m000c400

Hi again,

Does this mean that you literally connected the motor with a simple coupler to the free end of the slow motion control driveshaft? I noticed that a number of the NEMA 17 motors on eBay come with MXL belt drive pulleys and belt drives seem to be quite popular with (EQ6) mount modifiers. 

I saw these incredibly cheap products offered with free delivery from Hong Kong and China and wondered how slow the boat may be? I read elsewhere that FLO suggest that orders for Sky-Watcher spare parts can take five months to be delivered! 

Yes, that's it for the RA axis.  The motor for the DEC axis is tucked round the corner so needs a MXL belt drive.  This has a very modest 30:18 ratio on it solely because that was the sweet spot of pulley sizes and belts that were in stock at the time I ordered.  You can see it all here, which reminds me to tidy up those last few wires...

Hi Mike,

A lot of DIYers seem to start with the EQ5, and obviously the larger/heavier the mount the more stable in use, but I already find the EQ3-2 heavy and clumsy enough to handle so I'm keen to stay with it as a sort of grab and go. Did you start from the SW motor set or make the more radical move to your own stepper motors? I'd like to be sure that I get the most suitable ones for the EQ3-2 with 150p payload.

Thanks, Ed

Hi,

I went "radical" from the start.  I wanted to be able to leave the hand slow-motion controls in place so I could still jump out into the garden and set up in <10 seconds when the children say "Hey Jupiter is visible, can we look". But I also still had an eye to eventually wanting very fine control. To square these two, I bought the highest torque NMEA 17 motors I could find (ebay is teeming with them), and have them on "direct drive", with no gear box.  With the power off, you can still use the hand controls like normal, but because the available motor torque is so high with power on, I can microstep down far further than the usual x16 that people tend to use ( I can set upto x128 ) and get the same sort of resolution as a traditional geared design. So I have something that now covers everything from hand controls to sub arc-second GOTO all in a single package.. the best of all worlds  . 

Like the others have said, start simple.  My first go was just the RA axis on a fixed sidereal speed. Nothing helps you make progress more than a few simple succsses, and nothing slows you down more than something complex that doesn't work

Based on you idea above I ordered my IR handset and receiver earlier. A whole £1.80, although I expect delivery  from China could be slow.....

 In other words, for instance, could a version of AstroEQ be interfaced with a manual control box (especially IR linked) driving stepper motors and offering simple object tracking?

I started this as a new topic because I have some difficulty navigating within the AstroEQ 20+ page thread and don't want to distract.

As other have said this is very do-able these days, and with all the Arduino and Arduino-like prototyping stuff around (both hardware and software) you can pretty much do it by assembling off the shelf components; both in hardware and software, and just do the "glue" your self. My own "project" is pretty much as you describe, starting with a vanilla EQ2-3, but I've implemented a full GOTO system; once you start this isn't much more difficult.   

But, your IR control is an interesting idea that I hadn't though of.  A quick look shows that there are quite a few TV like IR remotes plus receivers around for "pocket money". So this bit would be easy to do too.  In fact based on this I think I'll add this feature to mine over the next few weeks.  A pocket size remote seems a lot more practical in the dark muddy back garden that my current solution... a good idea!!

Mike