Chemplex Analytical, 40 & 50-Ton Hydraulic Spectro-Press: Zimet Associates utilized an off the shelf processor card from RLC Enterprises that incorporated an Intel 80186 processor, memory and peripheral electronics. The processor card was integrated with the control electronics of the Spectro-Press to manipulate the hydraulic pump and values. The processor was also interfaced to a LCD Display and a Keypad for user input and control. The control software was written in “C”.

Chemplex introduced the Spectro-Press at the 1993 Pittsburg Conference in Chicago; ZA attended the show to support the product preview. The Spectro-Press has undergone few changes in the past 10 years. Visit the Chemplex website for product information.

David H. Pollock Consultants, Laser Beam Rider Warning System (LBRWS): DHP was the primary contractor to Fort Monmouth; ZA was a subcontractor to DHP. ZA designed and produced the sampling electronics and computer-processing system for the LBRWS while DHP designed the Optical Lens System, Sensor, and Sensor conditioning electronics as well as the processing algorithms. The LBRWS consisted of a Quad-Cell detector; ZA designed sampling electronics that was replicated for each of the 4 detector elements.

To minimize cost and reduce system development time ZA devised using a standard PC (486 at the time) and programming tools (Borland C++) as the processing platform. The electronics was designed as four identical ISA cards that were inserted into the PC. A windows based program was created to control the system, and collect & analyze data. Zimet Associates participated in field tests to support DHP during the testing portion of the program.

KNF Neuberger, Vacuum Pump Controller: As a subcontractor to E. A. Oliva, Zimet Associates designed the system control electronics, display electronics and utilized an off the shelf embedded processor daughterboard from Z-World. The processor card consists of a Z180 processor, Flash RAM, and DRAM the daughterboard mounted on our control electronics card and was programmed using Z-Worlds Dynamic “C”. The electronics includes an A/D, which allows the processor to monitor the output of a Vacuum Transducer. The controller uses this information to switch 120v AC power to a Vacuum Pump to control the pressure of the monitored system.

Zimet Associates has been building and testing the electronics/processor module in small batches since 1999. The vacuum controller is being sold worldwide by KNF, the complete product datasheet can be found on KNF’s website.

David H. Pollock Consultants, Real-Time Hardware Simulation: Zimet Associates supplied DHPC with an engineer experienced in hardware/software integration and embedded processor programming. DHPC under contract to Fort Monmouth was creating a real-time simulation system to Model and Simulate system performance of an Infrared Gimbal Fine Track Sensor (FTS) and a UV Missile Warning System (MWS). The hardware was integrated into a larger simulation system connected via Ethernet and communicating with other systems via a predefined messaging format. Prior to joining the project, hardware was selected and was being configured; the processing consisted of three PCI cards with a total of 32 Analog Devices Sharc Processors.

Due to manpower issues DHPC did not have an available programmer with sufficient hardware/software integration experience and the project was behind schedule. ZA’s engineer was able to quickly correct many of the hardware configuration issues and began implementing a software application to control data flow and incorporate the algorithms being created by another DHPC engineer. Our engineer walked into a difficult situation but was able to become part of a team that created a complex system at the offices of DHPC and then deliver and test the system in the Labs at Fort Monmouth.