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DocEE

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    Minnesota, USA

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  1. Peter, The box with the built-in ST-4 control and engagement clutch looks interesting, but I fear it's non-adjustable speed will limit it's appication with an equatorial platform unless you can "hack" it somehow. A fresh accumulation of 15 inches of snow here in Minnesota will only serve to delay my outdoors testing of things, but before it snowed I did make some progress. My 2 feet by 4 feet plywood for the top and bottom of my platform was enough for THREE platforms, so that is exactly what I made while I was in the garage, anyway. I plan to give one to a friend and I'm not sure about the 3rd one yet. Each one had a bad solder joint or two, but now the electronics all seems to be working. I changed the value of one resistor and one potentiometer in the end to have more adjustment in my "fine tune" for motor speed. Any design flaw that exists in one is shared by the others! Sorry if I am polluting this thread about a simple VNS platform with all my pictures of a setup that is a bit more complicated, but since I got all my inspiration from this thread, it seemed like the place to respond. I currently have made my VNS segments using the templates provided by Reiner Vogel, but it is possible I will be changing them out for some made using my own calculations. For those of you with intestinal fortitude, I have attempted to attach a long-winded document (17 pages??) that I put together documenting the time I have perhaps squandered with calculating VNS segments in recent weeks. It was not written with Microsoft WORD, so the formatting may be awkward when you open it, but perhaps buried in those pages is a useful idea for someone... or not 😉Calculating curves for segments.doc
  2. I was inspired by this thread and finally got started on a VNS platform (actually several, since the 2 foot by 4 foot plywood sheets I bought were large enough for three!) I have to confess I have made a simple design more complex in an effort to make this worthy of astrophotography. My changes: 1) make the vertical bearing segment over the drive roller more "curved" by bending it in two places, since a segment rolling over different places on the roller results in a different distance from the imaginary cone focus and therefore different RA tracking speeds as the platform moves, 2) I added a declination adjustment by using a cheap Chinese 1RPM motor threaded into a long plate under the upper platform board, 3) I have designed and built a simple and cheap ST4 guidance interface. It allows guidance adjustment via the declination motor and also will speed up or slow down the EQ-1 drive motor for RA tracking adjustments. That requires soldering two wires to the EQ-1 printed circuit board, but at easily reached places. The ST4 interface is for use with my ZWO ASI camera. Each ST4 line basically is connected to an optical coupler via 2 resistors and that drives a tiny CIT J850 series relay (yes, relay!). That cost me 30 cents for two resistors and one diode, 75 cents per relay from local source and $1 for the optical coupler. Since I am putting the ST4 interface into a box, I will also add a switch that can go from the 9 volt battery to the same power source that supplies the box, plus will have a $3 voltage display show me the motor voltage. Time will tell if this works for me, as I am still building. The site seems to have lost the photos I was uploading, so I will try another post.
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