GM1000HPS - Unboxing

[perfrej]

It is most likely no less than 25 kgs. The setup in the picture below has now been on the bathroom scale. 22 kgs precisely. It is balanced with the weights you see. The thing in the video may well be up to 30 kgs...

[ribuck]

I wonder if 10m were a little conservative with their figures a bit like AP

[perfrej]

Velvet,

I have put the NEQ6 head only on the scale. It weighs in at 16.6 kgs. Very comparable to the 10Micron GM1000HPS.

/per

[perfrej]

I wonder if 10m were a little conservative with their figures a bit like AP

Looking at the mechanics, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case...

/per

[famax]

The video 's ota weight 16 Kg (Baader data ), strange that there's so much counterweight (24Kg) Maybe the gravity center of the Ota is to count in the equation.

By estimating what i see on the video, the counterweight gravity center is at 330mm from the axis , and the Ota gravity center at 500.

(330/500)x 24 = 16 Kg...

[Tim]

Per, where are you mounting the control box?

I'll pop out to my obsy and take a photo of mine in situ.

[ribuck]

Per out of interest why did you choose the external control box vs the neater internal box. Are there any benefits of the external box ?

[Tim]

Here's mine in situ, with 3 x 6kg counterweights. Also the 5 min unguided sub for reference. By this time the murkiness was very bad.

[perfrej]

Looks nice, Tim! I will put the control box on the pier like you...

Rick, I didn't actually choose, and I am uncertain whether the circular control box is actually available with the GM1000. Obviously, it is with the GM2000... I'll check on that

/per

[perfrej]

Good math, Famax!

/per

[famax]

Thx, Per

By the wau i'm reaing the mount manual and ther's a thing not clear on

6.3.2 it talk about "Use this in conjunction with the APEC

function to enable the maximum tracking accuracy: when both functions are

enabled, the control software will correct all inaccuracies resulting from its

pointing model and periodic (mechanical) errors."

I do not see evriwhere else in the manual the APEC function , any idea about this ?

thanks,

francois

[perfrej]

Famax,

That's the old manual. The December one for version 2.9.16 states:

6.3.2 Dual tracking

Press ENTER to activate or deactivate this function. When this function is active, the tracking will be done

on both axes in order to compensate the drift due to alignment errors and atmospheric refraction. The best

results can be obtained only if the system has been accurately aligned with multiple stars. We recommend

that you activate this function as your default.

I guess it was a remnant of sorts from previous manuals or even other mounts (QCI perhaps).

/per

[perfrej]

Control boxes...

I asked Baader about control box versions an here's the reply:

The detached control box has an big advantage:

You can take it away and store the electronics in house when you let the mount

outside in the garden in summertime for a few days.

Lots of customers have mounted the GM 1000 / 2000 fix in their observatory,

and when there is a bad weather period they remove the electronics too.

Furthermore in case of a defect it is easy to disassemble and send the box to

us for checking and repairing.

Almost nobody demanded the "round" built in control box in the last few month,

therefore 10micron has stopped production and will not offer it anymore.

All mounts are only available with separate version from now on.

For GM 1000 there was never an round control box in the offer.

Alas, the simple reply is that the 1000 never had a round one and the 2000/4000 mounts' round boxes have been discontinued.

/per

[famax]

Yes you 'r right after that i found :

http://forum.10micron.eu/viewtopic.php?t=183

This says that it's an error in the manual.

By the way, is there a possibility to just let the mount go, without any correction on both axis ? (as a simple mount..)

Would be nice to see how mechanics are doing there job.

[perfrej]

Just turn dual axis tracking off and clear the align info and it's a fairly dumb mechanical thing

[laser_jock99]

GM2000 looks like a great mount......I need to sell a kidney or something!

[perfrej]

Well, I'm not up for a straight trade yet... On a serious note, yes, the GM2000HPS is a heck of a mount. In fact, the GM1000HPS, although very capable, is dwarfed and feels rediculously small in comparison. Still, my initial tests with the 1000 show promise. The 2000 has given me one-hour subs unguided with perfectly round stars and I sure hope to get close to that with the 1000!

/per

[jldo69]

Tjenare Per,

I think you could ask 10 Micron for some kind of reward . I have been seriousely looking at these mounts for a while now but after I read your different posts I finally pulled the trigger on a GM 1000 HPS yesterday. It will replace my good old heq5 and will be used either in the garden shed or mobile.It's due to arrive shortly, and I have yet do decide on a suitable tripod for the mobile setup: Berlebach, Bader, Geoptik ?. I've seen 10micron will be offering a downsized centaurus for the GM 1000 but at 1500 € it's definitely out of my wallet's league.

[perfrej]

Haha! Yes, I should, shouldn't I? No, seriously, when you like a product and become somewhat obsessed with the concept that it stands for it is quite understandable that one recommends it to others. I have yet to see what the 1000 can deliver, but I am fairly confident that it will deliver.

Yesterday I read up on direct drive motor control. Tricky business and difficult to get right. I now understand why the ASA mounts have to have so much software support outside of the mount and "train" the system to the indivisual motor parameters. Maybe that technology is not yet mature enough to be built into the mount itself givien the somewhat limited computing power available ine there. The 10Micron way is an in-between solution with motors with encoders, belt drive to get rid of most of the traditional problems, and then a standard worm gear. Add to that very high precision encoders with a very tight control loop (which is difficult with the direct drive solutions) and you have your winner. At least in my world

The GM1000HPS is on the balcony pier now with the Tak FSQ106 and the QSI 683. I even had to add a 5kg weight to the bottom of the scope to get it to sit high enough in the saddle as my pier is sized for the GM2000HPS. The latter is much higher and the top plate on the pier is too large for the GM1000. I need a round 15-20cm extender...

Clouds, clouds...

/per

[simonct]

Hi Per,

Those are some very impressive bits of kit that you've got ! Apologies if this has already been answered elsewhere but does your model building software control the mount over ethernet using the LX200 command set ? I'm intrigued by where they could take this - given that the control box sounds like it's a Linux SBC, put something like indiserver (and maybe zeroconf) on there and you've got an entire remote observatory control system built into the mount.

Simon

[perfrej]

Simon,

Thanks

The 10Micron mounts use LX eumlation but have a bigger command set. For some reason, the LX ASCOM driver simply doesn't play well with the mounts, nor does the AP one. Personally, I doubt that said drivers will play well with any LX or AP scopes...

I developed my own driver, a driver which has now taken on a number of nifty features not found in other drivers that can talk to the 10Micron mounts. Several of the features are inspired by my own ideas and by "stupid" requests from Jonas Grinde (who has a GM2000HPS). When I say "stupid" I mean features that are novel and that you may not think of as driver feature in general, but Jonas asked for them (not knowing much about drivers) and I imlpemented them. The driver, by the way, never connected via anything but the Ethernet port. We both use the serial port for the GPS, and the GM2000HPS doesn't have the extra serial port that the GM1000HPS does.

So, we now had a driver and both got very much better results, both in pointing and in reliability - it was great to be able to trust the mount for a full night! Next we wanted to do pointing models without user intervention. We figured on plate solving as being the key and I eventually started work. Being a rather graphical guy I wanted a nice user interface and a cool way to build models. I implemented a plan projection map and a terrain mask feature. Next I added a polar map as well and model design could be done in either of them. The software started to feel like an essential tool in our astro work and niether of us has ever centered a star in an eypiece or a CCD since.

The model driver works best with my driver, the reason being that some commands are sent directly to the mount and I have taken great care to create robust and transpart communication while at the same time adhering to the ASCOM specs fully. So, basically you start the model maker, build or load your model and terrain mask, set your parmeters. Next you connect to the mount, then to MaximDL. Then you run it.

I actually created a very short movie of the process with connection to simulators. You can view it at http://filer.frejvall.se/model.swf.html

Now, the control box... I have, naturally, taken my GM2000HPS box apart It does contain an industrial SBC and supposively it runs Linux at the core. It does, however, only run a very specific loader for the firmware, which I think is around 2MB in size, and that's it. Of course you could run anything you want in there but remember that it is a real-time OS with high speed communication to very specific encoders as well as a servo motor controller in software. I wouldn't want to try to burden it with anything else...

The model maker is to be released in the following weeks. Right now I have to dash off to Houston and Calgary on business and will be back home on the 7th. So, a good guess is that the release will be a couple of days after that.

/per

[Steve25]

Just looked at your website. I am like the software.

Impresive stuff Per. Also like the review excellent read so far keep it up.

Steve

[perfrej]

Many thanks for your kind words, Steve!

/per

[simonct]

Yes, it's very interesting - I wasn't suggesting you jailbreak the mount though

I think though it might be an example of longer term trend of moving from point-to-point connections to more of a network of smart(ish) devices connected over IP, possibly wirelessly.

From my experience, the broadcast industry went through something similar a few years back when there was a move from tape and baseband to optical disc/solid state and metadata-rich workflows and I could see something similar happening here, at least at the higher end of the market.

Are the mount protocol specs available or do you have to buy one first ? Just wondering what sort of iPad app I could build for this

Simon

Btw, you could decouple the model builder from Maxim if you wanted to by using the astrometry.net solver; I've built a simple Mac app that uses it and integrating with it's pretty easy.

[perfrej]

Ditto on the broadcasting side. I have been involved in choir singing on a fairly high level since 4th grade (still on) and have been actively recording since the mid 70's. The stuff I use today outshines anything available in the 70's in in all aspects but hthe microphones. Still use tube ones there

The mount protocol is very available, but I guess you only get the files when you install the software that comes with the mount.

Yes, I'd like to get initiated to PinPoint independance. It is a formidable engine albeit somewhat expensive I will have to look into astronomy.net!

/per