JAMSAT : SCOPE Ad-Hoc Meeting in Ichikawa. May 1997

SCOPE Ad-Hoc Meeting (May 24-25, 1997)

The Japan AMSAT Association

The SCOPE project team met again and spent a night at the home of Tak Okamoto JA2PKI in Ichikawa near Tokyo during the weekend of May 24th, 1997.

The SCOPE flight model once traveled to Orland now returned back here for additional pre-flight testing, final adjutments and processes required for its flight. The unit works flawlessly except one problem. The meeting is intended to identify the cause of boot-up problem found on the RS485 serial port of Camera-B flight hardware and to prepare an updated Engineering Model and software tools to be provided to RUDAK-U team for supporting upcoming RUDAK-U/SCOPE communication test.

The meeting started on Saturday afternoon when Hiroyuki JM3MAJ brought a SCOPE EM and support tools from Kyoto and Yoshi JA6XKQ arrived with the SCOPE Flight Model and his daughter Sae. Miki JR1SWB also attended partly till late night.

The cause of boot problem was identified and corrected during the meeting. The SCOPE flight hardware is now working flawlessly and reliably, and both cameras in the module can be booted from either CAN bus or RS485 serial link individually, and can be operated individually or simultenuously.

During the meeting, the team decided to provide the RUDAK-U team with an updated engineering model that replaces previously delivered SCOPE EM. This ensures that the RUDAK-U will be talking to the SCOPE EM which is truely identical with the flight hardware.

01.jpg Waveform of RS485 serial link (24K)

SCOPE will be communicating with RUDAK-U and IHU primarily using CAN interface. But it also has RS485 multi-drop serial port to communicate with RUDAK-U as a backup link. Shown here on the scope is the transmission from SCOPE to CONSOLE (middle four div., lower level) and from CONSOLE to SCOPE (right two div., higher level).

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Hiroyuki Ohata JM3MAJ (left) and Yoshi Takeyasu JA6XKQ (right) try to identify the cause of boot problem of Camera-B by observing signal on the link. The synchronous scope used here used to serve also for JAS1(FO12) project.

06.jpg SCOPE FM : side view (Camera-A CCD block, Camera-B PCBA) (83K)

SCOPE FM with its side panel removed, showing inside of the SCOPE flight hardware. From right most to middle : A/D board, Memory board and CPU board for Camera-B (wide angle). Top left : CCD block (w/o lens) for Camera-A (narrow angle). Lower left: Two small switching power supply boards for Camera-A.

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Hiroyuki (holding EM CPU board) and Yoshi (behind the flight hardware) confirm the location of check points on the CPU board of troubling Camera-B.

08.jpg SCOPE FM side view (Camera-B CCD block, Camera-A PCBA) (67K)

SCOPE FM with its side panels removed, showing inside of SCOPE flight hardware. From right most to middle : A/D board, Memory board and CPU board of Camera-A (narrow angle). Top left : CCD block and flight lens of Camera-B (wide angle). Lower left: Two small swtching power supply boards for Camera-B.

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Yoshi solders a capacitor while Hiroyuki (left) and Miki Nakayama JR1SWB (right) holding the module.

10.jpg Isolation Diodes

Two isolation diodes in the 10V supply lines are molded in the holes of an aluminum block, and the block is thermaly connected to the module case with an aluminum heat bridge. You can see a part of the dichroic mirror (covered with three CCDs and driver circuit) portion of the CCD block for Camera-B.

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Three little volunteers (from left Sae, Lei and Ellie) try to figure out how synchronous scope works. Next generation?

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Part of the flight CPU board for Camera-B. RS485 driver circuit, CAN interface chip and CAN filter are visible.

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Close up of above picture. It shows the criminal = R20. It should not be left there.

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After the surgical operation. Legs of the resistor successfully removed but we gave up removing its body. The resister body adheres to the board with conformal coating and removing the body could damage the narrow pattern running underneath it.

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The cause of problem identified and corrected. Relaxing with releaf. From left : Yoshi JA6XKQ, Hiroyuki JM3MAJ and Miki JR1SWB.

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Hiroyuki (left) and Yoshi look at the screen of console program to confirm the result of their work.

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SCOPE FM with its board set for Camera-B extracted. Three identical patterns on the board are A/D converters for Red, Green and Blue.

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SCOPE FM with its board set for Camera-B extracted.

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Yoshi (left) and Hiroyuki check a snapshot of ceiling light captured with Camera-A.

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Yoshi touches up the flight CPU board of Camera-B while Hiroyuki upgrade his console program. His console program can boot and excercise all the functions of the SCOPE via RS232, RS485 and CAN bus.

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From left: Miki Nakayama JR1SWB, Hiroyuki Ohata JM3MAJ, Tak Okamoto JA2PKI, Yoshi Takeyasu JA6XKQ and Sae.

SCOPE team thanks to Saeko Okamoto for serving us well and forgiving us to mess around the living room (again).

Text and photos by JA2PKI. Photos scanned by JG3XOD.

SCOPE Update

SCOPE Ad-Hoc Meeting (May 24-25, 1997)