice work Fraser. 

I wonder if the designers of the board are around to be embarrassed.  Perhaps if they are on this forum they could comment on the pressures that caused it to be the way it is.

[Fraser]

Thanks CatalinaWOW,

This thread has turned out to be a bit of a ‘personal diary’ of my adventures with the DIOP lens. I was working on the controller PCB today to tidy it up a bit. It is yet more poorly thought through electronic engineering. More like a prototype that needed a re-spin to sort out the errors. A perfect example is the use of Molex connectors and the late discovery that the normal Molex PCB plugs, with their locking tab, would not fit in the small spaces provided. The production solution ? Solder the plug in place and then pull the plastic base off of the pins and bend the pins to suit….finally a blob of RTV to hold the Molex connectors onto the pins. The RTV did not work as all connectors easily slide off of the pins.

The lens does work though 

[IR_Geek]

Excellent breakdown and pictures!   Good to know about the power draw. 

You got me curious as to 'why' they packed those electronics so tightly.   DIOP did make a whole bunch of DFOV lenses and they all appear to have used used the "Smart" electronics.  I'd hazard a guess that the electronics were designed for a much larger housing and were forced into smaller packages.   The optics designers probably didn't care what it looked like as long as it worked.  See pictures below I raided from the old website.

[Ultrapurple]

Some of the soldering on those boards is shocking, Fraser. I've seen better done at home on kitchen tables.



(And, just for total clarity, I am not suggesting Fraser soldered any of the above).

[Bill W]

It certainly looks like either a 'Issue 1' PCB used as a final development model, or perhaps a conversion of an existing  PCB to do something else. 

In both cases hopefully before getting some made properly ! 

Bill

[Fraser]

I have made a decision on the power supply front. That may sound trivial but I want to balance size and current rating against the needs of the lens rather than make some huge power supply that is massive overkill.

The highest current load is the controller PCB that runs from the 5V DC-DC converter. The motor drives are +15V at around 200mA current draw. I already have a neat compact Meanwell desktop power supply that can provide 5V@2.5A, +15V@500mA and -15V@300mA. I intend to use this triple output power supply and make use of the spare pin (7) on the LEMO Connector to provide the controllers 5V rail from the external power supply, rather than the DC-DC converter. Why ? Well using a triple output power supply ensures a quality supply to the controller PCB as I am noting 5V rail fluctuations with the present DC-DC converter when the motors are running 

The down side of this plan is that it deviates from the DIOP standard build but I can live with that and if another owner, in the future, wants to revert it to standard build, my changes can easily be reversed. The changes are simple. I will move the 5V output wire on the power input PCB to the “Spare” position that is connected to Pin 7 of the power connector. This may have been an official option as the PCB track from pin 7 is decent width so likely intended to carry current.

Once completed, I will have confidence that the controller is running on a decent power rail, drawing around 380mA and the motors will have a dedicated +15V 500mA power rail to call their own  The -15V power rail is well catered for with a current rating of 300mA.
I could possibly get away with using just the +15V and -15V power supply outputs but that leaves the +15V rail on the limit of what the power supply is rated to supply in terms of current. It also leaves the rinky dink DC-DC converter powering the. Controller which I am not too keen to do.

So here I am, modifying a $35K professional lens because of a poorly designed electronics package…… not what I was expecting to do but as long as it works well, I can live with it. The alternative would be to replace the electronics package with something more modern as this is just common lens controller stuff. I do not feel the need to do that though. I do not think I will be using the RS232 remote control feature so I will not be bringing that out to a connector for use. I could always use an in-line breakout box to access the RS232 later, if required.

Fraser

Edit: For anyone wondering, when I modify a piece of equipment I always document the modification and place the information in the user manual and on the equipment (or even inside it) on a label. In the case of the DIOP lens, I will be creating a nice connector pin-out label on my Brother laminated label printer using 24mm ‘black on clear’ label media. This avoids future owners becoming confused and provides the information needed to revert the unit to ‘stock’ if desired.