upahill

I do wonder how much of the PLA is unsuitable for outdoor use idea is perpetrated from misreading datasheets somewhere in history. Eg, did a chart show that PLA was the least stable under UV so its assumed that its unsuitable despite the variance being minor and it just being graded as the least stable. I confess to not looking up the data myself so cant say for sure.

I have now tried PLA, PLA+, ABS, PETG, CF & Wood and out of all of them PLA has been the simplest to print on all printers, for stuff that doesnt require absolute dimensional stability. It also has the added bonus of being the cheapest.

I try not to set opinions in stone unless I try something and have done enough outdoor PLA stuff now to really not be concerned about it at all. If I lived in a mediteranean climate then I might reconsider that but alas I do not My 3D printed pier adapter held up for over a year outdoors, no change in P.A, still going strong now if I wanted to use it again and only 30% infill. Thats with 20kg hanging of it.

I still think that 3D printing is for me geaered more toward rapid protyping than an actual production method, so if my use criteria demands long term outdoor use I have to consider that 3D printing isn't the best option for durability regardless of the material. Once you offset the practicality of a full production part vs "ill just reprint it if its ever an issue" its hardly worth bothering about. Just print in whatever you've got.

Of course if you have PET etc in stock, and you can print it then great - spec the best material for the job, im just saying if I was printing a weather station/outdoor mount/hinges etc I wouldnt be considering buying in a specific material just for that job if I had PLA to hand.

6 minutes ago, carastro said:

Is there a grocery shop at the camp? 

Trouble is because of a restrictive low salt medical diet I am on (permanently) I can't easily eat out as everything has too much salt in it.  Mostly have to do home cooking!!!  

Otherwise I'll have to bring everything with me.

Don't think we can go shopping as we have no vehicle as the campervan will be hooked up and awning'd up.  Unless there is a food shop walking distance from the camp. 

Carole 

 

There is a Londis/Corner shop about a mile down the road. Been a while since I have been in there but its probably not going to have a massive range of product. Id consider bringing your essentials just incase or stocking up on the way in.

10 minutes ago, WanderingEye said:

Why would I need to bolt to a wooden pattern, and put all in at once..? Surely that would be more difficult to force four bolts into resin at the same time, plus you have to clean the excess from around the top, that oozes out, straight away before it sets... 😀

My plan was to put the pier on the concrete slab, Mark the holes, remover the pier, drill each hole, clean out, then fill one at a time with resin, and put the bolts in each hole one after another, leaving 25mm protruding, clean excess resin, then when set, put the pier back over the bolt tips, and add the nuts...and dome nuts...

 

 

Either way will work, the only reason I went with the pattern was because I was concerned about the bolts tilting slightly before the resin had fully set, too far out and I would have had real issues lifting the pier onto the bolts afterwards. I had already had issues with concrete bolts not expanding so I only had one more shot to get the hole pattern I wanted 😂

The other problem was try as I might when I drilled the concrete the holes ended up oversized. In fairness its not something I have done before and the bit was dull etc, but it meant more diameter and more chance of screwing up the placement.

It would have been much easier if the bolt holes on the pier had been larger but for me 2mm out would have been a PITA to fix later. I was fortunate I guessed at the right fill depth for the resin so didnt have any ooze to deal with. Whichever way you go its going to be a great solid mount 👍

1 hour ago, lulu57 said:

Does anyone know if the café will be open the whole week? We're staying Fri-Wed, and I don't know if I can be a*sed to cook!

 

(Of course, I could get Ian to cook, but his bottom lip may wobble).

If not theres a Kafe For Campers a few miles down the road 😉

1 hour ago, WanderingEye said:

Yes, got to drill 16mm holes. Then fill with resin and set the special bolts in... 😀👍

If your pier has a bolt pattern you need to stick to I would highly recommend cutting a wooden template, bolting the bolts to it and lowering all the bolts into the resin in one go. Once the resin cured I just unbolted the wood and removed. Kept everything lined up and vertical.

Nice job, I ended up going for chemical bolts too - so simple.

Nice size deck for a ROR too

And another in the bank: M45 for a couple of hours last night during a clear spot. Need to take some flats to go with this data before I do anything else.

Only managed 60 x 180s and then overcooked it in processing but my guiding was much improved after a rebalance, new polar alignment and new calibration. I upped the guide speed from 0.1x to 0.5x which whilst noisier does seem to have helped a little.

The dehumidifier is very noisy and sounds like it might be on its last legs - thats a shame as was hoping I wouldn't need to buy one for a while, its also not very "smart" so I can't really do much other than twiddle a dial and hope it kicks off eventually.

Forecast is for another week of rain starting tonight, then its SGLSP, so will only get indoor projects done until then - no actual imaging time unless im very lucky. Depending on the state of the caravan I may have to bail on Lucksall, just haven't had the time to look at it or even check it still moves

Everything went on the back burner for a few weeks for a trip to Bodrum, Turkey - Lovely weather 26-30 during the day and the nights were all crystal clear so enjoyed some naked-eye stargazing. The light polution in and around the bodrum bay is terrible but the lack of clouds was nice, still very enjoyable but glad I didnt try to take a travel scope with me. Full moon whilst we were away which didnt help the viewing either, except for the moon of course.

The rooftop bar was a pretty awesome place to sit and watch the sky though. Very relaxing and managed to grab a few moon rises and sun rises from there.

Vitamin D topped up it was back to the obsy and 95% cloud cover 100% of the time....

Friday night I tried my luck at getting my first imaging session in from the obsy. Managed a crude polar alignment, and suprisingly this time everything just kind of worked equipment wise. Gathered about 60 x 180s on M33 + some darks when the clouds rolled in. Gave it a very quick process and crop in PI.

I still have some sensor tilt or pinched optics to deal with, and still using the DSLR for now until finances improve but im just glad I finally got a shot - its been so long! Due to aperture of my itsy-bitsy scope I managed to image for a full 90 minutes without even thinking of nudging the dome around. This is great news as the dome rotation is going to take some time to get sorted. It does make me feel more comfortable with the idea of not having it synced to scope straight away too as I can just nudge it or build it to move at sidereal.

I also noticed I had my backup 1200d on the scope and not the modded one, not much of an issue for this target but explains why some of the other test shots I was doing seemed a little muted.

Damp is clearly going to be an issue, made worse by the current non stop rain. I have a dehumidifer to put in but the open gap at the top makes me think I will just be dehumidifying my entire village constantly. When the rim for the timing belt is installed I might look at fitting a brush bar to the underneath of it to keep some of the cold out and the dryer air in. This will hopefully help with what is fast becoming the main downside to the observatory. Spiders! So many darn spiders!

Pronterface is what I use on my Tevo - not had any issues with it so would recommend, just use a good quality USB cable.

The rotary encoder issue is an odd one, that screen and encoder module if I recall are a fairly standard unit used in a lot of 3d printers, hopefully the company can send you just that part if its a hardware issue.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12864-LCD-Controller-with-SD-card-slot-for-Ramps-1-4-Reprap-3D-Printer-Display/152256077216?epid=1559297555&hash=item23732b5da0:g:DR0AAOSwuvFcRuwV

If you do go down the raspberry pi route, look at Octopi - will speed up the process of getting everything running as you just download the image.

I tend to leave my filament in situ all the time, but if im not likely to print again for a while (few days) ill wrap a strip of cling film around the roll in place with a few desicant packs trapped in there. Helps keep dust off too.

Ill be bringing a couple of surplus bits along if I can dig them out of storage, mainly an EQ5 black, TS 80mm OTA, a few surplus adapters etc. Still struggling to get everything sorted in the obsy but will find more stuff in storage no doubt.

This is sad from the content perspective but doesnt suprise me at all really. I signed up for a Yahoo account about 20 years ago when they were the search engine. But havent seen much innovation from them since.

When I see that a company uses Yahoo groups for support i always groan a little, I have to remember or setup a yahoo account just to log in to the group often, then jump through hoops to join. Forum software is much easier to use and navigate and usually with a much better feature set.

I can imagine those who use it frequently and are used to its layout/setup will miss it a lot though. Hopefully they will find a way to let group owners archive their content and import it into a different platform if they do close.

6 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

Delivered today - yay! Won't have time to unpack/build it before Friday, though. Filament due later today

Louise

I have used some of the Grey Sunlu filament - printed nicely at 210 degrees for me, but will vary slightly depending on your hotend/thermistor.

Good luck with the assemby! If you get stuck skip through the Thomas Sanladerer video on Youtube as it covers the entire build.

17 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

I was wondering about that - do you just select a file to print from the card and leave it to it? No advantage in printing from a PC?

Louise

 

An advantage to printing from SD card for me is that a lot of my failures have been PC related, either software crashing causing interrupts or something screwing with the USB port. As Stub Mandrel says the fewer cables the better.

The only time I havent done this was when using Octoprint from a dedicated raspberry pi, which does make the process a little easier to manage than constantly removing the SD card.

Oooh might pop up on the Friday, missed last years as it clashed.

Fantastic shot, and thanks for sharing your process

Im thinking ill skip the imaging rig this year and just bring along the LX10 - hopefully I can focus on learning to use it properly that way. Depends on what the forecast is closer to the time really.

I think you might find it difficult to find a mobile recoater. I know alot of the coatings require a vacuum chamber.

Just how dirty is it? The typical attitude towards it is that unless its seriously affecting your viewing its best to leave it dirty.

I managed about half hour with the dob last year, but really enjoyed the time in the tent. I also managed to get through the entire Mission Impossible franchise in the time I should have been stargazing Bringing some more films just incase but hoping for a clearer time.

3 minutes ago, maw lod qan said:

Over here, it seems senseless crime is on the rise, but I personally think it's the population growing and the more rapid reporting of things happening due to our new electronic savvy world.

Very much this, I read recently a book called Better Angels of Our Nature which discusses in great detail how almost every type of crime has consistently gone down for the past x years - yet our perception is that it has signifcantly got worse. As you say this is primarily due to the media and now social coverage. If it bleeds... it leads.

I would go laser. Getting your own machine can be a major PITA though. I think the largest mine can do is just over A3 size, they can be found on the second hand market though, we grabbed ours for £750 and then spent another £300ish upgrading it to 80watt.

If it was up and running smoothly I would offer, but alas its back at the bottom of my "projects" list for some time. I havent actually tried acrylic yet either just MDF and hardboard - but its what ill use to make my control panels for astro stuff.

This guy on youtube makes awesome panels for his flight sim rig:

A year or so ago I was using APT regularly with my DSLR and enjoyed seeing the previews of each sub popping up during a session, the quality was ok and I could get a real feel for the object, auto stretching would also give me a good indication of the data that was being captured.

Fast forward a few months and I tried out EKOS/Kstars etc and was primarily dissapointed that the previews were shocking quality. Looks like an a grainy pixelated mess on all images. I wasn't quite sure what caused this but it put me off the software and I resigned to going back to APT or trialing SGP once the dome was ready.

A few nights ago I plugged my setup back in as it used to be, APT on the laptop directly connected to the DSLR and the quality was just as bad. I feel like something has changed (and im fully prepared for that to be my memory of how it was) but it just doesnt seem as good as I remember.

I tried my backup SLR and its the same problem, so fairly confident its not an incamera setting that has changed, and the final subs look good once stacked etc. But all previews seem to be worse.

Bright RGB pixels (noise?) seem much more prevalent and obvious in the previews.

Ill try and grab some screenshots tonight if it clears at all.

Any ideas what would cause this?

It's a small thing but this arrived in the post today, red braided sleeving so I can make up some custom length USB and power leads for everything, try and tame the tangle.

Looks a bit garish in that pic, but its darker IRL, with black cable inside it should look great. I have an idea for a USB hub/power box too that can be scope mounted but its going to take some butchery/3d printing/bodging to work.

With the weather as it is, and upcoming holidays/trips small indoor jobs are about the only thing I can do

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

It attived today

 

Congrats, that looks so much more manageable in sections! The design has really improved I think.

Bet you can't wait to get in it

Actually managed a sort of first light last night. The consumer unit has been wired up to a caravan plug style socket which means I can unplug both ends and remove the lead for mowing etc. This meant the internal light works and the door now closes since there isn't an extension in the way. Such a small difference but made it so much more enjoyable being inside.

After setting up the scope I managed to find all leads and get my old laptop imaging. Turns out my Sharpcap license has expired so polar alignment was extremely crude and this meant PHD struggled to calibrate - will spend some more time on this as its going to need to be configured for the new guidescope focal length. The mount is making a bit of a whine during tracking and whilst this is probably 50% down to balance being slightly off I think I should probably consider a regrease/rebuild. The balance issue is a little trickier as I the only way I can see it being changed is to mount the scope further along the puck but both a) run out of dovetail and b) cause the focuser to foul against the puck. So a riser/spacer on the dovetail is needed as a bare minimum.

I was led on the floor with the laptop so desk is going to be critical, if for no other reason than the mount lead is relatively short compared to the rest of the cables and my knees are knackered. Had it not been for the discomfort I probably would have stayed out another couple of hours!

Also, and this is an urgent problem.... What does everyone do to keep the 8 legged crawlies out? I seem to have created a breeding dome for every spider in the garden - some of them do not look friendly!