sloz1664

Going great Malcolm. The addition will stop you from getting a bad back.

You will certainly enjoy having an observatory. Best piece of astro equipment I have invested in by a country mile.

Steve

Firstly, congratulations on obtaining your first CCD. Secondly, thank you for your in-depth findings of your QHY8L. Regarding gain & offset, I would set your gain to around 8 - 10 and your offset seems ok. Have a look at the attached gain & offset proceedure:-

gain and offset.pdf

Steve

2 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

Guys, what ascom driver do you use for your lodestar x2 and which guider do you select from th3 drop down in PHD2 please?

Hi Steve,

I use this one:-

Steve

17 hours ago, tekkydave said:

I'm not sure if this is relavant to your dodgy nanos but I read the following in the official D-Bot build guide:

"If  you  cannot  connect  or  if  you  receive  a  timeout  error,  you  may  need  to  download  and install  the  CH341SER  driver.  Some  Chinese  knockoff  Arduino  boards  use  a  serial  chip which  is  not the  same  as  normal  Arduino  boards"

 

Oh.. I've had everything happen to my "chinese cloned. "smoked and died" I panicked into thinking I'd messed up my circuits  Not worked at all and a couple that have died after a few days. Luckily they are cheap and I now have a stock of spares

Steve

18 hours ago, Gina said:

Redesigned the bottom plate as it was a bit small plus I shall have it the other way up with "legs" to space it in the outer casing.

Hi Gina,

Just a subtle point. Whenever you design any components that protrude like the four tags on your model, add fillet radii at the base of the tags to give them strength. Otherwise you will find they will "break off" quite easily. You should always consider this on all your designs. If you have the room to add a strengthening radius  - add one. The bigger, the better.

Steve

Hi Alan,

I suggest you download PHD2. Open it up and read the impatient Instructions found in the Help Tab. This will forward you to other topics. You can also find lots of tutorials on Youtube.

Steve

Hi Alan,

Yes you don't need the Nightwatch Studio to guide. It was Brightstar's imaging software. You will need the Ascom driver to interface with PHD2. BTW what imaging software are you g+oing to use t+o capture your images.

Steve

Hi Alan,

Yes I did, it makes a good guide camera.

Steve

1 hour ago, alan potts said:

I have to say having looked at these I have a bit of learning to do, I only have a Brightstar Mammut L429 to use as a guide camera so I may have to look for drivers, still must learn to walk before running.

Hi Alan,

I still have the software available for my now departed Mammut camera, if you still require them.

Steve

Yes I've already got everything figured out, just need to clean up the code. The nema17 gets very hot even being driven at low currents, I'm going to stick a heat sink on it which should fix everything up. Apparently stepper motors just run hot sometimes when they get pushed hard.
 

You're Stepper motor shouldn't getting hot. This looks like it's energised constantly and will not last long in this condition.

Steve

If you are looking at motor permutations relative to what you require then look on R Brown's site for his in-depth information on motors and drivers etc.. I'm not saying you should commit to his DIY project, as this is tehhydave's thread. Just the info behind it.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinofocuscontrollerpro/

Steve

8 hours ago, Mcrogers1 said:

I just ordered the same plate and would like to know what size allen bolts you use and how long they are. Thank you.

I looked at one of my bolts from the same Geoptik mounting plate. They are M8 x 30mm long.

Steve

I'm of a similar vein Dave albeit metal and plastics as first as a Toolmaker, then draughtsman and finally as a Chartered Engineer. 

Always felt best though, working with my hands.

Steve

Fabulous build Dave. I hope you have many happy years imaging.

How many clamps......

Steve

Wishing you a speedy recovery Gina and whilst resting no more thoughts on future projects 

Steve

Yes great to have you back again Gina and I hope you are sorted health wise. I want to see you imaging again, so I can see more results from the ASI1600M.

Steve

49 minutes ago, skybadger said:

Anne, could you provide a picture of the internal s of the dome please - so I can compare with mine? 

Sloz, that's a fab drive. Well done. How do you couple the sprocket to the motor ? I have several of those motors which have a male mating thread on the output shaft which means  a threaded shaft extension could undo itself occasionally ...

Mike

Hi Mike

My motor drive shaft has a tapered spline at the base of the thread. I machined my drive gear with the same taper to mate with the motor drive shaft. Using a hand press I then "pressed" the drive gear onto the motor drive shaft . This then keyed the gear to the motor. I then locked it all together with the threaded shaft extension.

Steve

11 minutes ago, skybadger said:

I have a single groove round section belt wheel and tried wrapping 3 turns around it, with offset in and out feeds, to minimise overlapping. Do you think if I turned a purpose made bobbin with multiple turns on it , that would work better ?

Absolutely, the friction caused by wrapping, what is actually a 3 turn thread, will lock the wire rope and stop it slipping.

Steve

Thank you Steve. Yes it's worked out very well indeed & yes that's a "damaged"  Bourne encoder on top of the drive cog. I inadvertently damaged it by giving it too many amps. It needed restricting....doh 

Luckily I have a spare 

Steve

I have now received my Timing Belt from Beltingonline. So today,I will attempt to fit the Timing belt and mount the motor.

Timing Belt secured to the Drive Belt Mount using Evostick Impact Adhesive (Dome Shutter fully open to extract the fumes).

 (

Motor mounted onto the Inner Wall and aligned with the Timing Belt.

Well the Rain Gods were smiling on me so I had time to tension the Motor onto the Belt and connected the Motor to a 12 volt battery. The resulting action can be found here.........

Dome Rotation.mp4

Who's a very happy bunny then..........

Next step.......Integrating it with the Levesdome & SGPro.....

Steve

I see. I assumed you were powering the rest of your equipment from mains power, which is what I have done.

Steve

8 minutes ago, purgitoria said:

My intention is to use a timing belt and pulley wheel system such as the open ended belts here http://www.davall.co.uk/dsg-power-transmission/catalogue/toothed-belts/ Effectively wheel would be fixed at the top of the dome and the other would be on the drive motor at the bottom with one of the clamping plates attached to a bracket on the shutter and a series of guide rollers to align and tension the belt (this is much the same way as the Rigel system works with it's chain drive). The only problem i would see is if it were one of the older pulsar domes that had the dual shutter consisting of the upper sliding part and the lower flap in which case i would use a similar timing belt/chain method combines with a small linear drive on a bracket attached to the lower flap.

 

My hope was to keep away from being fully battery powered as i want the redundancy and i also have concerns about just how long a 12V battery would power the shutter controller along with the heaters for the electronics and motor when it gets cold. I don't mind having battery as a backup to control the shutter when out from home position such as on a weather alarm and to keep the electronics powered during an imaging session but really wonder how big of a solar panel i would need and how many Ah i would need in battery power if i did not have a mains connection.

I assume you will only be opening and closing the shutter probably once an imaging session, less than 2 mins per session. That's not going to task the batteries too much. To aid solar charging you could always programme the dome to follow the sun during the day to maximise it's charging capabilities.

Steve

Hopefully, I will be using a 12v drill motor and nylon chain to drive my Shutter movement.

Mike, the winch bobbin you used was it a single grove variety or multi grooved variety?

Steve

I'm investigating automating my Pulsar Dome and powering the shutter is Phase Two of my project. I'm going down the route of battery/Solar Panel. I have six 12v 12 amp/hour batteries. I will use two batteries, one each side of the shutter. The remaining batteries held in reserve for the many, many dark and dismal days we have in the UK.

Unfortunately I have a major task modifying the existing shutter prior to automating it. 

Steve

1 hour ago, steppenwolf said:

I shall be watching this project with great interest as, before my upgrade of a couple of years ago, I too had this style of Pulsar observatory and had on paper a different solution, although I think your solution has much merit as it keeps the motor in a 'fixed' position. I was going to use Subaru Impreza cam belts for my toothed belt but in my design, the belt would have been attached to the wall and the motor was going to be fitted to the dome on a sprung mounting. In either design, you do have to make allowance for the dome moving laterally, which it will do.

The LesveDome system is excellent and I used it for a year or so on my new style Pulsar dome but upgraded to Pulsar's newest system when it was introduced 18 months or so ago. You will find the LesveDome system to be very capable and flexible with a real bonus thrown in - buying a second K8055N controller will give you access to 8 software controlled ports to further automate your observatory.

I wish you luck with the automation project.

Thank you Steve. I have the Levesdome circuitry set-up on a test board which works fine. I also have the second board which will be integrated when I have the Dome automation working.

Steve