New RTC4 Board Interface
At the Laser 2003 trade show, SCANLAB AG will introduce its RTC 4 PC Interface Board. The RTC 4 is the newest member of SCANLAB's very successful family of PC interface boards for controlling scan heads via the digital transfer protocol or SCANLAB's optical data interface.
![](/sites/default/files/styles/news_image/public/2020-06/Scanlab_Presse-_News_Stage.jpg?h=1875f112&itok=BUE6kz5o)
Expanding on the functionality of its predecessor, the RTC 4 can communicate with the processors integrated in SCANLAB's new intelliSCAN scan heads. The RTC 4 can transfer current status parameters of the scan head axes (e.g. position, speed, amplifier current) to the PC in real time – useful, for example, in scan head control for high-precision and medical applications. Additionally, the RTC 4 can query the extended diagnosis functions of digital scan heads for information such as motor and scan head temperatures, accumulated operating hours, serial number, scan head type and date-of-manufacture. Furthermore software commands allow selection of various scan head tuning profiles to optimize performance for particular processing tasks.
The RTC 4 offers more memory and faster performance than its RTC 3 predecessor, which makes possible an enhanced software instruction set. Among the new instructions is an advanced arc command which supplements standard arc parameters via polygonal approximations.
The RTC 4 is supplied with DLL drivers for Windows XP/2000/NT4/ME/9x and is backward-compatible with the RTC 3 PC Interface Board. Expansion modules are available for controlling three-axis, dual-head and processing-on-the-fly scan systems. The RTC 4 is equipped with 16 digital inputs and 16 digital outputs for real-time control of external components. And SCANLAB's optional RTC I/O Board provides additional analog inputs and outputs.