/blog/articles/ Recent content in Articles on Optec, Inc. Hugo en Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 /blog/2025/09/24/making-the-new-thirdlynx-circuit-board/ Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000 /blog/2025/09/24/making-the-new-thirdlynx-circuit-board/ <p>The Optec ThirdLynx family is one of our most popular product lines. The ThirdLynx focus motors are used to automate an existing focuser with fully integrated electronics, no external controller required. But after several years it was time to upgrade the classic.</p> <p>We knew that we wanted to make the new ThirdLynx use a USB C port instead of the USB B port on the original design. We also wanted to miniaturize the board, moving to a single board instead of a stack of two. This led to something new, Optec’s first four-layer PCB. While working on the improvements we also added an improved stepper driver and modernized some of the other electronics.</p> /blog/2024/12/09/network-access-any-optec-device-using-a-raspberry-pi/ Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000 /blog/2024/12/09/network-access-any-optec-device-using-a-raspberry-pi/ <h3 id="introduction">Introduction</h3> <p>Sometimes you would like to be able to connect remotely to a device, either over ethernet or WiFi. However, not all devices support ethernet or WiFi natively. Phones may not be able to directly connect to a device via USB or Serial. This article demonstrates how to use an Optec ThirdLynx (or any other Optec product with an Alpaca Driver) over the network using a Raspberry Pi to host the driver. It will show configurations for when there is an existing network and how to configure a new WiFi network from the Raspberry Pi.</p>