skybadger

I've had no problems with tp-link eop adapters. Wi-Fi was spotty and unreliable over 30m. Eop has been fine. I'm not sure tha they are that noisy anymore. They used to be. ..

Hi Here is the drive I described. The motor sits on the gearbox towards the bottom and drives the central pulley through a pair of 4:1 reductions. The two idlers either side provide tensioning and the timing belt then loops over the two idler pulleys supporting the bottom of the horseshoe and stretches around the curve of the horseshoe between them. That way the drive pulley works on the toothed side and the horseshoe sees the smooth side. Regs Mike

Fair point, I don't get a lot time to maintain it and know my way around. This should work, I viewed it last night. https://www.skybadger.net/equipment/worthing12inchscope.shtml

You can see mine at www.skybadger.net if it helps. Should have said earlier. I need to dig out a photo of the update drive train described above.

I worry about this advice. Friction drives are chosen because it's easy to make 'perfect' circles. The overall accuracy is likely better not worse than a geared wheel. The choice of whether to drive a stepper or a servo is purely about your ability to measure and manage the speed, in your case either will do fine, for geared or friction drives. There is no difference in 'drift' susceptability. Use of a 'pressed'' gear like you describe has been successful but I wouldn't do it into the end grain of a sheet of ply... is that where the strip of oak is envisaged ? There will be much more variation than routed disk on bearing.

Osprey, I use a toothed belt, smooth side facing the horseshoe and toothed side facing the motor sprocket. That way I get a long friction surface rather than a single point. The wheel is supported by two support bearings, over which the belt runs ,so that is where most friction will be experienced. Seems to work nicely by hand... I too recommend onstep, but last time I looked it couldn't handle DC servo motors.

Hi, my name was mentioned ? I used a DC friction drive on my horseshoe, with incremental encoder for speed control. Big drive wheel, eventually use pec, should be nice and smooth. Sadly not quite there yet, have the drive unit and motors but destroyed the mount in a classic wheelbarrow accident. Will be reassembled eventually. I agree withe observation that a refractor is going to be an interesting choice ! Mike

Yep.as shown below.

It's all in the same box, ir sensor next to the Lux meter lens and both talk i2c via the esp.

Took the leds off the power regulator, the esp8266 and the melexis pcb. Now I get log(Lux) at -3.4 compared to -2.5. So a factor of 8 sensitivity improvement due to a reduced background. Or about 2 magnitudes.

My key comment is to go for one with as many buttons as you can, if you also want to use it for focusing ...

My, that's fab. Love it. If anything I'd add the third rotational axis and just play. Add encoders if necessary and through axis wiring for camera control. I'll ask the mesu owners about friction drives. Don't know that they are happy enough. I'd have that on my coffee table just to look at.

I used a drill press to do this, with a large hole boring bit. I ran out of energy eventually as the iron work hardened with just 2mm to go..

I sealed it off too, fixing the board into place using araldite at the back of the lens. But the araldite turned out to be translucent and the leds (one on the power converter, one on the esp and one on the sensor board itself) are all rather bright when I am reaching for that 0.002 Lux of starlight. I will be removing the leds after a bit of practice. My latitude is 52N and I haven't seen the sun in weeks!

Hi, Would you mind providing a measure of your Lux measurement range from night to day. ? I'd like something to compare with. Currently, in This overcast weather, I'm getting log(Lux) between 3.0 down to -2.5. I'm concerned whether the on board leds of the ESP are limiting the darkness measurements. Cheers Mike