OASIS-blue
Installation Guide
Rev. A
Warning!
This board contains static sensitive components. Please
take the necessary precautions when handling and
installing the board, to prevent damage or malfunction.
Please take care not to overstress the high-density front-
panel connectors.
Do not plug or unplug motors while the board is powered-
up, as this may damage the controller.
Introduction
The OASIS-blue is a universal PCI card designed to control and drive directly, without additional
power supplies or amplifiers, up to four stepper motors, of the two or four phase variety, suitable
for micro-stepping. Typical motors have a 1A to 2A per phase current rating, and an impedance of
3 to 4 ohms per phase. The power supplied to the motors is typically, although not necessarily,
provided by the PC 12V supply. It is possible to set the maximum phase current for each motor to
anything from 0A to 1.5A as desired, but thought should be given to the load on the PC power
supply 12V rail. It is normally possible, and indeed desirable, to set the motor drive current to a
lower value than the stepper-motor rating, assuming this can be done without the motor stalling.
The default factory settings are 0.6A per phase peak current, which works well with nearly all
stages, focus motors and filter-wheels. Consideration should also be given to cooling of the
OASIS-blue. If the board is typically used with several motors being driven continuously, it may be
necessary to provide extra cooling in the form of a nearby auxiliary fan. Most PC’s have one or
have a space where one can be fitted. In addition the optional OASIS-B-IM card is available to fit
in an adjacent PCI slot (where possible), and has a cooling fan provided for this purpose.
Once the driver for your particular operating system has been installed, it may be necessary to
run the OASIS Configuration Wizard, ‘\Utils\OIConfigWiz.exe’, in order to setup the OASIS-blue
to match your hardware configuration. More advanced settings can be adjusted using the
‘\Utils\OIFlashCfg.exe’ utility program. Having set the board up to suit your hardware, all the
functionality may be tested using the ‘\Utils\OASIS.exe’ application. This program is useful to test
functionality and diagnose problems.
Please look in the \Docs folder of the OASIS Installation CD for further information such as
connector pinouts or software examples, or look at our website (
www.objectiveimaging.com
) for
the latest documentation and software updates.
