Small robotic shed, stage two.

[ollypenrice]

Our 'single-robotic-scope' shed now has its roof on. Construction is simple with a 5x7cm timber frame for both lower and upper parts clad in 5mm marine ply. I've found that this is the cladding which bests resists the sunlight and this, here in SE France, is what does the most damage. I have some ply roll offs which are now ten years old and going strong. There seems to be no difference in longevity between the thick and the thin ply and since the thin stuff is much less expensive... thin it is! The main thing is the varnish. I find the top quality water based stuff is well worth its extra cost in UV resistance.

The roof is galvanized corrugated steel. Again this lasts pretty well indefinitely and never warps or cracks. It can also be bolted down convincingly.

There's a ply ceiling which I'll insulate to drive drips onto the walls where they will not affect the scope.

For the first time I've used inverted vee rails and matching steel vee section wheels. These were donated by Peter, one of our big robotic shed owners, and have seen service already on an observatory he built a while ago. They are brilliant, by far the best roof wheels I've ever used. They roll sweetly and allow the roof to be rolled with one finger. Getting the wheels just the right distance apart is critical with this design so I built the roof in two halves and temporarily bolted them in place with the wheels centered on the rails. Then I joined the two sides together by attaching the roof beams. This did the trick. The wheels run right on the vee of the rails.

What remains is to make the drop down flap for the south side. This will be the same as the one on the big shed. As the roof rolls open it lowers the flap and on closing it raises it. There will also be an anti-lift beam running below the rail supports to stop the roof escaping in the wind. And then the Italian imagers whol'll be using this one will be able to install their kit. (BTW Jonas just told me that in the last three months he's collected data from his robotic scope on 57 nights so that's good to know.)

This is the actuating system on the big shed and is the same as the one I'll build for the new one.

The new shed is small, just 1.6M square. It may look bigger than it is in pictures. It's more just a large box than anything else!

Olly

[Tinker1947]

Very nicely done Olly, also having the space make a big difference, my own roll-off the supports (scaffold poles) needed to be high enough to drive a car under....

[chrisvdberge]

looks very nice!

How will je motorize the roll off?

[laudropb]

Looking good. Would like something similar, but the wife is not keen.

[ollypenrice]

looks very nice!

How will je motorize the roll off?

Probably the same system as the big shed. On the back wall a garage door opener (a motor driving a sprocket) and on the roof a bicycle chain running from an extended arm on the front of the roof to the back. The extended arm just allows the roof to roll back well past the shed to avoid obstructing the views for the scope. The one on the big shed needed some considerable modding to cope with the load but the small shed roof rolls so easily that I think the standard issue garage door opener will do fine.

Instruction to open and close will simply be supplied from the big shed and its weather station.

Olly

[Mick J]

Looking very nice Olly, good stuff.

[chrisvdberge]

Probably the same system as the big shed. On the back wall a garage door opener (a motor driving a sprocket) and on the roof a bicycle chain running from an extended arm on the front of the roof to the back. The extended arm just allows the roof to roll back well past the shed to avoid obstructing the views for the scope. The one on the big shed needed some considerable modding to cope with the load but the small shed roof rolls so easily that I think the standard issue garage door opener will do fine.

Instruction to open and close will simply be supplied from the big shed and its weather station.

Olly

Sounds interesting. Probably will look into a garage door opener for my future astro-shed, will open a topic with some questions rather than hijacking this one  

thx and gl with the remainder of the work!  

[JohnC64]

Agree totally about the V-rails and wheels for smoothness.  They are very good and being an inverted V won't get clogged up or filled with water like a groove.

When I was  building the stud work walls for my obsy in the garage, I did look up at the garage door opener and wonder how I could incorporate one :-). 

Cheers John

[Vox45]

Wow great job there