Astro-Geek

Thanks for the thoughts and advice David. I certainly wouldn't have tried desoldering any active components from the board, but as there were only three additional parts on the broken board and they were all low priced connectors (an RJ11 pcb jack, a coax power pcb jack, and a double pole connector), I did swap them over last night. I've just been out to the Pod and tried them out with interesting results... So to recap, the goto Dob has two almost identical motor controller boards, (with postition sensors). The Alt axis one, which I will refer to as the "Master", was in the box on the Alt axis, and had the connections for the RJ11 synscan handset, the coax power socket, and the RJ45 lead down to the az controller box on the Az axis in the base. The Az axis one, which I will refer to as the Slave, was in the box on the Az axis, and only had one RJ45 connection, which was the lead from the Master controller. So, before I made any changes, I tested the controls with Synscan v3.08 firmware and the AZ axis was working perfectly, slewing, changing rates etc.. But the Alt axis was dead, no response. So when I blew the board by plugging an EQMOD adapter into the RJ45 socket on the Master, the Slave was safe because it was disconnected, and I must have blown the Alt circuitry on the Master board. When the Slave was plugged back in, that worked ok, so that part of the circuitry on the Master board that lead to the slave and the handset power was ok. I also tried switching the Master and Slave boards over, so that they were connected to the opposite but identical Alt and Az motor units. As expected, the Alt motor then worked correctly, and the Az was dead. So, as the boards appear to be identical apart from the three sockets, I switched those over, making my Master the Slave and vice versa. I now have exactly the same results with the tests, so it would appear that the circuitry on the original master board that controlled the motor directly connected to it is what has blown. So the 64,000 dollar question now is, if I bought a replacement "slave" ( Az ) MC004 board, would that fix the problem ? ( I think one of those may be "in stock" somewhere 🙂). I think it would depend on whether the big U5 chip is programmed differently between the Alt and Az (master and slave) MC004 boards. Gut reaction tells me possibly not, they both seem to just treat the directly connected motor as the Alt, and the remotely connected one via the Rj45 lead as the Az.... Sorry about this long rambling post, but I really apprecate the ideas and suggestions that I'm getting on here....

....you talked me into it Julian.... 🤓 When I compared the two, the only apparent difference is just three "large" passive components, an RJ11 socket, a coax power socket, and double pole socket for the power switch. I set to work carefully with my solder sucker and temp controlled iron and shifted them across. I'll test it tomorrow and let you know the result.... I did another interesting test earlier this evening, I managed to find a copy of SynscanAZ 3.08 firmware and installed it on the handset, setting it back to where it was before I flashed it with the latest universal AZ/EQ firmware from the skywatcher site. That version appears to have less stringent power-up tests, because it didn't bleep with "no connection to mount". With the master (Alt) and secondary (Az) boards connected in their normal places, I was able to slew the Az axis, but not the Alt Axis. I then switched the boards over, so that the master board was connected to the Az and the secondary board was connected to the Alt, and then I was able to slew the Alt, but not the AZ. That makes me fairly confident that there's nothing wrong with the motors or the sensors, or the secondary board.

mmmm....... I'd be a bit nervous about that. 🥴 It would seem a bit like altering a reserve parachute with bits from the main parachute while freefalling from the sky......... 🤓 Even when you can get these boards, they're over £100 each....

Wow, that was quick Julian... 👍 Volt readings on attached image, I think they're all ok ? I can go into more detail with the error testing, as long as I can explain myself clearly ! When I tried it after the "crack", and unplugging the eqmod cable and replugging the rj45 to the remote az controller board, the synscan controller could still "see" and operate that remote az motor, but the alt motor was unresponsive. So, as this Alt board and the Az board in the base seem to be identical PC boards, with the same chips and components, the only differnce between them is that other "remote" board does not have the hand controller RJ11 socket, the coax power socket, or the on/off switch socket. So when I blew this one, the Az board was safely unplugged (🤓), so my error blew the Alt circuitry in this board but still allows the hand controller to communicate through the RJ45 socket to the AZ board. Then, I updated the firmware in the Synscan controller, from v.03.08 to the latest version, and now there must be more initial testing when the controller is switched on, because it can't see or control the Alt or the Az axis.

In the continuing saga of my blown motor control board I've been inspecting it very closely in the feint hope of finding that the faulty compnents might be replaceable ones, (rather than any of the chips). It looks as though a replacement board will be unobtainable for several months, (admittedly a very small thing to be concerned about during the current situation, but it keeps me occupied...) It's the Alt motor board from my Skywatcher 300P flextube goto Dobsonian. That's the main one, that the hand controller and 12v supply are plugged into, with a lead going on to the similar AZ board, in the base of the Dob. I've attached high res photos of the front and back, which show there's no burnt, cracked, or bulging components, hence my hope that it may be fixable. (I have a temp controlled soldering iron etc. and have built many projects successfully). It was working perfectly before I caused the fault, by (stupidly) plugging the rj45 plug of an EQMOD cable adapter into the rj45 socket on the mainboard that should have held the lead to the az controller box. There was a very feint "crack" noise from the mainboard, and now the controller still powers up, but reports that "neither axis can be seen". So it's getting power from the faulty mainboard ok. I'd read somewhere that the electrolytic capacitors are frequently the things that blow, but they (2 of them) look fine, and they test ok on the board when you apply a multimeter across them (low res, then infinity). Any prcatical ideas or suggestions most gratefully accepted...... 🤓

Still getting good service from Teleskop Express, they've answered my email and given me a postage paid EU express return label, and the incorrect board is now winging its way back to Germany...

Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong forum, I couldn't decide which was the most appropriate ! I posted another thread on here a week ago complementing Teleskop Express on their amazingly fast and efficient service, posting a spare part to me in just over 48 hours, Germany to England. Unfortunately though, although the box was correctly labelled, as "MC004 - Alt" (a Skywatcher Alt motor controller board for their flextube goto Dobs), it contained a completely different part, a circuit board labelled “ SCHMIDT DOB-P1 Rev. A 2018.04” and “E356097 TOWORLD " . Strange thing, this board is exactly the same size, has the same fixing hole spacings and has the same labelled connector sockets as my faulty MC004, but is simply tracks and sockets, with absolutely no components on it whatsoever , no chips, resistors or capacitors, so I wondered if anyone might know what it is designed to fit ? I've attached some photos, showing this incorrect board next to my faulty MC004. I'm intrigued about it's purpose, as it looks very likely to be an alternative board for the goto dob, but how could it work with no components ? I've emailed Teleskop Express yesterday explaining the problem, but have had no replies so far. (it cost me 136 eur with postage , so I'm a bit nervous !!) ( I annotated the photos with "...that you sent me" because they're copies of what I've sent to Teleskop Express).

I've got several 'scopes, but if ever I was forced to cut down to one (perish the thought 🤓), my 200p Dob would be a main contender. It's a good compromise between power, light gathering, portablility and simplicity of use. Taking your numbered points individually: As Vlaiv said, a Dobsonian is a nice rigid design, as long as it's on a firm surface. Dual speed focusers do allow finer movement, but single speed Crayfords (as on the 200P Dob) can allow fine movements if the tension is set correctly. I'm not sure if I misunderstand your point about obects drifting out of the field of view, but any non-tracking mount will "drift" out of view within seconds at average magnifications. Goto Dobs and powered equatorial mounts will keep objects in the centre of view when set up reasonable accurately to Polar North.

Thanks Peter, I wondered if the "EQ" prefix of EQMOD was the showstopper. I had the vain hope that the common Synscan controller might have mitigated that. As you suggest, I'll connect through the handset controller's port and persevere with Stellarium's direct cable connection.

Once again I've been scouring the forum and Internet for something, but with no luck so far....... I'd like to use EQmod and/or Stellarium to control my skywatcher 300p flextube dobsonian goto, instead of the hand controller. I know that EQMod is designed to control skywatcher EQ mounts, but could it be used with Skywatcher Synscan GoTo AltAz mounts, like the Dobsonian goto ? The (standard) skywatcher hand controller recognises what it has been plugged into and does the alignment accordingly, for an EQ mount or an AltAz mount. I was wondering if I plug my EQmod USB adapter lead into my goto Dob, would it be able to sync to that AltAz mode ? Failing that, I assume (hopefully !), that it will at least connect directly to Stellarium using a standard skywatcher serial cable (and USB converter), so that I can control the mount with a PC, rather than the hand controller ? I know I could just try it, but I was hoping to find a youtube vid where someone had controlled a skywatcher goto Dob with their computer, but no luck so far.

There's an excellent article in this Month's BBC Sky at Night mag (April 2020). It explains how to create a personalised landscape panorama in Stellarium. It's really useful if you have a few obstructions, because you can then accurately predict when low horizon objects will be visible from you location. There's a large house partially blocking my view to the South East, so it's very useful to know when the planets are not obscured by it. The instructions were fairly simple, but I did have to vary some of them, maybe due to the Stellarium version in use. Here's a screen dump from Stellarium of my South West view, together with a section of the daylight panorama photograph that I used to create it. There's also a screen dump to the South East, showing the bigger obstructions.

🙂 It's surpising how stable the pier is, even without the jacks down, with the narrower supporting triangle of the castors, it still takes some force to tip it. I guess it's because allthough the centre of gravity is quite high, it's perfectly balanced over the mid point. I did carefully set one of the pier's legs under the North of the EQ mount, so that when in the home-weights-down position, when the scopes are being changed, it has maximum outreach. (I'm quite paranoid about these things ! 🤓 )

I thought I'd resurrect my old thread now that my Pod is fully operational, to confirm the good advice I was given on here, (thanks again). 👍 It's March 2020, 5 months after setting up my secondhand Pod, and it has greatly exceeded my expectations and hopes. I can now nip out for a quick session of minutes or hours (usually the latter 🤓), without any humping of heavy gear or setting up, and of even greater value, I can pack up and go back indoors in minutes, with everything protected and securely locked up. As I had been sensibly advised, I abandoned all thoughts of injecting foam or painting the HDPE, but instead I stapled triple layer insulating material into the bays. This stopped the condensation that had previously formed inside the single skin "roofs" of the bays, and also stops all penetration of the sun's light and UV rays. I haven't lined the dome itself, as the double (dark green) skin is far less translucent, and I haven't noticed any condensation in it either. All drips and leaks have now been stopped by copying some of the methods explained on here and the POD owners forum. I'm using it without a permanent central pier so far, (successfully too) to give me more versatility with my 300P flextube goto DOB and my other scopes on an EQ6 on a wheeled pier. It's been quite stable for AP so far as long as I stay seated at the monitor. Polar alignment is quick and simple with the EQ6 when wheeled into the centre by using the Polemaster software. I have dimmable red and white LED lighting in the bays thanks to LED strips behind "pelmets" above each bay.

Yes (and No... 🤓). My simplified idiots guide, (quite happy to be corrected by anyone more knowledgable on EQMOD), here is my startup process: 1. place mount in "parked" position - weights down, scope up, pointing at Polaris. 2. switch on EQ mount (EQ5 or EQ6) connected by EQ active cable to PC via serial 232/USB adapter. 3. check the com port that it has decided to mimic this time (it keeps changing each session !). 4. start Stellarium (no need to start EQMOD if the telescope has already been set up in it in a previous session). 5. click the telescope slew icon on the bottom row of Stellarium's screen buttons. 6. select the already saved telescope set up. (check com port selected) 7. click connect 8 this brings up the EQMOD control window, (though another gotcha is that it is stuck behind the stellarium window if you're running that full screen !), so you need to switch stellarium to "windowed". 9 EQMOD window should show that the mount is "parked", so click "unpark". 10 EQ bullseye indicator then appears in stellarium, pointing at Polaris. 11 click a nearby star 12 still in stellarium telescope control window, click "selected object" then click "slew to". 13 centre that star in the eyepiece, then click "sync" still in stellarium's telescope control window. .... then repeat 11 to 13 for other stars to refine the synchronisation. When the session is finished, click "park scope" in the EQMOD control window. the mount will slew back to polaris and the EQMOD window will show "parked". Click "disconnect" in stellarium's telescope control window, and then EQMOD will close, then close Stellarium.....

I've been blundering around with this too, but now I have it all working nicely. 🤞(fingers crossed) There's confusion because there are two ways to connect the EQ mount to the PC and also a third party program called "Stellarium Scope" which used to act as an interface with earlier versions of Stellarium. Eqmod (with Ascom installed too) connects via an "active" connection adapter (with some electronics in it, not just straight connections), that is then plugged in directly to the mount, replacing the hand controller. Stellarium can also connect via a dedicated serial cable which has no electronics in it, this is plugged into the second socket on the base of the hand controller, so that remains operational. Both types of cable connect most EQ5/EQ6 mounts via a serial RS232 connection at the computer end, so they both need a serial to USB adapter for most modern PCs. This is another potentially tricky thing to work properly as some are not compatible with the EQ cables. (and all of them need the correct Windows drivers to work). You've already mentioned that you're aware of the need to check which Com port number the adapter has identified itself as, by using windows device manager, (and it does change occasioanlly between each time it is plugged in - annoyingly !) I prefer to use the EQMOD method myself with the active cable because that same arrangement then works with so many other pieces of software (APT, sharpcap, etc). I was struggling with it because I was still trying to use the third party "Stellarium Scope" interface programme, which is no longer needed. Once you are able to move the scope with the EQMOD control panel, it's then quite straighforward to get stellarium to sync with it too, I looked at a couple of the numerous Youtube vids on the subject. (Some are really excellent, though many are unfortunately very slow and laborious...)

It's a shame that there is no third party Modern Astronomy "rail" type conversion available for the HEQ5, ( AFAIK ). I recently fitted one to my EQ6Pro, and it has totally transformed the adjustment process. It cured the basic design fault at its exact source, with a pivoting cylinder pushing up a ramp against the angled cast "tab", eliminating the bending/sliding action as the Alt is increased to high altititudes. It was quite expensive, (by my tight-fisted standards), but very well made and delivered immediately.

Scrub that..... I just found the option in file > settings > hardware, where you can add ASCOM mounts and focus wheels to sharpcap, and it works well with my LX200. The only slight drawback is that the slew speed control doesn't seem to work, so I had to revert to the hand controller for that. As has been said so many times on here, what a marvelous piece of software that is ! 🍺

Thanks Dave, I'll try searching for it. (....... and it's just occured to me, the first two letters of EQMOD........ it was too obvious for me to spot..... 👀)

Thanks Peter, that's certainly put the lid on it, as Dave suspected. I'd wrongly assumed (as often happens) that ASCOM was a universal hardware/software interface, so that anything with an ASCOM driver could be used with any ASCOM compatible software. Once again the detail tripped me up, with EQ being (I suppose) a subset of ASCOM..... 🤓 It's a shame though, I like using Sharpcap with the LX200, and that has no built-in ASCOM scope controllers, unlike APT. Does anyone know of any simple "thin" ASCOM software that can control an LX200, via a popu window like EQASCOM ?

Thanks for the very prompt reply Dave. That's certainly a possibility, when I open the EQASCOM toolbox and try to select the RA and DEC manually rather than "auto" the selection list only contains SW mounts. Whereas in APT all of the installed Ascom drivers for mounts appear in the connection window. However, I've found no mention in the EQASCOM documentation that Meade mounts are not supported, and thought that any mount with a vaild Ascom driver would work ?

I've had a problem with this for some time now, and not managed to find any solutions on here or via Google despite lots of searching. I'm gradually learning the intracacies of Ascom, (with increasing success 😀), but have never managed to control my LX200 mount with it yet. I believe the Ascom driver is working fine, because it connects and controls fine with Cartes Du Ciel and APT. Likewise my Eqascom toolbox connects ok to my EQ6, and the little NSEW control box works fine. The combination of Eqascom and LX200 always fails though, with the message "Connect Error - Timeout" in the status window of the NSEW control window, (and the message changes to "connection error, port not available" when the wrong com port is selected, so something must be getting through). The normally cited culprit is the serial to USB converter, but as I mentioned, it works fine with APT and Cartes du Ciel via Ascom.

Thanks Mark, just the sort of lateral thinking I was hoping for ! I'll work my way through them.... 🤓

As per the replies so far, the first stage in checking/fixing is to just get something sharp visually with eyepieces, not the camera, which adds to the complication. As Aram has just suggested, this can be done most easily in daylight. If you can't get a really sharp image with a fairly low power eyepiece, then your collimation is the problem. The collimation screws should never need more than half a turn, and usually less than that, from when the scope was first purchased. There will be blurriness present until all three are exactly right, so they can't be adjusted by simply looking for a change in the image through the eyepiece. You have to follow one of the techniques advised.

I don't know if they're available in the two eyepiece diameters, but I've used filter "stacks" with male and female screw end caps with my photo lenses for many years. They saved a lot of room in the gadget bags and protected the surfaces well. Portability was everything. I'm a bit nervous of using them with astro filters though, being as they're so much more expensive, and being manipulated in the dark.. 🤓 Just one 2 inch HA filter cost more than my complete set of photo filters. My worry would be maybe dropping the "stack" costing hundreds of pounds, rather than just one, in its individual case.

Does anyone know of a UK source for empty 2 inch and 1.25 filter cases ? FLO list the Baader nesting type, but I'm looking for something a little thinner and simpler. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-filters/baader_filterbox_2459253.html Amazon.com list dual 2/1.25 inch boxes in sets of four, but only available via the USA, and the Amazon.co.uk site shows them as "not currently available". https://www.amazon.com/Storage-Cases-Telescope-Filters-Filters/dp/B07F8NQQ5L Astroboot list a nice plastic box for £1.10, but they're a little too thick ( 30mm ). https://www.astroboot.co.uk/AstroBoot/telescope-and-astronomy-stuff.html?highlight=AB713#AB713 Has anyone found another source, like the Baader, but simpler and thinner ? It occurs to me that somewhere out there, the identical boxes may exist, made for something completely different to eyepiece filters, and probably quite cheap too ! 🤓