Some pictures from work, all related to the TELIS project.
These are most of the boards that will be aboard the Telis balloon. From left to right:
- FFO/PLL board, which measure and command the flux flow oscillator and phase-locked loop, which I explain in [2006-04-25_SIR_acronym|this entry]
- SIS board, board which is connected to the electronics "in the cold" (i.e. the supercooled container) for operating the SIR, the superconducting integrated receiver
- SSB, board which contains FPGA and talks through serial port to PC hardware
- LSU -- Local Source Unit, board containing other necessary functions, like several temperature sensors, heaters and the generation of a 20 GHz signal (more on this some other time)
The power supplies on the backgrond are set to about 6 volts and are connected to the backplane at the far left (hard to see). This backplane provides besides power also communications.
The whole package, including batteries (see image below), will be enclosed in a casing, which will be put aboard the gondola.
The boards need to be powered on the balloon and this is why a battery pack will be connected to the backplane in the space in the middle (see first picture). SRON built a custom charger for the also custom made battery pack.