The Micro Medical Super Spiro is a data recording spirometer consisting of a microcomputer
unit (1) incorporating a 1/4VGA colour LCD display, data entry keypad, RS232 serial interface and all
associated circuitry. It is supplied with a digital volume transducer (2), disposable mouthpieces,
transducer holder (3) and mains adapter (4). The Super Spiro is powered by a universal mains
adapter (4).
When testing a subject the transducer is inserted into the holder which is plugged into the
microcomputer unit. The digital volume transducer is used to measure the subjects expired flow and
volume in accordance with the operating manual.
1
super
spiro
4
Micro
Medical
3
2
5
Transducer (Fig. 2)
The Micro Medical digital volume transducer consists of an acrylic tube with a vane positioned
between two swirl plates. The low inertia vane is attached to a stainless steel pivot, which is free to
rotate on two jewelled bearings mounted at the centre of the swirl plates. As air is passed through the
transducer the swirl plates create a vortex, which causes the vane to rotate in a direction dependant
upon the direction of airflow. The number of rotations is proportional to the volume of air passed
through the transducer and the frequency of rotation is proportional to the flow rate. The transducer
housing consists of a main body that contains a pair of light emitting diodes (LED’s) and
phototransistors. The transducer is fixed to the mouthpiece holder which pushes into the main body
and is captured by an “O” ring seal. The LED’s produce infra red beams which are interrupted by the
vane twice per revolution. This interruption is sensed by the phototransistors. The output from the
collector of each phototransistor will be a square wave with a phase difference between the two of +
or - 90 degrees depending upon the direction of flow.
There is no routine maintenance required for the transducer other than cleaning according to
the instructions in the operating manual.
Micro Medical Digital Volume Transducer
Volume proportional to the number of pulses
Flow proportional to the puse frequency
Rotating
vane
Volume = k X No. of pulses
Infra red
emitter
Infra red
detector
Swirl
plate
Flow = k / pulse period
Jewelled
bearing
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Disassembling the Super Spiro for Repairs
Main Unit
1. Disconnect all mains power supplies
2. Remove paper roll and paper roll housing cover, and put to one side
We recommend that you use a Philip Number Zero screwdriver for the following
instruction.
3. Place the Super Spiro face down to remove the six screws (Item 19) in the lower moulding, and
put the screws to one side.
4. Turn the unit face up before easing the upper and lower mouldings apart.
5. Reconnect mains power supply
6. The Super Spiro is now ready for fault finding.
Display Console
1. Remove the 4 screw covers (item 15) and dispose of.
We recommend that you use a Philip Number Zero screwdriver for the following
instruction.
2. Remove the 4 screws (item 16) and put to one side.
3. Carefully remove the display front panel (item 7) and put to one side.
4. Carefully pull the display away from the display back moulding (item 8).
5. Unplug the 2 connectors from the main display.
6. The display backlight is now ready for replacement.
Display backlight replacement
DISPLAY (REAR VIEW)
CFL CONNECTORINVERTOR BOARD
CFL UNIT
1. Place the display face down on a clean work surface
7
FIXING SCREW
I
T
KCS3224A CFL UN
2. Unplug the connector from the Invertor board situated on the back of the display.
We recommend that you use a Philip Number Zero screwdriver for the following
instruction.
3. Loosen the fixing screw located on the CFL unit.
4. Slide the CFL unit to the opposite direction to the arrow mark (located on the CFL unit) and pull
the unit gently up.
5. Safely dispose of the CFL unit.
6. Take a new CFL unit and position in the original place.
7. Slide the CFL unit in the direction of the arrow.
8. Tighten the fixing screw to secure the CFL unit.
9. Reconnect the connector on the CFL unit to the invertor board.
Reassembling the Superspiro after repairs
Main unit
1. Disconnect all mains power supplies
2. Position the top moulding over the bottom moulding and ensure that they both mate ensuring that
the contrast wheel (item 14) is correctly located.
3. Place the Super Spiro face down and insert the six screws.
4. Turn the unit face up and connect the mains supply.
5. Turn the unit and offer up the paper roll as explained in the operating manual.
6. Replace the paper cover.
7. The Super Spiro is now ready for operation.
Display console
1. Reconnect the 2 connectors on item 4 to the plugs on the display ensuring correct polarity.
2. Position the display over the locating pillars on the display back panel (item 8).
3. Position the display front panel (item 7) over the display.
4. Secure the display using 4 screws (item 16)
5. Replace the 4 screw covers (item 15).
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Circuit Description
The Super Spiro board was designed primarily to interface with the Micro Medical Spirometer turbine,
but the interface was kept open ended so that other modules, for example, airways resistance by the
interrupter method (Rint) can be attached. Furthermore, a 9 pin ‘D’ type connector was also designed
in to allow other ‘customer special’ modules to be attached. Provision was given to add a mezzanine
board for customer special interface circuitry to be connected.
The main features of the design are:
Intel 80386EX micro controller.
2 Mbytes of DRAM (only 1 Meg is used).
512 Mbytes of Flash EPROM for programme. (256K used)
2 Mbytes of Flash EPROM as Flash disk memory.
Dual frame store of 320 X 240 X 8 pixels.
Second frame store can be scrolled horizontally or vertically.
Frame store, key pad, Dram etc. are all controlled by single FPGA chip.
Boot software can be downloaded using the JTAG port.
In built printer and printer controller.
Serial port for external PC communication / external printer.
RJ11 interface to Micro Medical modules.
The following paragraphs describe the circuits printed at the end of this manual. Signal and
component names shown on the circuit diagrams are printed in bold type.
Microprocessor circuit (Drawing 056-02)
The board is controlled by an Intel 80386EX, U14, running at 25 MHz. The crystal oscillator, U15, of
50MHz drives the processor, as twice the operating frequency is required. U10 (MAX 824) controls
the reset of the processor, such that it resets the processor if the supply voltage drops below 4.6V.
The processor requires a high active reset line whilst the rest of the board requires a low active reset.
The start up program is stored in U20, a 512 Mbytes Flash EEPROM – TE28F160S. This is selected
by the signal UCS (U14 pin 1) which is always active on start up. The reset of the chip select lines
are then programmed by the boot routine.
The program memory has two major parts, the boot section and non-boot section. The boot section is
secured, and can only be programmed if the link LK1 is present and VPPEN (U14 pin 110) is
enabled, supplying VCC to pin 13 of U19. This section is programmed with a boot loader via the onboard socket, J9. Whilst this is happening the processor goes into suspend mode, and all its pins are
then available in a long shift register. By entering a correct sequence of code, via J9, the boot loader
can be programmed into U19. Once this is done, the link is removed and processor is reset and it
would then run the boot loader, thus allowing further software to be downloaded. The rest of U19 is
filled with kernel software that controls the flash disk as well as most I/O functions, just as the BIOS
does in the PC.
U18 is 1M X 16 (2 Mbytes) DRAM which is the main RAM of the processor. Only 640 K is directly
available to the processor, and 128 K is used for storing the display image temporarily (see later).
The DRAM refresh and address multiplexing is controlled by U13 – Xilinx XC4006E FPGA. The chip
select for the DRAM, UC3, is mapped for 0 - $BFFFF, but $A0000 - $BFFFF is frame store memory,
so UC3 is only valid if frame store is invalid. This will become clearer in the Frame Store section.
Q23, Q24 and U22A are used to switch on 5 volts to VPP of Flash EEPROM. This gives extra
security against any part of the program becoming corrupted by software. However, the software can
write the non-boot section, by enabling the VPP line and following the EEPOM erase/write algorithm.
Chances of both these events accidentally happening are very small. Nevertheless, the boot software
is completely protected by the absence of Link LK1.
9
Flash Disk (Drawing 056-02)
The flash disk, U20, behaves just like a PC floppy disk drive except that it is non-removable. Its size
is 2 Mbytes with sector size of 512 bytes. The main difference is that there is a finite number
(approximately 100,000) of times the sectors can be written, so an intelligent disk operating system is
employed to rotate the sectors round, and delete the others when no system activity is envisaged.
Delete takes few milliseconds. The Flash Disk is mapped at $C8000 - $CBFFF (16K blocks). There
are 128 pages of 16K, and the pages are controlled by 8 bit latch U17, which holds the page number
(higher addresses) of the Flash disk.
The board is designed to accommodate a larger 4 Mbytes device with 256 pages.
The MSB of the page line (U17/19) is connected to green led. This is mainly used for testing of the
board and has no other significance.
Serial Interface (Drawing 056-02)
U4 (MAX3223) converts logic levels to RS232 levels. J3, a 9-pin female D type connector, is used as
the external RS232 port. The signal pins are such that it can make one to one connection with the PC
serial port. It has the facility to use hardware handshaking lines CTS and RTS, but these are currently
not used. If power supply is required from the RS232 connection, say to drive a serial to parallel
converter, then fuse FS2 can be fitted to give 5V on pin 4
The connector, J13, is used for connecting to Micro Medical transducers, namely Spirometer turbine,
Rint and NEP transducers. It is a 6-pin interface, though for turbine, the middle 4 lines are used. 12V
power is available on pin 5 and GND on pin 4. The rest of pins are multifunction, and can be
configured in various ways, either as inputs, outputs or SPI bus. Pins 2 and 3 have schmitt trigger
inputs connected to it, mainly for turbine operation.
Frame Store (Drawing 056-03)
Frame Stores are mapped from address $A0000 to $BFFFF (128 Kbytes). Although, the actual
display is 320 X 240 pixels, the frame store is organised as 512 X 256 pixels. This organisation
makes the design much simpler. The frame store memory U11 and U12 are both high speed static
RAM, U11 being a fixed frame store (A) and U12 a scrolling frame store (B). They overlay on top of
each other and their mode can be controlled by I/O register in the FPGA, U13. It can be organised as
A on B, B on A, A only or B only. A on B means that where the A data is 0, B data is displayed. This
allows a border to be displayed on fixed screen, and a waveform scrolled inside the window.
During read, both the memories are multiplexed, so that its data can be read in one cycle. The
display requires data as 8 bits, with r1, g1, b1, r2, g2, b2, r3, g3 as the first byte, b3, r4, g4, b4, r5, b5,
g5, r5 as the second byte and so on. The data from frame store is available as pixel 1, pixel 2 etc.
with each pixel being 8 bits. The FPGA has the necessary look up table to display 64 colours (bits 0 –
10
bits 5) and converts pixel data to RGB data as required by LCD. This is a complex operation and is
beyond the scope of this document. It is sufficient to know that the RGB data is sent out to LCD via
J11.
DISP_FRAME signal is a single line, active low pulse at the start of every frame.
DISP_LOAD is a single, active low, clock pulse at the start of every line.
DISP_CLK clocks the data DISP_D0 – DISP_D7 into the display.
DISP_CNTL enables the display.
U25 is a DC to DC converter to give 26.4 volts from 5V supply. This is the bias voltage for the LCD
display. It can be slightly adjusted by VR1 to give better contrast at different viewing angles.
J10 is a back light connector that provides power to the back light. Q22 is used to enable the back
light. It was designed for power saving, but since the unit only operates on mains, this feature is not
currently used. VR3 controls the back light intensity in some back light modules, but this feature is not
in the modules currently fitted.
The frame store data can be saved quickly in the RAM that resides in the same address space, using
a block transfer. This is done by first programming the CS3 line to address space $A0000 - $AFFFF.
Since $B0000 - $BFFFF is now not the part of CS3, the FPGA will map it to DRAM. The whole 64K
page can be transferred from $A0000 (frame store) to $B0000 (RAM). The CS3 line is then
programmed for $B0000 - $BFFFF allowing $B0000 (frame store) page to be transferred to $A0000
(RAM) page. CS3 is then restored back to $A0000 - $BFFFF.
Restoring the screen is inverse of the above procedure.
FPGA (Drawing 056-03)
This device controls most of the circuitry not controlled by the processor. The program for the FPGA
resides in serial EEPROM, U8, and is downloaded once on power up. The processor monitors the
FPGADONE line to ensure that FPGA is programmed before commencing, otherwise, the DRAM will
not be operational.
Besides DRAM, the FPGA controls the LCD display, keypad, sound chip, and most of chip select
lines. These CS lines can be programmed in the processor, but this can be further qualified in the
FPGA if necessary. There are some spare serial enable lines for an additional 9 pin I/O port and the
mezzanine expansion board.
Keypad Circuit (Drawing 056-04)
The keypad consists of a matrix of 25 keys together with a separate paper feed key and on/off key.
The matrix is read by successively pulling the columns of the matrix low, KEYOUT[0..4], and reading
the state of the rows, KEYIN[0..4], to determine which key has been pressed. KEYOUT[0..4] and
KEYIN[0..4] are connected directly to the FPGA (see 056-03). The diodes, D7and D8, prevent
current flowing between the lines of KEYOUT[0..4] in the event of two keys on the same row being
depressed simultaneously. The resistor network, RN5, bias KEYIN[0..4] to VCC.
The on/off switch is used to apply the 5V from the external power supply to the circuit, VCC, and
turning the unit on. When the on/off key is depressed, the pull up resistor, R3, is pulled to ground.
R3, C17 and the schmitt input gate U3A form a de-bounce circuit whose output is applied to the clock
input of a bi-stable latch, U2B, that is powered directly from 5V and is active all the time the power
supply is plugged in. The output of the latch is applied to Q19 that in turn switches the series pass
transistor, Q20, to connect 5V to VCC. The latch, U2B, is also controlled by the set and reset inputs.
By taking the set input to 5V the unit will be turned on and by taking the reset input to 5V the unit will
be turned off regardless of the clock input. The set input is asserted by either the real time clock
alarm output, RTC_INT (see 056-05), or by the POWER_ON signal from the processor (see 056-02).
The reset input is asserted or by the POWER_OFF signal from the processor.
11
Real Time Clock Circuit (Drawing 056-05)
The real time clock, U16, is set by the processor during the factory set-up and may be adjusted using
the configuration module. The processor communicates with the real time clock through a bidirectional serial interface line, RCA_DATA, is clocked by RTS_CLK, and is selected by RTC_SEL.
The processor (see 056-02) generates these three control lines.
Sound Generator Circuit (Drawing 056-05)
The various sounds used in the spirometry tests are generated by U7 and associated components.
This device contains the addressable, pre-programmed sounds and is controlled by the lines,
SNDCNT[0..5], generated by the FPGA (see 056-03).
Printer Control Circuit (Drawing 056-06)
The printer driver uses a single chip micro-controller, U6, with on board program memory and RAM to
receive serial data from the microprocessor, U14, and control the printer mechanism. The
asynchronous serial lines PRNTDATA and PRNTACK are used by U14 to send and receive data to
and from U6. The signal BUSY generated by U6 is used to control the flow of data from U14 and PF
is generated by the paper feed key.
The printer mechanism uses stepper motors to drive the print head and paper feed. Each stepper
motor uses four lines, driven sequentially. The order in which the lines are driven determines the
direction of rotation. The thermal print head uses eight heater elements. The stepper motors and
print head signals are generated on port A and B (active high) of U6. Timing for Port A and B is
derived from an adjustable oscillator comprising of U9 and associated components. Adjusting VR2
varies the oscillator frequency and consequently the period for which the thermal elements are
energised. This in turn adjusts the print density. After the micro-controller is first reset, the print head
is driven to the left until the end switch is activated. The end switch consists of a normally closed pair
of contacts accessed at pins 1 and 2 of the printer connector J2. The end switch is detected by PD5
on the micro-controller.
Expansion (Drawing 056-05)
J8 and J12 are 10-pin header connectors that allow a mezzanine card to be fitted. This is used for
future customer special circuitry. Similarly, J14 is placed near the output plate on the right side of the
unit to allow customer special signals to be connected to the mezzanine board or to the processor
directly.
Printer Driver Circuits (Drawings 056-07 and 056-08)
The outputs from port A and B of U6 drives the two stepper motors and eight thermal elements
through the high current transistors Q1 to Q16 in common emitter configuration. Diodes D1 to D4 are
used to dissipate the inductive fly-back from the stepper motors and elements.
Power Supply
An external, dual voltage, supply provides 5.5 volts and 12 volts to socket J1 (Drawing 056-05). This
power supply has a universal input, is factory sealed, and contains no user serviceable parts.
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Technical Support
Great Britain and World Headquarters
Micro Medical Ltd
PO Box 6
Rochester
Kent ME1 2AZ
Telephone + 44 (0)1634 360044
Fax +44 (0)1634 360055
Web Site http://www.micromedical.com.uk
Email support@micromedical.com.uk
Contact Micro Medical Ltd for the local agent in your region or country for local service:
13
Fault Analysis
The following analysis is only a guideline and should be carried out in a logical sequence. If the fault
is still apparent after the following suggestions then the unit should be fault found using the circuit
descriptions and circuit diagrams provided.
When the unit is turned on there is no display present
-Ensure charger is turned on at the mains.
FVC readings are low
-Remove turbine from transducer housing. Taking the turbine, move it slowly through the air and
check that the vane is not sticking.
The unit does not record any blows
-Inspect transducer housing connector for damage.
-Check that transducer housing lead is properly connected to the RJ11 socket.
-Remove turbine from transducer housing. Taking the turbine, move it slowly through the air and
check that the vane is not sticking.
-Blow into transducer housing and move transducer head cable around to check for breaks in the