Automated equipment and technology for spacecrafts waveguide path soldering

Automated technology and specialized equipment for induction soldering of spacecraft aluminum alloy waveguide path are presented. The equipment consists of induction generator and the set of inductors for different sizes of waveguide path. The equipment is controlled from the industrial computer by the information from pyrometers, which control the temperature near soldering zone. As a result of temperature field allocation research, the inductor designs are developed and optimized. This allows closing the maximum heating zone to the zone of soldering. The requirements for waveguide path positioning precision in the inductor are defined, which provides workpiece heating uniformity and its temperature aligning. The automated system software was developed, that provides pyrometers automated calibration, workpiece heating control and temperature stabilization in a narrow temperature range - lower than waveguide path melting and higher than solder melting. The software product is realized on the C++ language in the C++ Builder 6.0 programming system using object-oriented approach. The interface between software and hardware is realized by the COM-ports with WinApi, between software and PCI1710-card - by the third-party library bdaqctrl.h, which is distributed free of charge. The developed software has intuitively understandable man-machine interface in the standard Windows-application style, which allows inexperienced users to work with this system. The usage of this software let us to automate soldering process, to raise the waveguide path quality and to avoid of burnings. The video control provides the process remote control and electromagnetic impact avoidance. Also the bank of waveguide path soldering technological regimes was developed, that provides soldering process registration and documentation.