sloz1664

7 hours ago, pete_l said:

With the next full moon coming up on Friday (Jan 10) it would be interesting to use that as a "standard candle".
If everyone who has a clear sky and some means of getting a number for sky brightness pointed their device at the Moon on that night, we could get some sort of idea how much variation there was between different instruments.

The "big if" is the clear night, unfortunately

Hi Hugh,

I'll have a good read tomorrow. I have now received the replacement components to rectify my cockups on the boards 😞

Steve

Hi Barry, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi Lee, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Fabulous thread Wim. It's great when a design turns into a practical solution., although I'm sorry to hear of your mishap and hope the recovery is 100%. Your next design is a "safe" path from your house to the Observatory.

Steve

Hi Paul, and a very warm welcome back to the Lounge

Steve

Hi Hugh,

Can't believe I've connected the capacitors wrong again., that's what happens when you think you have time and you haven't.  I've ordered new capacitors and MCP1826S-3302E/AB regulator. They should be here by next week. Time to do some more testing.

Steve

Hi Mark, and a very warm welcome back to the Lounge

Steve

Hi Jon, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi Hugh,

Happy New Year to you too.

I've been troubleshooting both boards and found the MCP1825 regulator is not functioning on the Static Board. I have 12v going into the 3302E (7805) and 5v out, but nothing in or out of the MCP1825. The Moving board voltages are ok. I've ordered a new MCP1825 and I'll try again. I do have continuity between the regulators & the respecting capacitors.

Steve

Hi Hugh,

Hope you've had a good Christmas and looking forward to the New Year. Finally had a chance to resurrect this project and after a few tweaks and a lot of cussing I finally  got the shutter motor circuit working correctly in SGPro. It does help having a circuit diagram, which I have mislaid, and had to resort to a failing memory & photo's I had taken during the initial build, many months ago. Connected both the Static & Moving bords into the circuit & added power. I had two red lights lit on the Static arduino & one green light lit on the Moving arduino. Initiated the Open Shutter command in SGPro and no movement from the motor, although one of the arduino red tx/rx lights blinked once on the Static board. I tried the Stop & Close commands, again no movement from the motor, although the red tx/rx light blinked once on each initiated command. There is definitely 12v dc going to each board.

Steve

Hi Dan, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi Paul, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi and a very warm welcome to the Lounge. Please inform whereabouts you are heading. I'm rather intrigued

Steve

Testing the circuits on both the moving & static boards I'm not getting a 12v circuit. just checking the component layouts I'm wondering if any of the "yellow" ceramic capacitors are polarized. normally they are not.

Steve

Hi Hugh,

Couldn't upload the static or moving sketches onto my nano's under the new Arduino v1.8.5 had to revert to my old trusty v1.6.4 which did the trick.

Steve

That's sorted it. I cannot understand why the Arduino software doesn't want to look in the C:\arduino\library folder, but will look in your document file.

Steve

Hi Hugh, still having issues with Arduino. I downloaded your files and added them into the Arduino Library folder, firstly within the src directory & when that didn't work I created a new dir RF24 and added the RF24 files, but still getting the "RF24.h file or directory not found"

Steve

Hope you are better now Hugh. I will address the software loading tomorrow and hopefully test this weekend as well, but with Christmas fastly approaching visitor numbers seem to increase.....

Steve

Hi Hugh,

Hardware all sorted now, but having problems with Arduino RF24.h. I've tried to verify the code and It cannot find the file or folder, although I have ensured all the required files are in the Arduino Library. Is there any preference for which RF24 driver software I should load?

Steve

41 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Not astro but tasty though. 😁

Brandy butter mince pies and sausage rollls collected from the local bakery. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

I only live in Sawley, I'll be round in a bit....

Steve

Hi Hugh

, Thanks for the heads up on the arduino code update. The velleman layout I have has the manual switches incorporated. I'll try to test by the weekend, but with it being the Christmas period, anything can happen. If I need switches I'll order the correct switches. In fact, thinking about it, I'm sure I have some of the switches. I'm a kleptomaniac regarding electrical components

Steve

Hi, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

1 hour ago, Jose Ignacio said:

I like your perspective R26 oldtimer 😀

Skipper Billy and sloz1664, thanks a lot for your first hand experience with the Linear. I called Avalon Instruments yesterday and they said they haven´t had complains about how the mount behaves in moderare wind conditions, but it is always reassuring to learn from experienced users.

I exchanged some emails with Lucas Mesu and he brought up that the new Mesu 200 MKII´s head is 10 kg lighter than the MKI. A 17 kg mount head with 100 kg load capacity. If you compare it price-wise with equivalent capacity premium mounts, it seems like a bargain to me.

My only concern with the new version of the Mesu would be ease of polar alignment. If I have to set up every night then I need to be able to get a good Polar Alignment in a reasonable amount of time. So, if there are any early adopters of the new mount with a non permanent setup it would be great to hear their perspective on this.

Difficult decision indeed....

Not mount related. But if one of your concerns is regarding ease of polar alignment, have a look at the QHY PoleMaster it's simple and, more importantly, quick in getting you polar aligned.

Steve