michaelmorris

Thanks Rob I get parts of the diagram, but other bits are a bit of mystery to me. There are 3 x 1.2Kohm resistors and a 1Mohm resistor in the circuit and one end of the circuitis attached to the 0 (Marked RXC) terminal on the Arduino. Is this correct? Do the other ends of the circuit attach to the 5v and one of the GND terminals on the Power section of the Arduino? Also, what is the triangle of three lines of diminishing size symbolise? Sorry for the numpty questions, but I'm more or less a complete newbie at his.

The push buttons have now arrived so that I can operate the focuser when I'm next to the scope. I've read through the myDCFocuser documents and I can't for the life of me work out where to wire them in. Help! Please bear in mind that I am to electronics what Jack Nicholas was to Greco-Roman wrestling!

Thanks

It works!!! Next I need to order the buttons for manual control , sort out a 9v power supply and put it all in a case.

Well, all the basic bits a have arrived and I've put it together. I've uploaded the firmware to the board and downloaded the ASCOM drivers and software to my computer ...

Just before Christmas the postman delivered a lovely large flat parcel. Sky Atlas 2000 deluxe colour laminated edition. Only £57 delivered from the US. It was on special offer - 50% off in November.

Okay, I've now ordered what I think is everything I need to make a basic test bench version of the myDCfocuser. Arduino Uno L9110S DC motor board assorted jump cables breadboard 4p4c socket (to connect to the Accufocuser motor) 9v battery connector (to power the Accufocuser motor) Have I missed anything? (or probably more accurately - What have I missed?)

Get your ear plugs ready!

I've decided I'm going to start off with a simple DC motor only system to get me acquainted with Arduino first . I've just ordered a bundle of bits on Ebay so that I can build a myDCfocuser system. https://sourceforge.net/projects/mydcfocuserrelativedcfocuser/ . This will then become part of a mini-hub system that includes 12v power distribution. My plan is to get this up and running, then switch over to a stepper-motor based system when time and budget allows. I'll keep you posted with progress.

That Pegasus controller looks to be pretty much what I'm looking for. However, I do have two reservations. 1 - The Price. Whilst it is around £100 cheaper that most of the alternatives I've found so far, £270 is still MUCH more than what I guess an Arduino-based system would cost. (On that note, how much would an Arduino-based controller cost to put together?) 2 - The connections. I would have to build and additional converter to allow the 3 different focus motor types to connect to it.

Thanks

My current imaging rig includes an 8" SCT + 66mm apo + an 80mm apo. Both refractors have Skywatcher 'Autofocuser' focus motors - this is serving me fine at the moment. The SCT has a Meade zero shift focuser on the back. This is basically a Crayford focuser with a built-in DC motor. I am hopefully soon to upgrade from a DSLR to a CCD and I can see a day that approaching when I'm going to look to invoke computer-controlled automated focussing routines. From all the reading I've done this is really only practicable when using stepper motors rather than the DC motors I currently have. My plan would be to slowly replace the current focus motors with Arduino-based stepper motors. As I can't afford to do this all in one go, I thought that my first step could be to get to grips with Arduino-based systems by replacing my present HitecAstro DC focuser controller with the myDCFocuser Arduino-based system. https://sourceforge.net/projects/mydcfocuserrelativedcfocuser/ Once I've got the hang of this, I would then add a stepper motor controller to the Arduino and replace my two Skywatcher 'Autofocuser' focus motors with stepper motors. This would mean using the same Ardiuno to run the DC motor on the Meade focuser and the stepper motors on the refractors (obviously not all at the same time). Is this possible, or would I need a separate Arduino for each focuser or each type of focuser? Replacement of the Meade focuser on the SCT with a stepper motor-based system would come later.

After struggling with an over zealous Windows Defender I finally managed to download the ASCOM drivers for the Lodestar. After configuring the ASCOM drivers for the Lodestar, Sharpcap recognised my Lodestar 2. Wow, this polar alignment tool is seriously neat. Following the on screen instructions (something I didn't do the first two times I used it ) it worked like a dream. I had my mount aligned really well within about 1/2 hour. Even with my Lodestar 2, I still had to use 7 second exposures, but it worked. The next time it gets used it should be a lot quicker. Thanks for a great program Robin.

The Lodestar is becoming increasing popular for video astronomy using real time frame stacking software (such as Starlight live) and the Lodestar is in widespread use as the guide camera of choice. Surely Sharpcap's excellent real time frame integration functionality and the new polar alignment routine would both be enhanced greatly by having a specific (non-ASCOM) drivers available for the Lodestar. Is this possible?

Add a Brightstar/Orion clone off axis guider to that list (£90)

I've got a couple of items for sale SX Lodestar guide camera with original ST4 lead and original drivers disk in its original box (£225) Skywatcher 21 cm Vixen-style dovetail (£5)

Where do these great graphics come from?

Are you talking about the cooler or my face in my Avatar?

That's one of the reasons why using a cheap android tablet running DSLR controller or a cheap windows tablet running APT is so attractive. You can pick up a brand new tablet running a full version of Windows 10 for less than £50. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoostorm-SL8-i75-7-5-Tablet/dp/B01FWGRCFW/ref=sr_1_15?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1473766145&sr=1-15

There might be two easier options for focusing. If you have an Android phone or tablet that supports the 'USB Host' protocol, you could plug in an OTG cable to the camera and view the liveview screen or test shots on your phone/tablet using the excellent 'DSLR Controller' app. Connect your camera to a PC laptop/tablet and use APT or Backyard EOS to view the liveview screen or test shots.

Are you sitting down? Okay, good ... The empty cooler box weighs a whopping 919 grams. To make matter worse, most of the mass is on one side! To put this perspective, the camera body and focal reducer together weigh just 755 grams, so using a cooler box will over double the loading on your focuser.

Well, the DSLR cooler is now (hopefully) complete. The 2 metres of cabling connecting the project box containing the electrical bits from the original fridge (the power box) has been connected up to the wiring from the Peltier cooler and the two fans in a small project box ‘Araldited’ to the rear of the cooler and a small digital thermometer velcoed to the top of this box. The temperature probe for this thermometer has been glued on to the inside of the cooler. The USB cable and power cable from the camera pass through a thin slot at the top of the case. I wedge a small piece of foam in here after these cables are in place to provide a reasonable thermal seal. The lid of the cooler and the cooler itself have been painted with blackboard paint. I carried out a 3 hour long test of the cooling performance of the cooler, the results of which can be found at Overall, I’m pleased with the project and plan to test out how well it actually works on deep sky imaging in the next few weeks.

Here are the pictures of the original electrics from the fridge all mounted in a project box. Unlike Ade Swash's very neat mounting of these components ( http://www.swashastro.co.uk/peltier_cooler_box.html ), I chose the simple, but far less elegant solution of mounting the switches and power inputs en masse. It may not be pretty,but it seems to work.

The build is coming along rather slowly due to work and other commitments. The cooling assembly is now installed with the original pettier cooler and associated heat sink on the outside of the aluminium box and the new heatsink and fan on the inside. The two are clamped with two bolts running through two holes drilled in the outer heat sink and through the aluminium box and fins removed from the inner heat sink. Each hole is lined with a whittled down rawl plug to try to thermally isolate the bolts from the outer heatsink. The gap between the part of the outer heat sink not in contact with the peltier and the aluminium box is filled with some thin sheets of neoprene rubber left over form another project. This is then all sealed in with some liquid gasket left over from another DIY astro project. I've wired it all up to the circuitry taken out of the fridge and it all seems to work okay. (Phew). I've put the circuitry from the fridge into a plastic project box from Maplin (pictures to follow) and bought a replacement 12v lead for the fridge (missing from the original fridge I liberated from the tip).