Thanks C. The big question is how can I replace or upgrade the existing firmware. How do I program the micro controller. Where can I find information. I have a schematic of the power supply. If someone is willing to help I can email it.
Think that is to large of a first step for you. If you do much in electronics these days, you use a micro controller in some way at times, good thing to learn.
First you learn now to use and work with micro controllers.
Part of the learning is to learn how to program the micro controller.
Firmware is just a program loaded into the micro controller.
You break a huge program into small steps. When all the needed small steps work properly you have the huge program.
A program to read an encoder is not a huge first step past the blink an led program.
Do some searching on the web.