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Motorized Zoom lens wiring

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Hello y'all !!,

 

Got a couple of wiring questions concerning motorized lens connections. I would like to know how anyone else has terminated connections for motorized lenses, without using "factory made" controllers? In other words, how did you switch polarity on a Zoom lens, if you wired it outside a factory control panel? Did you use a specific relay? Actually need some sort of wiring diagram, that would be helpful. Thanks for any and all replys!!

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Simplest method is just to connect a battery (a 9v battery will do ok on a 12v lens, if the voltage is a bit less than the rating the lens just zooms a bit slower) one way for zoom in, and reverse it for zoom out. Remove battery and connect it to the focus wires one way for focus near, the other for focus far.

 

Thats the method you can use to quick test a lens, but its not really much use in the real world for a proper cctv setup.

 

Before I got a telemetry controller/receiver I just wired up two 9v batteries to switches, direct to the lens. You should not need a relay usually, unless your lens is a long way away or a weird high voltage one (never come across any yet).

 

The batteries were connected so I had +9v 0v -9v available, or I could have used a power supply with both pos and neg 12v available (for a 12v lens, always check the lens wiring details to find its voltage, as say 12v on a 6v lens will spin motors twice as fast and cause undue wear/damage, and if there is any electronics it can blow it, although usually the motor bit is just motors.)

 

 

There are different ways of connecting certain zoom lenses, what model lens are you trying to connect? The following is a quick diagram showing how you could use a couple of batteries and a couple of three way toggle switches (left, center off (normal pos), right) to control both focus and zoom. This is for lenses that have a focus, zoom and common connection.

 

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A example of a pentax lenses details, which has the required common, zoom and focus to connect to the above...

49416_2.jpg

 

If you have two wires for zoom, and two wires for focus which are direct wired to the each motor then you can connect one focus and one zoom wire together to make the common (you will need to make sure you get the right ones so the switches dont operate in reverse for zoom or focus, experimentation is often the only way if you have no wiring diagram for the lens)

 

The above assumes the lens has nothing more than a motor controlling the zoom, and a motor controlling the focus (we are not connecting anything to the iris circuits here, you do them seperately if needed) which all I have seen are.

 

You can use individual switches if you want instead of toggle switches, just rearrage the wiring to get the same effect, but be careful the user cant press zoom + and zoom - (or focus + and focus -) at the same time as that would short out the psu or batteries.

 

Remember a small votage drop will usually not stop the lens from operating, but it will make it slower as the motors have less voltage to operate.

 

So... You could use this to your advantage, you could make sure the lens will get the correct voltage for full speed operation at all times, BUT put a varialble resistor (potentiometer) into the circuit to lower the voltage as and when required, this could be mounted on a diy control panel next to the switches and could be used for fine control, ie very slow focus/zoom when required.

 

If you want better control you can use telemetry, decent up the coax or rs485 telemetry receivers can control lens functions, but they cost a lot...

 

Always check wiring/manuals etc before doing anything where possible, dont blame me if anything blows up, its at your own risk..

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2 double pole double throw switches and a 9v battery will work a computar lens. 1 switch for focus and 1 for zoom.

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Thanks for the reply. I was sort of hoping to see if anyone had done this motorized lens wiring with relays, as I have designed and built a RF wireless remote control panel that allows my P/T unit to operate wirelessly. It is a Vicon 24VAC model. I bought a RF unit (board) with built-in relays, and use 4 of them on the Pan/tilt to operate, but would like to operate the motorized lens also. From my panel, to the pan/tilt I use Belden 9-conductor cable, and would have to add more conductors on the next test. My RF board is contained inside the "home built" panel, but there are several relays not being used at present. My cameras function well, as does the Vicon Pan/Tilt unit, I would just like to add one of my Computar motorized lenses in the future. I know about the 9-volt battery thing, I do it often, and it works well for the testing. I run my cameras on 12VDC from a power supply, also contained in my "home built" panel. This also allows me to run a small 12VDC fan, when my cameras switch to color in the daytime. Thanks!!

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Figured it out! I had to use two relays for each motorized function. One relay sends out "+" on one pole and "-" on another pole when "fired". The second relay does just the opposite. Used the NC contacts of dual pole relays . I used the NC contact of relays on my RF board to fire lens relays. In other words, my 12 relays RF board utilizes 10 of the relays (10 different frequencies) to control Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Focus , and Iris. Two relays each function. Can sit in living room and wirelessly control all functions. Works great.

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