R26 oldtimer

39 minutes ago, stash_old said:

My seller (not Alice) just sent me a std picture which was on the orig ebay

Do you have a link?

That's the actual board I got and tested.

The first line reads "FCC ID 2AL3B-ESP-M" and the second "ISM2.4G 802.11b/g/n"

Perhaps its a faulty board, so frustrating after a month wait. Before you discard it though try  a reset, I think there is a reset button on it. Also try to pull-up the EN pin although everything I read on the internet suggests it works just as well without the EN pin pulled up.

So, is synscan app working ok?

You must first initiate synscan app and complete a mount align before going over to skysafari. If done that and still doesn't work then try to lower the readout rate in skysafari settings.

If you can connect and control the scope through the synscan app then whatever the problem might be, would be irrelevant to the hardware or its settings.

33 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Rather than a big buck converter, I'll use a 3.3V regulator chip which will be smaller.

You have to feed it with 5V, and the buck converter is actually pretty small.

The dt-06 board emulates the skywatcher wifi adapter, so you have to download the synscan pro app to be able to "talk" to the mount. The skysafari does not communicate with the mount directly but through the synscan pro app.

The 127.0.0.1 adress and the 11882 port are the settings provided by the synscan app, to allow third party control over it(such as skysafari).

Yesterday, the postman dropped off one of these:

I 'll use the step down buck converter to power the DT-06 board through the mount 11-16V, wired like this:

I think we 're still bellow the £5 budget??

Hi, mine is not plugged to handset, it's plugged directly to the mount.

If you have used the hc-05 successfully, then you can use the wiring you 've made, simply by swapping the hc-05  module for the dt-06.

1 hour ago, George Gearless said:

Ofcourse, I can just mount my telescope the 'wrong way' round on the Dec arm.

I 'm pretty sure that this is actually the deal since with the eq firmware sw suggests that the position of the telescope changes from right hand to left hand( or vice versa, can't remember right now).

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It's Gina... so probably and even bigger printer.

Can you 3d print a 3d printer????

Clouds result to buying equipment, and new equipment results to more clouds, aka "avalanche effect"

☃️

52 minutes ago, nicoscy said:

Congratulations on the ED120.

I know who sold it to you and lemme tell you that this scope got minimal use, was always stored properly and you got the bargain of the century!

Thank you, it was indeed! I only wish that if he was forced to sell it for any other reason than losing interest, he will be able to upgrade to something even better in the future!

The ED120 has arrived!

It was a nice surprise to find out that it comes with a RACI finder instead of a straight through one.

Now I need for the sky to clear so I can test it side by side on the AZeq5, with my bresser 127L.

I have plugged to the mains via an old   5v phone charger, so haven't tried with a battery.

I 've used it only in AP mode, the wifi signal drops to half at about 10m, so it's signal is not very powerful, should have a working range of 15-20 meters but that's more than plenty for my intended use.

The settings, once set, are saved even after power off.

No field tries yet, just dry runs inside the house, checked in eq & Az mode, also with the aux encoders as push-to.

Synscan pro android app & Skysafari settings.

Download synscan pro app and go to settings.

Tap 3 or 4 times the empty line between "wifi settings" and "help", and a hidden menu will appear. Go to "connect settings" and set Read timeout to 400ms, disable "find devices" and enter the fixed IP as "192.168.4.1"

Ok... you're good to go, click connect.(make sure you 've established connection to the module's network!)

Then if you want to use Skysafari, go to settings, scope setup, make sure you 've got eq or az right, connect via wifi, and set : IPaddress 127.0.0.1 & port 11882.

That's it, clear skies.

Can it be done? Without any programming skills?

Yes, it actually seems that way...

THIS WAS TESTED ON AN SW AZEQ5 mount which communicates with the handcontroller on a 3.3V TTL LOGIC.

CHECK YOUR MOUNT'S MANUAL FOR 3.3V compatibility (should be azeq5,azeq6,eq6rpro,eq8), although I suspect it will work with the other 5V TTL logic mounts since the DT-06  board appears to be 5V tolerant, but CAN'T CONFIRM

Ingredients:

- DT-06 Wireless Serial TTL WiFi board

- RJ45 ethernet cable

-5v power supply (or 4x1.2v AA batteries)

First, take the ethernet cable and cut it in half. Strip the cables and identify the cables to the corresponding pins. Then I consulted SW azeq5's user manual hand control port's pinout.

In my case the pinout is as follows:

pin1: orange-white         ---- ground

pin2: orange                   ----not used

pin3: green-white            ----not used

pin4: blue                        ---- ground

pin5: blue-white              ----mount Tx  to controller Rx

pin6: green                      ----mount Rx  to controller Tx

pin7: brown-white          ----- +11 to+16 V

pin8: brown                    ----- +11 to+16 V

Then I connected the orange-white & blue cables to the DT-06 Wireless Serial TTL WiFi board's ground pin,

the blue-white  cable to the DT-06 Wireless Serial TTL WiFi board's Rx pin,

the green cable to the DT-06 Wireless Serial TTL WiFi board's Tx pin,

and a 5V power supply to the DT-06 Wireless Serial TTL WiFi board's ground & Vcc pins (or 4x1.2v AA batteries) , I 've ordered a buck stepdown converter to utilize the +11 to+16 V from pins 7&8 to power the module, but for now I just wanted to make sure it works!

Now that the hardware connections are done, we move on to the settings.

Power the module and a led will confirm it's on. It is on AP mode so scan with your phone for wifi, and you 'll see something like DoitWiFi_xxxx. Connect to it (no password was set on mine).

Open your browser and type 192.168.4.1 , this will take you to the Built-in WebServer where you set the parameters for the module.

You will see three tabs: "status", "module", & "more"

From the "module" tab's dropdown menu, select "serial" and enter the values : baud rate:9600, databits:8, parity: none, stopbits:1, serial split timeout : 200. Click save.

From the "module" tab's dropdown menu, select "wifi". Here you can change the SSID name (I put Synscan), and set a password if you like (I don't). Click save.

From the "module" tab's dropdown menu, select "networks". Change the "socket type" to UDP server, and assign UDPserver port to "11880". Click save.

Then from the "more" tab's dropdown menu, select restart. Now you 'll have to re-join the network under the SSID name you 've given.

I 've only encountered some connection problems related with the serial split timeout. I found a stable connection when I set it at 200ms at the module's  Built-in WebServer, and 400ms as the Readtimeout on the synscan app.

That's it, you 're set to go.

Download synscan pro app and skysafari plus or pro and I 'll post the settings in those apps in my next post.

Last night's Orion nebula. Ingredients are sw ed80, Hyperion zoom, huawei p9lite, single shot / handheld / 8 sec.

Enjoy!

Delivery 2/2 arrived yesterday!

My experience with the 127L, made me REALLY appreciate this hexafoc focuser...

Ha-ha..., no, I wish! But to be honest, I do like the azeq5 pillar tripod. It's not the most stable but it's really portable. After all, I got the azeq5 with portability in mind. The berlebach in my case would be a luxury, not a necessity, and would cost as much as I payed for the whole mount second hand.

Delivery 2/2 will be an OTA alternative to the 150pds...

Delivery 1/2 arrived last night!

4 hours ago, Ant said:

Ha ha ha  you are in trouble

I don't think so. My wife was very excited as she witnessed the stretching of the picture where the nebulocity "magically" appeared out of nowhere.

I'm sure she's going to be just as excited when a Heq5 will appear out of nowhere too!

What? Won't she??

Now my ed80 wants a turn...

I was quite happy as a visual observer. Then I got myself a cheap analogue camera to venture into eaa. Faint fuzzies quickly became very interesting. So far, so good.

Now, I also have an old Nikon D50 laying around for some moon snaps at prime focus with my Bresser 127L, and a couple of nights ago while observing omega nebula, I thought: why not?

Out goes the eyepiece, in goes the Dslr. Rough focusing and I took 25 30sec shots. Two nights ago I stacked them (14 out of 25) and started playing in PS with levels, curves and noise reduction filters.

I know now why this is so addictive, and as I said "I knew this would be a mistake..."

2m17.tif

3m17.tif

Hope we won't have to wait four years to find out!?

??

On 07/07/2018 at 22:16, LukeSkywatcher said:

Nope. The R&P looks like a 6 month old child could snap it off. 

It may surprise you, how many really robust things, a 6 month old child can easily snap off...??

Always exciting a new wood floor!!