1.2 Quick Start Guide
13
1.2.2 Lock to Internal Frequency
The steps below will demonstrate how to run the optical chopper, lock‑
ing the chopper blade to the controller’s internal frequency generator.
Beginning with the SR542 controller connected to the chopper head with
the included cable and to AC power (as in Section 1.2.1):
1. Power on the control unit by pressing
.
Most instrument settings are retained in non‑volatile memory.
Upon power‑on, these settings are restored to their values from
before the power was turned off.
2. Restore the factory‑default configuration by pressing
Recall
, fol‑
lowed by
0
, and finally
.
3. Select the
Control
track corresponding to the track of slots that
will be used (Inner or Outer). Press
Control
Shaft
to toggle between
Inner
and
Outer
tracks. Press and hold
Control
Shaft
to select
Shaft
.
4. Change the internal frequency by pressing
and
until
the
Int Freq
indicator is illuminated. Press
7
+
5
+
.
+
0
+
to set the Internal Frequency to
75.0
Hz.
5. When the desired configuration is established, press
Run /
Stop
to run
the chopper motor. A long (
∼
1 s) press is required to start the
motor.
On startup, the SR542 first searches for the rotor shaft index, then spins
the motor shaft several times to survey the installed blade before pro‑
ceeding to the as‑configured control parameters (frequency and phase).
The
Source Output
on the rear‑panel outputs a 5 V square wave (TTL)
at the selected
frequency (in this case
Internal Freq
). When the
motor is running, three additional outputs are available:
Outer Slots Ref
Out
,
Inner Slots Ref Out
, and
Rotor Shaft Ref Out
. Finally, once the chop‑
per is phase locked, the sum frequency
(𝑓
OUTER
+ 𝑓
INNER
)
and difference
frequency
(𝑓
OUTER
− 𝑓
INNER
)
outputs are available.
When the selected control track comes into
frequency
lock with the in‑
ternal frequency reference, the green
Chopper Locked
LED will begin
to flash, and the orange
Chopper Unlocked
LED will remain illumi‑
nated. Upon acquisition of a stable
phase
lock with the reference, the
green
Chopper Locked
LED will become steadily illuminated, and the
Chopper Unlocked
LED will turn off.
SR542 Precision Optical Chopper