Press Controls Embedded Assemblies

Mercury Servo2 Plus

Mercury SPU3

Mercury OCU3

Color ink metering actuator (servo2) (new product line – 2009 to 2015)

• Freescale 8-Bit HCS08 CPU, JTAG programming

• Small command set for serial comm network

• Hall effect sensor/ magnetic disk as actuator positioning

• Low cost DC motor and sophisticated gear train for high torque mechanical rotation. (5 inch pounds using 16 to 20 VDC drive)

• Serial communication harness (serial bus, RS232; 4800 or 9600 baud)

• Device indexing on power on

• DC Motor Coast, backlash tracking

• CodeWarrior 10.0 IDE

Summary: in-expensive rotating actuator, driving a metal lever, pushing on a metal plate to deliver micron thin portion of ink to printing press rollers; precision positioning, mechanical zero, single communication bus, daisy chain configuration. Each actuator controls distribution of a small amount of colored ink in printing press. Size is 1 x 2 x 3 inches.

2K LOC – C language

(technology upgrade - 2023 -2024)

•  ESP32-S3 processor, using CAN BUS communications

• IAR EWARM v6.5 IDE

Servo Power Unit (SPU3)(new product line – 2012 to 2016)

• NetBurner Ethernet I/O module; MOD5270 (Freescale MCF5271 processor)

• uCOS II RTOS for multi-threaded tasking

• Host communications – serial RS422 or Ethernet TCP/IP

• UDP based firmware update and HTML device configuration (during live operation)

• Serial comm to servo actuator devices

• Eclipse IDE

Summary – Controls and supplies power to servo actuators. Communicates with PC based Host computers  via serial line or TCP/IP Ethernet. Each printing unit controlled by serial bus of servos; to adjust servo positions of small areas of a single color assembly of printing press.

12K LOC – C language

Printing press operator console – color control (OCU3) (new product line – 2009 to 2012)

• CodeWarrior 7.0 IDE

• Bitmap Icon Images for main control panel with touch screen

• MCF52212_INTFLASH CPU for each actuator zone control

• MCF52233_INTFLASH CPU for main control panel

• MultiLink, JTAG programming

• Extruded Aluminum cases, customized per printing press.

• Membrane switches with custom graphics

• LVDS assembly comm networking for each actuator zone control

• Reach Touch Display; Quarter VGA SLCD43

Summary:

The OCU3 consists of a master controller and a number of zone boards.  Number of zone boards connected to master controller is configurable and the maximum number of zone boards supported for each OCU3 is 64. The OCU3 console can tolerate have more zones than the MC3 Client is configured and tolerate fewer zone than the Client is configured for. 

Zone boards will be connected together through the OCU3 COMM & Power harnesses to the OCU3 master controller board. All identical signals will be connected in parallel (through COMM bus) except for the “Low Speed Asynchronous Bus” which will be daisy chained (through CONFIG bus).

CONFIG bus is used to identify the index of the Zone assemblies in the daisy chain. The CONFIG bus travels in only ONE direction, from the Master PCB to the first Zone PCB then to next Zone PCB. The last Zone PCB is connected directly to the receive line of the Master PCB. Configuration process sent by the Master PCB will identify the first Zone PCB and each seceding Zone PCB adds to the count until the last Zone PCB is sent the Master PCB. This low speed bus also passes the control token for the LVDC bus communications.

COMM bus has TWO sets differential signals (+, A and -, B); one for Data and the other for Clock. These are used to communicate between zone and master. Only one device has control of the two differential buses, transmitting to all other devices connected to the two buses.

Zone LCD display is a monochrome display with 42wide * 65tall pixels. Zone PCB uses QSPI port for sending the data on its LCD Display. Zone PCB can only send the data on LCD display; it will not receive any data from LCD. The Zone PCB QSPI bus also contains an option for a flash memory device. This device is not required at this time.

Master LCD display is a color LCD display with QVGA (480 * 272 pixels) resolution. It has touch screen facility. Master board will use UART for the communication with LCD Display, Master will send the data and receive (if touchscreen buttons are pressed) the data from Master LCD Display. Master PCB overlay contains connectors for 4 switches and 2 LEDs for the front of the OCU3. These switches are for RUN, LOCK, ALL UP, ALL DOWN operations. There are LEDs to indicate RUN and LOCK status. Master PCB contains 4 flash memory devices of 128KB each. These devices will store console parameters for Master LCD.

Communications between the OCU3 and Host computer will be via TCP/IP protocol

Complete remote inking systems costs $50,000 to $180,000, depending on number of ink fountains and ink keys.

The Microcolor remote inking systems started as a MS-DOS application, later migrated to Client-Server Windows applications in 2012. (Mercury product)