5 PICOSCALE HARDWARE
module is established. The last LED indicates if the device is in standby mode. On the right hand
side of the front panel there is the pilot laser button (E) and the power button (F). Once the system
has fully
booted, pressing the pilot laser button activates the red adjustment lasers of all three
channels. Active pilot lasers are indicated by the red LEDs integrated into the button. The power
button turns the system on (if it is in standby mode) or o
ff
. The two front panel buttons are also
used to update the controller
fi
rmware, see chapter 6.6.1.
On the left side of the back panel there is the main power switch (1). When the main power is
turned on, the device is in standby mode and can be started with the power button at the front
panel. Next to the main power switch, there is the power connector (2) with integrated fuse. The
allowed input voltage range is [90,246] V
AC
with a maximum current of 0.5
A
RMS
and an AC fre-
quency between [47,63] Hz. The power input is protected with a 2.5 A slow blow fuse. For very
sensitive measurement setups, the
PICO
SCALE
o
ff
ers a PE socket (3) to reference connected de-
vices to the same ground potential. The GP
I
O and the AquadB interface (4) are available via a
D-Sub 44HD connector. For convenient access to all GP
I
Os and the DD
I
interface, a Breakout-Box
(BOB) is available as accessory for the
PICO
SCALE
Controller, which is connected via the 44 pin
connector. The
PICO
SCALE
o
ff
ers two bidirectional, high-level interfaces, USB and Ethernet. For
USB connection, the user PC is connected to the USB slave interface (6), for Ethernet correspond-
ingly to the Ethernet jack (8). Additionally, two integrated USB master interfaces are connected to
the embedded PC. Via these interfaces a software update can be installed, for example.
Besides the main, high-level interfaces, the
PICO
SCALE
o
ff
ers two low-level interfaces. The Smar-
Act S
I
(5) and SmarAct HS
I
(7) allow direct access of other SmarAct products to the
PICO
SCALE
data sources.
5.2 Interfaces
To work with the
PICO
SCALE
Controller the system has to be connected to a PC. Therefore, a
USB 2.0 slave and a GBit Ethernet interface can be used. Both interfaces can be used at the same
time so that up to two users can connect to the system via Ethernet and USB. This allows that
data can be read out from several terminals at the same time. However, to prevent unintentional
recon
fi
guration, only one user has full access and the ability to con
fi
gure the system.
The
PICO
SCALE
o
ff
ers a multitude of analog as well as digital interfaces to input or extract data
to and from the device, respectively. This guarantees a seamless integration in laboratory setups
with great
fl
exibility that goes far beyond interferometric position measurements.
5.2.1 Environmental Module interface
The Environmental Module is connected to the
PICO
SCALE
Controller with a four wire interface.
The communication to the
PICO
SCALE
Controller is realized by a UART protocol, and the power
supply of the Environmental Module is also provided by this interface.
31
PicoScale User Manual
