upahill

40 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Hmmm, well...

All passive components done, so I thought I'd get the Schottky diodes in.  Only I can't, because the leads don't fit through the holes in the PCB   I checked a spare bit of veroboard I have lying about and they don't fit through the holes in that, either.

I should probably use a micrometer gauge, but my vernier was closer to hand.  It measures the lead diameter as 1.15mm which I think is out of spec for the package.  I can find them in a different package, but not anywhere (yet) that appears to have them in stock.

In the name of making progress I might have to attempt to bodge something.  And it was all going so well

James

Had a similar problem with the focuser project, ended up soldering and heatshrinking flyleads to the diode - not sure if its the best way, but sure was the quickest.

Hi Glob,

Which part of wales are you in? We are in Monmouth listening to a torrential downpour again. 🌧️

Welcome to SGL.

56 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Me too, I was up until 3.30 last night imaging 😴

Dave

The chance would be a fine thing. Most I got done during all this rain today was to fit a new plug in the observatory, tonight is a total washout looking at the forecasts.

53 minutes ago, Ags said:

Updated time: midnight UTC. And there is a live stream:

https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

Looking forward to this, direct link is: https://www.spacex.com/webcast

Thats if im still awake

We really struggle with run off from local fields having to soak away via our garden, so at times like this we can be about 90% water and 10% grass. For areas that have to be walked on when the ground is wet such as the side path I put down a patch of artificial grass. Its plastic backed so stops the mud coming up but allows moisture to drain away.

The grass protection mats @johninderby linked too are a step up from this and perfect for the job if you want to spend hours at a time on it.

One other thing I did was set 3 small paving stones down, the correct spacing for the tripod legs and all leveled/aligned to north - that way setting up was a little quicker and even when the ground was mucky the tripod feet didn't start sinking.

I would get this issue sometimes when EQmod wasnt letting Goto++ update the co-ordinates on the first solve. Usually due to being miles out of position on initial startup.

Also as @PaulR1 says the focal length settings would dissapear sometimes.

Pretty much unpredictable in the UK. Best bet is a star party that way even if there is cloud you can still chat, have some drinks and talk 'business'.

Some of the best nights I have had viewing though have been when the forecast was for cloud. It just magically clears for a few hours and you're sorted.

Bit of a milestone, albeit an impromptu shortcut.

I took advantage of a couple of hours clear sky tonight but have been out all day so couldnt prep very well, since the sky was clear I decided to try and see if I could get the scope on the pier and the guidescope in focus.

Since this had arrived from China I hadn't had a chance to test it at all. I eventually found some extensions, the cameras, USB leads and the old laptop and woohoo it works.

Scrabbling around in the dark for stuff was not too pleasant so the next job is definately sorting out the electrics and lights, typically my head torch needs recharging so no help from that.

I also made a schoolboy error with the dome placement that only really became apparent tonight. Its not too late to fix but a major pain. The door to the obsy faces (apparently) roughly south, so if the aperture is facing polaris the door very almost catches on the support system for the aperture. Its also perfectly positioned to smack you in the head as you get in and out. I can counter this by rotating the whole structure 20 degrees but still annoying.

But the scope is in:

New jobs highlighted by tonights excursions:

• Rotate base ring 20 degrees.
• Finish wiring before attempting any more setup.
• Find suitable sticky stuff remover, the velcro strips I took off the mount have left a horrid residue.
• Finish custom USB cable plan and buy parts.
• Figure out why the mount isnt sitting level on the pier adapter.

Someone at last years SGL said to me (sorry im useless at names) "Mount to scope ratio is about right", this picture really shows it - the TS65Q looks teeny here now the big guide scope is gone.

I decided a while ago that I needed a name for the obsy, so today I took the nameplate off my late Grandfathers house before it goes up for sale. He loved the stars and I thought it fitting to transfer the name across. Carillon Observatory.

If for imaging I would consider a dedicated mini-obsy on the roof. Completely remote.

There is a thread here somewhere....ill take a look... of someone who built a remote obsy to go on a balcony. Very compact and a slightly bigger one would probably house the 130 on an EQ5.

Edit: heres the one I was thinking of:

On 23/08/2019 at 00:29, Photosbykev said:

I've recently built a new computer for image processing and rendering work and it's based on the 9900k running at 4.9Ghz with 64Gb of ram and fast m.2 drives. I understand that PI doesn't use the GPU and the author doesn't intend to support them anytime soon so it all about the cpu and memory

Nice system, looks like the 2080Ti is as good as I've read.

19 hours ago, Star101 said:

Anyone invested or played with the AMD Ryzen 29XX CPU?

The 2990WX looks fantastic for Pixinsight ( Drool 😛 ) 

ryzen-threadripper

I looked at the 2950/2990 but couldnt justify the price yet for my new build. Ended up settling for the 1950X

Eventually was considering going for the 2990WX but the 3900X looks pretty awesome (different socket though ) - the threadripper wins out on multithreaded performance though if you dont mind the higher leccy bill.

This rig should last me a couple of years, my old FX-8350 lasted 6!

8 minutes ago, Gina said:

PLA is the easiest to print with.  ABS makes a horrible and poisonous stink and really needs a fume cabinet.  I have gone right off it!  PLA is produced from sustainable natural resources and is biodegradable so it's the "green" option.  PETG is my next choice.  It's stronger and more flexible than PLA.  However, even printed PLA is very strong and suitable for the majority of projects I would say.

Totally agree, and ABS really needs a warm enclosure or a very good bed to prevent warping. Not ideal with open designs like the Prusa/Ender.

I have been exclusive PLA for 5+ years and never found a need for anything different. Even the chair im sat on now has a support ring printed with PLA thats holding all my weight, and thats no small feat!

37 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

Hi All,

So having skimmed through 20 pages and with very limited understanding/skills with a budget of up to around £700 should I look at the Prusa MkIII or would you recommend something else, I am not an engineer and have no CAD skills, just a simple Joe Bloggs off the street?

Looking at mostly Astro stuff with maybe other small household gizmos later.

I think the learning curve will be the same regardless of Prusa or Ender 3. Both will print well in PLA - for ABS or PETG the Prusa has a better hotend.

An Ender3 will get you up and running for £200 and let you focus on stuff like designing parts, learning cad etc. If it ever becomes a limitation you will a) have more experience by then to be able to identify that and therefore know what you need and b) will hold its value reasonably well and give you something (75%? of its cost) back towards a Prusa.

If money isn't an issue then yeah get a Prusa, set it up and forget about it knowing that it will just print when you want it to. The prusa has a lot of features that make life a little easier like bed levelling which can be a PITA if you are not used to it, magnetic build plates, larger community of support and upgrades, better hotend (less clogs etc)

So yeah the prusa is the better machine, but an ender will do the job if you dont mind a bit more tinkering.

Could be worth asking a local welding company to knock one up for you. There is a guy near our storage unit who has a load of 8" steel box going rusty in his yard - keep meaning to ask him how much he would charge to chop it up and add some plates.

I imagine it would be significantly cheaper than a commercial one (note cheaper, not necessarily better )

36 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

Can I suggest that when people have got a clean working system that they use something like Macrium Reflect Free and make a perfect image onto a USB stick or old HDD of their operating systems and software, I had loads of old 500GB HDD's and I always partition my computers so that the operating system and hard drive is installed on a separate partition to my files.

Now if anything goes belly up, I just use Macrium to restore the entire operating system and I am back up and running again, the software is free as long as it is for personal use, but it really is a tremendous piece of software that is so easy to use.

Dave, now that you have a clean operating systems and software, do yourself a favour, with Macrium you can resize the partitions for the backup as well.

I like the look of that software, I have been using Clonezilla to create images of systems and store them straight onto the NAS but this looks a little more user friendly and I like the idea of being able to virtualise images.

Parts have arrived for some of it.

Next challenge will be building the support ring. It's not the most even of structures inside so getting a good fit all the way around is going to be difficult. I have considered cutting a simple ring and then fixing it only where the tangents meet. Alternatively I will have to get some larger timber and cut the angles worrying about the inner circle afterwards.

The weather is against me, as well as an impending holiday so going to have to see what little work I can get done in the evenings now as I dont have a day spare of the next 4 weeks

On a plus note the mount is in. On top of the pier its a lot "higher" than I had imagined it - wont be a problem with my small scope, but if I ever want to use the 10" its going to get a little cramped up in the dome. A combination of not being able to dig deeper and not being willing to cut blocks has led to that but nevermind.

I am getting to thinking about cabling and planning. Will make up some custom length braided USB and power leads to keep everything looking tidy. The 12V will be distributed from the pier but still deciding on best connectors to use for that. I have issues with the jack plugs working loose in the past so very tempted by XLR but its a bulky solution. The screw on jack plugs are nice but fiddly to get a good durable cable connection on them.

3 minutes ago, Astro-Geek said:

I've been mindful of the overpower/overheat warnings, and I keep feeling the motor and the heatsink in the drv8825, and neither are getting warm, let alone hot.

Maybe measure what its drawing then when in use and see if its underpowered?

As an aside I see the firmware was updated <21 hours ago, with a fix to "stepperPower" - the default step size can also be manipulated in the firmware.

Am I right in thinking that if you are testing with the same step size on each motor, then for every movement the geared motor will be turning 3.35 degrees, whereas the regular one will be moving 90 degrees. That would make it appear an awful lot slower.

As RolandKol mentioned those drivers are very sensitive to over-current, and can get quite erratic when overheating. They also have a tendency to let out magic smoke if even slightly overpowered.

You can check the coil pairs with a multimeter, its possible that they are wired with incorrect or just different colouring, I know the ones for my CNC were.

Could it be a step size issue in the settings, I dont have mine set up to check but I know in APT i was having to set a much larger step size so that each time I pressed the movement button it would actually do something. Just throwing ideas around though as I cant check anything and its been a while

Also the DRV8825 to have a adjustment pot on them which needs to be checked/adjusted to suit the motor.

Just now, Gasman said:

Weird of MS as I thought that's the whole point of anti piracy otherwise I could install my licenced copy onto 5,10 15+ PC's?

Steve

You can only transfer it, so it can only be active on one machine at a time. And only if you bought the full edition, not an OEM license or an upgrade license.

I can change most of the hardware in my machine without any licensing issues, but with significant changes (like motherboard etc) then it classes it as a different machine and requires either ms intervention to remove the hardware identifier for the license (effectively deactivating the original pc) or a new license.

Sometimes the license is tied to your MS account, so if you use that to setup and login to a new system it will try and trasnfer the key / license for activation. If you want a new license on that machine you have to choose the option to "change product key" and enter the new one.

All of this aside if when you install windows you skip the activation process you should still be able to get a working machine up and running and deal with the activation issue later.

If you are getting blue screen errors - that would imply windows is installed on the drive.

The screenshot you posted suggests it cant find the boot drive at all now (if it was an empty drive it would usually error out, asking for a operating system drive to be installed) - the screenshot suggests it has resorted to the last possible option of booting over the network. A bios reset would be a good idea here and put the boot order back to defaults.

Windows 10 Licenses are weird, if you bought it you can technically transfer it to any other PC, but it is locked to a machine identifier - so a major hardware change requires windows customer service to intervene. If you got windows 10 as part of the free upgrade then its not usually eligible for transfer to a different machine. I bought a code last week for a tenner which has worked perfectly and cheaper than phoning customer services probably - had to do this as I changed almost all components in my machine.

Just now, Stub Mandrel said:

Wouldn't an electric motor be a little more compact?

That took me a second. 😆

6 x Timing Belts & Pulley for a 1990 Astra to automate the dome (hopefully)

Bet the seller was a little suprised to finally sell these, and all at the same time 😆

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

and who knows what faint structures might lie, tantalizingly, within that signal?

This reminded me of the Michaelangelo quote.. "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it..... I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

Going through that dark stack step by step teasing every little bit out you can, then redoing it over and over until its just right is a great joy. It's the pay off for the frustration, hours of cold, setup and tear down. A bit like panning for gold dust in the paydirt you spend days digging I guess. Imagers invest so much time, frustration, money, patience into gathering up those photons and that moment is what is was all for.

Great progress, love that you painted the frame too - looks fab.