sloz1664

Hi and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Thanks for that John. I know of the trials and tribulations of the 125 and that's why I stated " a nice woking example. A sad, sad day when Tal closed its doors.

Steve

I would have loved to have had a nice working example of this scope

Steve

Hi Ben, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

I wish you luck on persuading Shropshire Council. Also, hope the build and installation goes to smooth and to plan.

Steve

Hi Zynch, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Dave, that... is mightily impressive  

Steve

Excellent account of your visit to the Observatory of Mallorca Victor. I will be holidaying in Mallorca next year & will certainly be visiting the Observatory.

Steve 

That is some"beast" of a mount, can't wait to see photos of it set-up and loaded with the ODK12

Steve

Hi, and a very warm welcome back to the Lounge

Steve

Excellent news Gina

Steve

Hi, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Hi, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Note: The electronics of the rain sensor reacts to the electrical conductivity of the water. Now we have found that there are areas where absolutely uncontaminated rainwater falls (distilled water). The sensor does not respond to it. The rain must have a slight amount of contamination (dust particles, smoke, etc. ), so that the water is electrically conductive and triggers the sensor. In 99% of the areas in Germany, the rainwater is conductive. If the sensor does not work for you, please install it so that the rain water runs off a small canopy or something else before the water comes into contact with the sensor. If the water falls directly from the cloud in its purest form on to the sensor and it is not triggered, then it is sufficient, if the water runs onto the sensor via a small board or from a canopy. Then the water will have absorbed enough contamination to be electrically conductive and to trigger the sensor. Of course, install the sensor at an angle so that the water runs of it.

Once you affix your rain sensor in position, air pollutants will settle onto the sensor. If, and it's a big if, in this country "pure" rainwater hits the sensor it will mix with the contaminents anyway.

Steve

23 hours ago, hughgilhespie said:

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the shutter motor schematics. Please can you email me the schematic directly as my tired, old eyes have trouble reading it on here. I assume that your Pulsar only has one shutter and you will not need the limit switches for the 'lower shutter'? I also think that your choice of lever-operated micro switches is a good one. I have had bad experiences with trying to use magnetic reed switches, they have too much hysteresis to allow accurate mechanical positioning. 

So, from what I can gather, you already have the relays and the lever operated micro switches. So, the shutter radio control module needs to have the following:

A 12 volt to 5 volt power supply.

nRF24 / Nano board to receive the incoming signals from the static board 

A way of boosting the Nano outputs to drive the K5 and K6 relay coils. This will be a ULN2803a chip which is the same driver as used on the K8055.

 

The static radio control module needs to have:

A 12 volt to 5 volt power supply.

nRF24 / Nano board to receive the incoming signals from the Velleman K8055 board, pins DO5 and DO6 and to send signals to the two K8055 Analog inputs.

There are some interesting optional extras for the static module. There are plenty of GPIO  pins unused on the Nano and one of these could be used for say monitoring a rain sensor that activates a relay when rain is detected to automatically close the shutter if it rains. I use a Hydreon RG11 that has a built in relay for this.  https://shop.weatherstations.co.uk/hydreon-rg-11-optical-rain-sensor-800-p.asp

 

When I've finished making the two nRF24/Nano boards I will do a strip board design for the shutter radio module.  The strip board will carry the nRF24/Nano board and the ULN2803 chip and the 12 volt to 5 volt regulator components. 

Regards,

Hugh

 

Brilliant Hugh, pm'd you btw. and thanks for your input. I am in the process of building Robert Brown's MySQM meter  and have a cloudwatcher system, which I will integrate into the shutter circuit. I will be very interested in your finished strip board design for the shutter radio module.

Steve

Hi, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Just done a quick APP & Pix process with your images. APP threw up a a warning of no bias frames, which you should gather for your camera:-

Steve

Hi Jessica, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge 

Steve

Hugh, here's a better schematic for the shutter control:-

Steve

Hi Hugh, forgot to add, the shutter travel would be controlled by lever actuated limit switches and the circuit would be self contained. I have built the circuit using a spare K8055 board and it works well.

Steve

Hi Hugh, thanks for replying so promptly. Yes, I am adept at soldering and have built quite a few arduino projects around Mr R Brown's astro gems. Code I am not familiar with at all. I am controlling the shutter motor via the following wiring diagram:-

The motor would be driven a 12v battery mounted on the dome and I presume the wireless control would be via Digital pins 5 & 6.

Steve

On 09/04/2018 at 11:37, hughgilhespie said:

Hi Peter,

My solution, which is based around the Lesvedome / VellemanVM110, is to have the main control box mounted on the static part of the observatory. I added an Arduino based controller to the Velleman system. The Velleman board responds to the Lesvedome ASCOM driver and rather than using the Velleman outputs to switch the  motor control relays on or off directly, the output signals are picked up by my homebrew Arduino board. This board then controls the motors. I actually use stepper motors but you could just as easily use the Arduino board to control relays to switch DC motors on/off. The big advantage of sending the motor control signals via an Arduino is that you can use fairly cheap wireless modules to send the signals to another battery powered Arduino / relay motor controller mounted on the rotating dome.

I realise this is a bit daunting if you are not comfortable with using Arduinos or similar but it does make for a fairly straightforward solution to automating the dome shutter. My system using stepper motors could be much simplified to become a relay driven system. In fact, thinking about it you could use the classic Lesvedome VM110 relay circuit for the dome rotation and all you would need to add for remote shutter control would be two ready made boards, Sparkfun Teensy 3.1 XBee adapters available from Cool Components in the UK, together with the Teensy 3.2 and XBee modules and probably a relay board. 

If this is of any interest please send me a PM and I will be happy to give you more details.

Regards, Hugh

 

Hi Hugh,

I'm desperately seeking a solution to automate my shutter and although I have figured out how to drive the dome, mechanically & electrically (via 12v battery) I'm having difficulty finding a wireless solution for communication via the Velleman boards. If you could walk me through suitable solution, I would be eternally grateful.

Steve

44 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

Meccano - wonderful stuff - hours spent in my youth with spanner, screwdriver, cogs, wheels, shafts... - memories 😀

I was given a meccano set for my birthday and inspired me into being an Engineer. I wonder if I'd been given a chemistry set, would I have been a chemist/scientist?

Steve

Hi Richard, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

Gina, set it near to your Obsy, in a clear space, away from where it could receive any random splashes and set it at an angle of around 20 degrees for "run off"

Steve