RV4S PCB Pinouts

[dogboy]

Hello Everyone,

This may be a long shot but I am trying to find further information about the two PCBs in my RV4.
I have attached a picture of each, but would like specifically to know the pinouts of the the connectors, as in what each pin does and what the signal to expect etc. The larger board is the one fitted on the arm and the small PCB is the one fitted to detect the slots in the lower driver wheels.

Any information on these boards, such as functionality or RS232 data etc would be really helpful.
The larger PCB has a MAX232 chip on it so I assume that this board has some serial comms.
If that is the case, does any know what commands or data to send to it or what data to expect from it, format etc.

Thanks
Paul

[Mike]

I think there may be some partial wiring diagrams here somewhere.
Both boards have serial interfaces- not sure if they share the same serial bus. Don't think I've seen command docs but pretty sure the comms are very simple - a byte or two in each direction.
There is a utility in the standard install called armtest.exe that allows testing of the functions of these boards. 

[dogboy]

Hi Mike,

Ah ok, thanks for the reply.
Maybe I will hook up the old pc and run the armtest test. I have a Saleae logic analyser so maybe I can have a look at what data is being sent back and forth and work out what's going on.

I also want to see how the opto-board detects the slots in the drive wheel. One side has two slots and one side has one slot. I assume the micro on the board detects the sequence of one or two slots as a rotation home flag or rotational end stops as such, like the equivalent of a end stop on a linear system.

I was thinking I could make a replacement PCB with a PIC micro to auto detect the slot sequence and and have three pins which would represent the home position, and two more for the equivalent of a rotational end stop in either direction.

I am only looking at this for use with a Duet 3 board and OpenPNP, to see if I could use the exiting RV4 boards for these signals or if I need to use something else.


Thanks again, and I wish you all and happy new year. I hope 2025 is a good year for everyone.

Paul