Stepper motor-driven optical shutter SmartShutter™

The SmartShutter® is designed to complement our growing line of optical products and sets a new standard for shutter performance and reliability. In the traditional shutter design there are two or more “leaves” that rub against each other. Given time, the blades will wear down, bind, and the shutter will fail to open. The SmartShutter is designed with only one moving part, which virtually eliminates the effects of wear and markedly improves performance. In the traditional shutter design there is an additional issue of the leaves binding in extreme temperature conditions. Our improved design uses heat resistant material that performs well under very high temperature conditions, extending the life of the shutter. The SmartShutter incorporates a new high-performance motor drive and precision stepper-motor to provide added control and durability. Traditional shutters use a solenoid actuator requiring a high initial opening voltage for rapid opening of the shutter. This can overheat or burn out the coil of the shutter if the shutter is opened too frequently. With our microprocessor controlled motor/wiper design, we can control the trajectory of each move and optimize the motion of the blade for speed or for smoothness. The SmartShutter, in either the 25 mm or 35 mm version, operates with open/close times of 8msec from the command (3msec from the start of motion). Since our robust design does not rely on over-driving the windings, we can achieve continuous operation at certain frequencies up to 40 Hz for the 25 mm version and 20 Hz for the 35 mm model.