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NickK

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  1. I've recently been heavily involved in producing a 24Vdc -> 240Vdc boost converter for a valve amp. Let's ignore the topology discussion for now but - you're right that SMPS are an inherently noisy way of either stepping down or stepping up power. One or more switches are flipping anything from 50,000-1M times a second depending on design and configuration. It's the reason why the components are smaller (due to the high frequency switching). Also SMPS that plug into the mains typically convert from 240Vac to 390V before bucking down to the intended 24V or 12Vdc. Meanwell produce good supplies - including medical. just ensure that (a) the supply is "isolated" and (b) has over/under and short curcuit protection. A lot of the meanwell also have PFC which makes them very efficient. Their 24V supplies only have around 150mV peak-to-peak for the 24V supply. There's some noise but for audio shifting the noise up in frequency is a great way to make things quieter (easier to filter). Now to my point. It is possible to post regulate (ie using a maida regulator with an LT3080 instead of the old LM317 for example) with 1A max to 1mV ripple or below which means you're at least down to -60dBv and the supply I'm working on is around -120dBV at 240Vdc but also be efficient. That lower ripple (regardless of frequency range) means low noise for cameras - traditionally this is why APers have used linear regulated power supplies as they don't have switching noise. I have a meanwell supply on my koi pond filter controller. I've had it blow due to water ingress but it's dependable and works. New controller box to solve the water leak and no problem since. I'd certainly recommend meanwell supplies. As always - careful of humidity and water ingress ;)
  2. Another issue with wine is the support for multiple threading. It’s not brilliant for high performance work (ie real-time or games) but does work well enough for low end stuff. personally I’d have a look at Linux and INDI/Kstars. Lots of drivers and they seem good enough.
  3. That would probably work well and actually allow a faster frame rate (depending on the seeing). There is a fl vs binned pixel size but if the guide star image is large enough then a centre mass calculation shouldn’t have a problem. All my cameras are mono.
  4. The only issue is that Bayer matrix can confuse some star tracking. If the wavelength of the start if blocked by one of the colours then the tracker may loose the star or find that the star centre point moves irregularly.
  5. Right ... getting to the end of of the ODroid C2 build.. I've created a virtualbox 64bit x66 ubuntu install for cross compiling to arm aarch64 Indi, kstars and this.. so will start playing with the focuser over the next week(s). This will allow me to test using the Mac straight to the focuser (12 core Mac 32GB RAM is a lot faster!), then simply patch over the binaries. Once it's working, I'll look at adding stop switching for limits.
  6. Just rebuilding the C2.. now I remember - getting it setup as headless VNC on ipv6 .. this bit if Linux I hate.. anyways .. going off topic
  7. Just rebuilding my OdroidC2 kstars and indi platform. I’ll switch to use this with my drv8825 and uno used for the focuser. Should have this over the next couple of days.
  8. The C2 uses eMMC for system drive (16GB) so ~12sec power-ready but only has usb 2.0 - fast enough for an SSD image store. With passive cooling - no vibrations too. I use UBECs to convert from 12V to 5V - small but powerful enough Like the RPi it does everything in a box Just trying to pick up courage to reinstall from scratch! Will probably do that tomorrow.
  9. Amazing to think that something the size of this can do everything including astrometry! Just playing around - the build on this is 2016 and the first 64bit self compilation of many INDI/Kstars things.. so I’m seriously considering updating it to correct many package errors stopping upgrades etc.
  10. so; Guide Camera -> Mount rather than Guide camera -> RPi -> mount ? ST4 simply says nudge N/S/E/W and the length of pulse is how long the nudge is (the auto guider port on the NEQ6). There isn't any logic or protocol to change speeds etc. If the hand controller decides it's going todo something then it will cause a problem with the tracking. Most cameras are simply cameras - ones with an ST4 port simply pass the computer image to the computer, the computer analyses and instructs the ST4 pulses back to the camera though USB. Autoguider cameras that analyse the image inside the camera short cut that - and you'd not need to worry about the computer guiding (it doesn't know about the computer). INDI has a guider module; So basically set INGI guider up for internal guider, connect the ST4 ports up and away you go.. you don't need to remove the handset and use the PHD-style dongle to replace the handset controller. It's not as advanced as PHD2 but more info here: https://indilib.org/about/ekos/guide-module.html
  11. My initial idea was to get pure digital from PSU to headphones with possibly a passive RC filter at the end. Going through all the research it became apparent for R2R vs singlebit sigma delta, that the noise from square waves needs careful control (far beyond an active Sallon-Key Butterworth filter. Also the ladder resistances for higher bits requires higher tolerances (0.01%). Then by the time the switching on the ladder is operating at ~3MHz you're starting to get into higher frequency curcuit design.. bypass caps, track layouts etc all become too costly to simply DIY. I find the software and building digital filters relatively easy (including the fpga) but low volume cost of high precision resistors and large number of mistakes in hardware.. it would be easier selecting an OEM board. In the end I will go with a Soekris R2R OEM board (this has usb, fgpa, ultra stable clock, switches and resistors at 0.01%). The board then requires line buffer or headphone amp, power supplies and control boards. Those are easier to build or source.
  12. Lol yes - it's easy to make a filter to kill off anything outside of 50Hz from the mains, then regulate to a voltage. Most cameras I have are 12V with the fans (shock horror) also running from the same power. Just seemed like an option to provide 12V heavily filtered It's possible to run an isolated USB with the regulator providing quiet USB too.
  13. So I've been exploring the world of DIY audio.. specially making a headphone "DAC" with an R2R ladder style DAC. So effectively the headphones are connected to the power supply - thus ultra low noise stable DC power regulation is needed. Now my current power system is a supply (normally battery) that is then fed through a RC style regulator to give the required voltages and current. However the LT3045 regulator is something worth noting .. Only 500mA I hear.. well actually you can connect these in parallel and the reference design has a 4-device 2A design that pushes the heat and noise levels down further! So this would be able to run a camera at 12V but another option is to "upgrade" the internal camera power. The down side.. in singles the regulator chip itself (surface mount) is about $/£/€5 each. Just wondered if anyone had explored creating an astro "ultra quiet" power regulator that could be plugged inline for example.
  14. Catalina has some issues with USB it seems from reports too. When you connect the camera to USB can you see it in OSX? Hold down Alt when you have the apple menu open (menu from the top left) - "About this Mac" then becomes "System Information". Navigate to the USB part of the tree and you should see all the USB devices it recognises.
  15. The usb speed is usb 1.0 I believe so use a hub to stop the usb bus being pulled down to slow speeds. i have a 16 that I took my first stop images on, it then got used as a guider.
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