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Hi all, I am new and come to share an EQ5 mod experience


George Waltzer

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Hello guys, I am new to this and here is my 1st post:

I have a telescope since 2 weeks and already done something I want to share.

I tried to find a cheap method for autoguiding for my EQ5 mount but sadly, not cheap enough for me :), and so I started on my own.

I had 2 goals in mind: Autoguiding from a respectable distance, no long annoying cables.

What I did was buying a cheap 10 euros RC chinese toy car and use the RX/TX-2B IC's to remote control the EQ5 controller.

What I wanted more, is to hide all this inside the very same EQ5 controller.

Here is a link to what I did:

eq5 cheap remote - YouTube

- I took the RX pcb from the car and put it in the eq5 controller.

- I cutt of 4 PNP tranzistors from the 8 ones forming the H-bridges and powered the circuit from the LM393N of the eq5 controller.

- Solder the digital inputs from the RA and DEC switches to the new circuit to use the remaining 4 transistors as on-off switches.

- It was hard to fit the new circuit inside the same box, so I moved some of the EQ5 diodes to the back of the pcb to make more room 4 the new circuit. It was tedious with my primitive tools and the cheap chinese EQ5 pcb made it a lot heavier.

I am a SW guy and don't have experience in electronics, so, if there is a secondary bad effect, I do not know yet, it seems to work atm.

In the very near future, I want to add that ST-4 connector to the remote and find a USB-TTL converter. With a WiFi cam, this mod and a same story to build a focuser, I can put my telescope on the roof and watch the sky from my TV :)

If there are several beginners like me interested in this, I will try to document what I did (I also appreciate critics and advices)

Cheers,

./george

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