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The Skytee 2 Synscan GOTO Mount

johninderby

By johninderby
in Discussions - Mounts

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johninderby

johninderby

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The Skytee 2 Synscan GOTO Mount

I've been working on a little project for the past couple of months and have finally got it the way I want it. Originally I had wanted to motorise the mount so that I could control it with a hand-control pad rather than having to reach for the inconveniently mounted slo-mo controls.

I'm not going into real detail now, but I will post something shortly with proper details of exactly how I went about doing the mod. The Skytee 2 mount was not modified in any way for the GOTO installation, although I carried a few other mods, but they weren't necessary for installing the Synscan. The GOTO was purely a bolt on using existing bolt holes. Of course an equatorial wedge is needed, so I designed and built one using thick Acetal plate. Very solid yet compact and fully adjustable.

After examining the guts of the mount it soon became clear that Skywatcher had used as many EQ5 parts as possible, including the worm gears so the gear ratios were standard EQ5. A few more measurements and I believed that the EQ5 drives could be fitted. It was tricky fitting the motors though as there was barely enough clearance to allow the drive gears to mesh. The first version involved fitting EQ5 dual drive motors. It tracked OK, and the drives could be disengaged and the slo-mo knobs used, but it wasn't much use for slewing. Just too slow. So I got hold of a Synscan EQ5 GOTO upgrade kit. After the experience of fitting the dual drives earlier I was able to re-design and improve the mounting brackets so that the motors would bolt on using the standard mounting bolts.

There are a few other mods that you may have noticed. I moved the ADM saddle for the upper mounting point to the end of the mount. Makes balancing two OTAs in Alt-Az much easier as no counterweight is needed. As the upper saddle mounting point was now empty I fitted a Berlebach saddle. Very useful in Alt-Az for mounting a finder or small scope.

Last night I pointed the mount approximately north using a compass, did a one star align, manually correcting the position after it slewed to the alignment star and then slewed to Jupiter. Not quite in the FOV but considering it wasn't properly aligned not too bad. Centered Jupiter in a 25mm eyepiece and left it to see how long it would remain in the FOV. After an hour Jupiter was still dead centre, after an hour and a half Jupiter was still fairly near the centre. After two hours Jupiter was still in the FOV, although about two thirds of the way out to the edge. Yes I think it tracks. :):D:D

So it can now be used as an EQ GOTO mount or a powered Alt-Az mount. I've got the EQMOD cable and gamepad now and have carried out a brief test and it all looks OK. It may be possible to get it to work as a GOTO in Alt-Az as when I flashed the hand control to Alt-Az mode it controlled the mount OK, but it wouldn't allow you to carry out an alignment. Needs some further investigation. Now all I need is someone to write "AZMOD". :p

John

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  • 1 month later...
moflaher

moflaher

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Hi John: Quite interesting mod. I was thinking about the alignment failure in AZ mode. It will be possible to use skycharts and the ascom driver, do a pair of "syncs" with know stars and see what happens?

PS: I am simply trying to avoid buying an expensive wedge...

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johninderby

johninderby

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I did further investigation and found it would require encoders on the motors for Alt-Az GOTO. Alt-Az turns out to be much more complicated than EQ as the position has to adjusted constantly whereas with EQ just controlling the motor speed is enough.

However there's no technical reason it wouldn't work with a GOTO system with motors that have encoders. Someday I may pickup a Meade mount that has the requisite motors/encoders and adapt the motors and controllers although I'd probably need new gears or a belt drive to make it work.

However I'm happy with the result as it still gives me a mount that can be controlled with a hand control in Alt-Az even if it's not a GOTO mount, and of course just slipping the wedge into place makes it a great EQ mount.

John

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  • 4 months later...
Telescope40

Telescope40

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Hi John. No, just the price for the saddle thank you very much. Just aquired one of these. had a quick go a couple of nites back. Great piece of kit. I'm looking to mount my 20 x 80 binos plus my ED100 at the same time.

Slow mo cables already on order.

Thx for the info as always.

John

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Frank the Troll

Frank the Troll

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Thats it! - Impressed, youv'e made my mind up

And Im Sold

Will call FLO in the morning

Would it cope with a custom homemade lightweight 10" and a light 6" orion, although some spec's say both mounts can cope with upto 15k, I sure I saw somewhere one mount is only upto 5k

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johninderby

johninderby

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I'm not sure just how much weight the Skytee 2 can handle in Alt-Az but suspect well over 15kg on each side. That is if you added another saddle to the other end of the mount as I did. I think you'd be limited to about 5 kg on the top saddle as the centre of the weight is well above the axis of the mount, unlike the side saddle where the weight is centered along the axis.

I've found the mount will handle a 6 or 7kg OTA on the side saddle without having to use a counterweight.

Here's the mount with a 16kg Meade 10"SNT OTA on one side. Balanced perfectly and the OTA could be moved with just a fingertip.

John

post-14522-133877746119_thumb.jpg

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johninderby

johninderby

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Re: having saddles mounted on each end of the mount. The Stellarvue MG2 version of the Skytee 2 does come with saddles on each end and no top saddle. Don't know why SkyWatcher doesn't do this as the parts are available off the shelf and it just works better.

Yes better saddles like the AMDs are a must.

John

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