T. Ingerson
23 December, 1994
A CTIO Smart Motor Controller consists of a small number of commercially available cards which plug into a "STD Bus" backplane. STD Bus cards measure 4.5" x 6.5" and have 56 pins on a PC edge connector. The STD BUS is a simple, inexpensive, standard, widely supported system for connecting computers and peripherals together.
There is a newer 32-bit upgrade of the STD BUS, called STD 32 which uses a 136 pin connector. STD 32 boards are compatible with the STD BUS. Some of the boards used in the SMC are STD 32 compatible. For the SMC, the performance of the basic STD BUS is more than adequate. See the Ziatech (Call 805-541-0488) STD32 Data Book for further details.
Though there are hundreds of different cards available from various manufacturers for the STD Bus, the motor controllers in actual use at CTIO employ only 4 kinds of boards; an SBC (Single Board Computer) type ZT88CT09A made by Ziatech, a 48 line I/O board, type ZT8845A also made by Ziatech, a 2-axis servo board type 4327B made by Tech 80 (800-545-2980) and a Stepper Motor Control board type 7342 made by Prolog (800-538-9570). The Prolog board can control up to four independent axes. Standardizing on only a few types of boards greatly simplifies sparing. The boards are all used as they come from the factory. The system uses no customized STD BUS boards.