Mognet

15 hours ago, JamesF said:

Oooh, I have just printed out a box with a latch and an "in place" hinge, so the two halves of the box close together, but there is no break in the hinge that joins them and they cannot be separated.  That really is rather cool.  It was only a small test piece to see if it would work (planning ahead for my box of driver bits as mentioned above), but now I can see lots of potential uses.

What would be very handy now would be the ability to add text to a design in openscad, so I can make labels for the lids.

James

Print in place hinges and joints are very handy. Some of my early design experiments used them

It looks like 3D text should be possible. Looking at the cheat sheet and manual I think it would be via a linear extrude of 2D text. I've yet to try it though. Maybe a job for later today

9 hours ago, thekwango said:

i think i'd best revert back to my original thoughts and look at the 127 Mak. i'm already more than doubling my original budget ( from £200 second hand to 450ish new) that mount alone is in excess of the revised budget! ? 

If you are not in a rush, then keep an eye on the second hand market, both on here and Astro Buy Sell. I bought my 127 mak with a SynScan alt-az mount for £250 that way

The D3100 can be used with a cheap (£25ish) intervalometer, as can the D3200 and D3300 I believe. The D3400 can't though, and can only be remotely triggered via IR. They can also be driven by qDSLRDashboard and digicamControl using a mini or micro USB cable (D3100 has an older style mini USB socket) if you want to use a laptop based setup

I have the spiral wrap on my printer too. Looking at the cable chain you linked to before (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3091780) I suspect it works best with particular printers and filaments, and it looks like the author hasn't posted any original CAD files for tolerance adjustment, etc. WIth the right dimensions the links should clip together nicely

Given the size of that print, I'm impressed. I've been considering the Ender 3 as a replacement for my rather basic iMakr Startt.

I like the idea of a clockwork tracking mount, but I'm curious as to how they have damped the vibrations so that it doesn't affect imaging

I'm still wondering how they can do it for that price. I've just looked on Ooznest, and just starting with five of the cheapest stepper motors would cost nearly £50. Then there's the board, screen, hot end, extruder, heated bed, framework, etc.

£85 for a printer is very tempting, even if upgrades have to be made later

I thought those brackets looked familar! Postfix is run by Graham, a friend of mine. He also loves his trains and regularly posts photos from his train spotting travels on Facebook

3 minutes ago, Hertford Stargazer said:

Wow, that looks like alot of printer for £99. I'm trying to resist the world of 3d printing, I'm wanting to simplify my life but Astronomy has other ideas 

It only has a small print volume, 120x140x130mm but it can be rebuilt for larger volumes apparently

Treated myself to an Imakr Startt 3D printer as a Christmas present to myself. Felt like I was playing with Meccano for the first few hours as it arrives in kit form

Doesn't seem too bad for a £99 printer

On 12/15/2017 at 16:20, Stu said:

Moved to the 'Postman' thread.

Looks like the thread title got changed in the move. Confused me after not logging in for a week!

9 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

You forgot gale-force winds, hailstones the size of eggs, thunder, lightning, and freak tornadoes

I misread that as freak tomatoes! I blame eating dinner and not paying enough attention

But if freak tomatoes really were a weather condition, you could guarantee that they'd happen during an imaging session

48 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

downloaded and seem to have got it working  does the polar finder have any bearing on a synscan AZ mount?

Glad you've got it working. You do enter pretty much what it says on the app onto the handset. Fortunately the handset retains the entered coordinates, so you rarely have to change those unless you've taken your scope out to a different site. Usually only the time and date needs setting, and daylight savings when the clocks change.

The polar finder isn't really useful for an alt-az mount. It's more for equatorial mounts that need to be polar aligned and shows the position of Polaris in respect to the true PA point.

7 hours ago, Gina said:

I've thought of one possible problem with an aluminium dome roof - I wouldn't be able to use WiFi for control and capture.

Would fibreglass be a better option? Should be ok for wifi, and would probably be lighter too. Might also be easier to get the shape you want too

17 hours ago, Gina said:

The fork part is pretty straightforward but I need to work out the mounting for it.  I don't think plastic will be suitable as it is liable to move, particularly in altitude (reducing it due to sag)

Would a 3D printed box structure with internal bracing be strong enough for the job, or is this not an option? I've been thinking about doing something similar for an alt-az mount with coarse and fine controls, but so far the design is only in my head until I get my printer

6 hours ago, Davey-T said:

OOO good another project to follow 

Dave

I'm thinking exactly the same!

6 hours ago, cloudsweeper said:

Nothing like new glassware to raise the level of excitement!

And I like that mug.

Doug.

I'm itching to use it, but it seems I'm paying a cloud penalty now! Perhaps along with the specs of an item suppliers should now include an estimate of the cloud penalty incurred by purchasing, measured in nights and miles.

It's a good mug. My other office favourite says "Another 8 hours of pretending to work"

All the way from Aunt FLO, a 32mm Panaview. Hoping there won't be a cloud penalty for this!

Didn't realise how big these get

Not quite as good as Paz's sun, but I got the moon with my phone up to a 5mm eyepiece.

2 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

How long has it been running? I've never heard of it before. Not that I'm a big festival goer but this sounds pretty interesting to me! 

They've had something similar running for a few years. Not sure how long. A friend of mine goes there and she loves it

Conditions weren't great last night, and mist and cloud were beginning to appear when I was packing away. But I did manage to capture Jupiter with the major moons just as it rose above the houses

Taken with a SW200P dob, 10mm EP and a Samsung Galaxy S6. Something seems to have eaten one of the moons though. It was there when looking through the eyepiece!