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Contents

  • Title Page
  • Abstract
  • Acknowledgements
  • Declaration
  • List of Additional Information Appended to this Thesis
  • List of Additional Information in Separate Documents
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables

  • Task Outline
    bullet 1.1. Background
    bullet 1.2. Alternative Strategies
    bullet 1.3. Weekly Task Plan
    bullet 1.4. Summary of Improvements Required to System
    bullet 1.5. Suggested Further Improvements
    bullet 1.6. Additional Equipment Required for New System
  • The Old System and its Deficiencies
    bullet 2.1. The Interface Box
    bullet 2.2. The Computer
    bullet 2.3. The RS232 Communications Link Socket
    bullet 2.4. The Stepper Motors
    bullet 2.5. The LVDT
    bullet 2.6. Commands
    bullet 2.7. The Probe sticking Effect
    bullet 2.8. The Purge Command
    bullet 2.9. The Parallelogram Effect
  • The New System
    bullet 3.1. Choice of Computer
    bullet 3.2. Choice of Computer Programming Language
    bullet 3.3. Bi-Directional Scan
    bullet 3.4. File Format
    bullet 3.5. LVDT Driver Unit
    bullet 3.6. Interface Box
    bullet 3.7. Co-ordinate System
    bullet 3.8. Height Range and Accuracy
    bullet 3.9. Stepper motor speed
    bullet 3.10. Stepper Motor Safety
    bullet 3.11. Simulation Mode
    bullet 3.12. Report file
  • The Changeover Period

  • Software Design
    bullet 5.1. Position Menu Commands
    bullet 5.2. File Menu Commands
    bullet 5.3. Scan Menu Commands
    bullet 5.4. Merge Menu Commands
    bullet 5.5. Controlling the Speed of the Motors
  • Hardware Design
    bullet 6.1. Driving the Stepper Motors
    bullet 6.2. Interface Box
    bullet 6.3. The Compressed Air Solenoid Relay
    bullet 6.4. Remote Keypad
  • Problems Encountered and their Solutions
    bullet 7.1. The Parallelogram Effect
    bullet 7.2. The Reading Settling Time
    bullet 7.3. Speeding up
    bullet 7.4. Keyboard Problem
  • Conclusion
    bullet 8.1. Other Ways of Speeding Things Up
    bullet 8.2. Further Improvements
    bullet 8.3. Overall Evaluation
  • References
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    Additional Information Appended to this Thesis

  • Appendix A - Photographs
    bulletPhoto 1 - Showing the LDVT head and XY co-ordinate table while plotting the scan
    bulletPhoto 2 - Showing a scan of a rough surface and the remote keypad (bottom right)

    Additional Information in Separate Documents

  • A2 - Technical Specifications
  • A3 - User Guide
  • A4 - Technical Manual
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    List of Figures

  • Fig 1 - The Existing System
  • Fig 2 - The Existing Merge Command
  • Fig 3 - Possibe Cause of Probe Sticking Problem
  • Fig 4 - The Parallelogram Effect
  • Fig 5 - The New System
  • Fig 6 - BiDirectional Scan
  • Fig 7 - New File Format
  • Fig 8 - Co-ordinate system
  • Fig 9 - Example Report File
  • Fig 10 - Default Area
  • Fig 11 - Screen Grabbed Speed Calculations
  • Fig 12 - Parallelogram Effect on Square in New System
  • Fig 13 - Parallelogram Effect on Rectangle in New System
  • Fig 14 - Stepper Driver Signal Causing Parallelogram
  • Fig 15 - Improved Stepper Driver Signal
  • Fig 16 - Parallelogram Effect Fixed
  • Fig 17 - Parallelogram Effect on Old System (Boomerang)
  • Fig 18 - Settling Time
  • Fig 19 - Checking Sampling Rate
  • Fig 20 - Thinking Time
  • Fig 21 - Thinking Time Reduced
  • Fig 22 - The Support Frame
  • Fig 23 - Pie Chart of Scan Time

    List of Tables

  • Table 1 - Required Frequency
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