Controller and Power Supply


A view of the input end of the machine with the feed table removed, showing the controller (grey box at left) and the power supply (grey box at right). The feed rollers and flap drive steppers can also be seen.


The chassis and transformer of the power supply are from a DEC VT52 terminal.


The power supply circuitry wouldn't win any beauty prizes, but it works. This little rats nest delivers 5V for the logic, 12V and 27V for the steppers, and 18V unsmoothed DC for the main drive motor.


The controller is based on a PIC16F84 (in the top right corner). The control panel, at left, is from a dot-matrix printer, which is why it has LF, FF and ON LINE buttons. These will need to be re-labelled at some point...