Gina

Brilliant!! Laughed so much it brought tears to my eyes!

I transfer data straight from the camera over GigE ATM. I assume the bottleneck is the USB2 port on the RPi3B.

The bottleneck I've found is the rate I can read my astro camera via USB and CAT6 cable to my router and hence desktop. The 16MB image takes about 8s to download. No problem imaging DSOs with at least 60s exposure time but I want something a lot faster for solar or planetary, albeit with a smaller sensor. It may prove better to store the data locally by the RPi then download later.

I do have an advantage - I have dealt with a number of different operating systems in all sorts of computers for over 50 years including as a career. Also, used many different programing languages and covered both hardware and software in research. My only disadvantage is that I'm not as young as I was!

Yep, Astroberry is great!

I guess they will take time to get out to all the usual distributors. I'm not in any great hurry ATM for a couple of reasons.

Great!! Just what I want for solar imaging too - and planetary. I've been considering a Rock64.

My water cooling has the reservoir in my observatory where its relatively cool. Camera cooling is by Peltier TEC and waterblock. Water is circulated by a small aquarium pump. It's very effective.

What I really want is a proper cooled astro camera for this. A home made cooler for a camera that's not designed to be cooled is really going against the tide and causee no end of problems. Unfortunately, FLO don't sell a 1/2" cooled camera that I want for this project though one is available elsewhere :- ZWO ASI385MC Cooled USB 3.0 Colour CMOS Camera This is an excellent camera with exceptionally low read noise and ideal for this application. It has larger pixels than the ASI178MC I'm currently using so more sensitive also it's a later imaging chip with higher sensitivity. The smaller pixels are not needed for the ASC as the lens is not up to that resolution, nor do I need it. Just checked my bank balance and I simply haven't got the funds!

Maybe there's something to be said for starting again on the casing as I might have some different ideas. As I recall, I wasn't doing very well in the past with sealing it.

I now have a 3D printer working again so thinking of picking up this project again. Only trouble is, I forget what I was doing...

I gave up when my expenditure of DSLRs that weren't working from ebay reached the cost of a proper astro camera. I only took it that far because I hate being defeated! Proper astro cameras are a lot better than a debayered DSLR.

I have a 3D printer working again and after a bit more calibrating should be able to continue with the casing for my latest ASC.

Brilliant! Here's hoping the merger goes well.

Mine is very scruffy too but it doesn't bother me.

Oh dear!

Congratulations to your daughter, James, that's magnificent!

Replaced connector for RH XY motor and now that motor is working. I now have the X and Y homing working fine but having a problem with the Z which is probably something wrong in the homez.g and homeall.g code.

A connector got pulled off one of the motor cables whilst moving thing around and I seem to have mislaid the metal bits that go inside to make up a new one. Meanwhile, I've been testing as far as I've got. The following items tested and working. Hotend heater Heatbreak cooling fan Bed heater RH XY motor X endstop Y endstop Z drives

The Z axis is driven by two NEMA23 stepper motors (as shown in a diagram in a previous post) which go below the base of the printer. To allow for these the printer is supported by four castor wheels which also make moving the printer easy. Here is a photo of the current stage of build. Not finished yet and needs some cables connected and everything tidying up. The blue cylindrical part in the bottom centre takes the filament reel, with the filament being carried in a PTFE tube up to the extruder. Between extruder and hotend is a new improved version of the Precision Piezo piezoelectric probe that works by sensing a light touch of the print bed against the nozzle when Z homing. My attempts at using the bare piezoelectric disc and amplifier were less than totally successful - I'm hoping this will be more reliable, the design certainly looks much better.

Decided that buying cut-to-size plywood was both expensive and not guaranteed to be exactly what I want and also preferred to use what I had so decided to buy a good quality circular saw and fine cut blade and do it myself. The saw will have plenty of other uses too. I was able to cut the box panels down to exactly the size I wanted and rebuild the box. Everything had turned out to be precisely to size and I have been rebuilding the printer. It is now almost complete and ready to work - just need to replace a connector on one of the motor cables. Some diagrams and photos. Firstly, top view diagram of the printer box and bed. This is a cross-section of the bed. Top is a borosilicate glass build plate, then silicone heater pad (not shown) followed by 12mm thick PU for insulation and to ensure good contact between heater and glass. This is supported by a 6mm thick plywood panel and the whole lot held together with 3D printed framing. Here is a photo of the bed assembly. The plywood bed base is bolted onto two rails of aluminium extrusion. Between these rails are two more which will be attached to the Z drive units. Here is one of the Z drive units (C-Beam with gantry plate, wheels and trapezoidal screw system) with a piece of extrusion attached to the gantry plate. Here is the partly assembled printer, showing the box, X and Y rails and Z drive units at the sides.

The print bed will be from previous Giant printers - 500mm x 500mm x 5mm aluminium plate with mains voltage silicone heater pad underneath. I want to make this latest version of the printer capable of covering the whole of the print bed if possible. The bed will be supported by a plywood sheet itself supported by an aluminium extrusion frame attached to the C-Beam double gantry plates. Between bed and plywood I plan to have 12mm thick PU foam for insulation and to ensure the heater pad is touching the aluminium plate (the glue has given up in the central region). The C-Beam will be 1000mm giving a printing height of just over 800mm. NEMA23 stepper motors will provide the drive. Amazingly, I have found a PEI sheet big enough for my Giant print bed :- PrimaFil PEI Ultem sheet 500x500mm-0.2 mm and with the pound dropping fast against the Euro I've decided to get it now. It can go on the aluminium print bed to provide a better printing surface than plain aluminium while cutting out the glass plate will greatly reduce the weight.

Well done! Great result. Just take care with the odd little bits and don't be tempted to go any nearer to the edge or you might ruin all your good work.

No, not found the lens or any part of it.

This printer has been superseded and now dismantled with parts used in replacement printer called "GinaRep Concorde".