Dewityourself DIY dew heaters

[Eddy_J1]

I bought a couple of dewityourself kits and I'm in the process of making one for my finderscope and one for my secondary, the secondary one has the circuit built, just need insulation wrapped around it, I'll post my pictures once done for everyone else to see how mine turn out.

I don't think many others have given this a go yet as my order number was 6!

Cost me £15.46 delivered so if they turn out good then it's much cheaper than any other heater anywhere!

[Nillchill]

where did you buy the kits from please Eddy?

[Islander]

I would imagine that they're these ones:

Dew It Yourself Astro Kits

[lukebl]

Interesting. What power source do they use?

[Islander]

The same power source as the mount - a power tank or similar.

[Eddy_J1]

Yup islander got it right, heres the... not so neat secondary one do, tested and works a treat, my mum is holding it to show the size, it's a little on the large side but fits around the spider fine.

[Eddy_J1]

Edit: Just been told by Kim(Brantuk) on EMS that it should be on the end so ignore the position of it at the moment.

Heres the finderscope one done

[Mav359]

I'm having a go at this, these are great! I have an astrozap controller, will it plug into that does anyone know?

[Islander]

It should work with any standard dew heater controller

[Carbon Brush]

Interesting idea.

A while back I thought about dew heaters and looking at many of the standard packages, they seemed big and clumsy. All these extra bits stuck around the outside of the scope were just asking to be snagged in the dark. Also they did not lend themselves to swapping scopes on the mount, etc.

By stringing a number of resistors in series, then putting heatshrink sleeving over the lot, I could make a heater with power and physical size of my choosing. The idea being to make a heater that was adequate, but small and tidy.

I also looked at using nichrome (resistance) wire in a small sleeve and hiding it under a layer of tape. This could be easily 'lost' in the root between lens and dew shield for example.

Either solution could be put (for example) on the inside periphery of a mirror cell in a newt with just a power socket on the outside.

In my shed I even have some of the parts, but never got around to doing anything about it. As I'm lazy and have mains power in the shed, it is easier to give dew a quick blast from a hair dryer.

Perhaps some scope heating would be a good summer project.

[Eddy_J1]

Yep that's all it is, 2 lengths of braided wire with resistors soldered along at the same distance between each, then 2 lengths of insulated material over the top, one shiny down and one shiny up and then taped up, not as neat as a purpose made one but does the job, I might wrap some black tape round mine so it fits in the colour scheme a bit better

[lukebl]

A quick query about fixing the Dewityourself strip to the secondary of a Newtonian. How do you do it without reducing the aperture, or getting optical artifacts due to it appearing in the imaging train?

[Islander]

Fit it to the back of the secondary carrier

[Nillchill]

well I ordered a couple of kits on thursday, and they arrived this morning, lets see how I get on, hopefully get time to make them up in the next couple of days.