Torpedo Data Computer Mark 3 Manual

I'll see your Torpedo, and raise you a Whale:

I saw one of those on a submarine. It was beautiful, like a giant Swiss watch movement under glass.

Too bad the topedoes sucked.

I guess a 99 cent ARM would do that now.

The TDC used selsyn motors to actually program the heading and gyro angle into the torpedo automatically before firing. So you'd need an ARM and some model airplane servos. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I got a call today from some guys who want a hydraulic servo valve driver, just +-50 mA. Some of those valves can feed a push-pull cylinder and make horsepower-sized force with a kilohertz bandwidth.

TCA0372 to the rescue. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Yup. Dual maybe. But if I do a dual, we'll sell half as many.

Or OPA552, for +-24 supplies.

I knew someone who worked on fluidic systems where no moving parts in the logic allowed control of automated conveyor systems. It seems a small flow can redirect a larger flow providing both control and gain.

May they should get rid of the electrical servo control.

Fluidistors were a hot topic half a century ago. Now these seems to be used only in some gas flow meters.

These days digital proportional valves have multiple on/off valves of various sizes (1/2/4 etc.) controlled by electrical binary codes.

Cool; how many bits? How fast?

Since the cylinder is an integrator, oil flow to position, you wouldn't need a lot of bits.

Very small one had switching times in the order of 1 ms, while larger required 10-20 ms.

Some use binary PCM coding (1, 2, 4, 8, 16), while other use Fibonacci series weights (1, 1, 2, 3. 5, 8, 13).

The advantage with the Fibonacci series is that two separate input bit combinations produce the same output value, thus a value can be used that minimize individual valve movement and is also somewhat fault tolerant if one valve fails, without degrading the performance too badly.