Design, development, and production of the ELT M1 Segment Concentrator

The ELT M1 Segment Concentrator cabinet grew from the need to optimize the power consumption of the control electronics for all M1 Segment Assemblies. Since these are located below the segment assemblies the main challenges were the demanding heat dissipation requirements while keeping the electronics within reasonable working temperatures. To minimize the heat dissipation bespoke heat exchangers were design and tested. A PLC based Power Distribution and Control Unit was design to control and monitor a 24VDC power supply that distributes power to all subsystems pertaining to 7 segments subunits hosted by the M1 Segment Concentrator. It provides feedback to the M1LCS at all times, and more importantly during maintenance operations, and during the segment exchange operation. 132 M1 Segment Concentrators distributed across the M1 Cell host the control electronics of the 798 M1 Segment Subunits that shape the ELT primary mirror. This paper presents the design challenges during the design phase of the segment concentrator and how they were solved in order to finalize its design, their production and currently their integration during the ELT AIV phase.