Bah Humbug! Stupid dual axis controllers.

[Quatermass]

So gutted last night the only really decent clear night for weeks and weeks and the curse of the burned out dual axis control pad comes to haunt me for the THIRD TIME!!

I dooooo not believe it I shouted in the middle of the night.

My first one died on me after 6 months use my second one died on me after 3 months use and my third one died on me after months of rubbish weather grrrr. Why oh why cant skywatcher do something about these useless bits of junk. So that's it, I now have 3 completely useless control units and a box of spare motors. Skywatcher expect you to coff up 100.00 quid for a unit meaning you have to buy the motors and battery packs as well when I all I want is the stupid control box.

So so sick of these rubbish units. That is the seal of death for any astrophotography this Christmas.

Now going off to cry into my beer.

[zedds]

Mark, cant you get a replacement if you only had them for those short times?

[WaveSoarer]

So sorry to hear about that. My DEC drive stopped working within a few weeks of buying it. I bought mine from FLO and they got me back up in action very quickly. It might be worth getting in touch with them.

[Quatermass]

No chance the last one I got from a kind chap on the forum trouble is they seem unable to take the use I put them through plus they are poorly made. Too be honest I dont think they would ever last longer then a year on my sessions. Seriously thinking of selling all my stuff its been so dire weatherwise.

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[JamesF]

Hasn't someone built an arduino-based controller for these motors? £100 really is too much for what they are. They're not exactly made to a very high standard.

James

[Quatermass]

The 100.00 quid is for the battery case and two motors plus the control box. They dont sell the control box on its own which just sucks like a great big sucky thing!

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[Astro_Baby]

Its odd because you dint see a lot of posts on forums about burnt out controllers. Is it something you are soing ai wonder ? What are you powering it off for instance ?

I had the basic controller on my HEQ5 for a while and it was fine, also had the basic controller with an EQ2 and that was ok as well. The only problem ai dound was the cable into the battery pack was a bit weak. I just put a cable clip on it to stop the canle pulling on the solder joints.

[Quatermass]

I power it from the supplyed 6volt bat pack. Several have had them burn out pix and badgers both burned out but they are fairly shoddy workmanship. Not going to buy any more of them thats for sure astro baby.

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[tich]

That's some bad news Mark I must admit this dire weather has had me thinking about selling up at times but I won't cos I'm to stubborn for that. I don't know what to suggest but I hope a solution can be found.

[Quatermass]

Cheers Tich ah well mybe I will just have to stay indoors and eat mince pies just dont see the point in getting another one there just too unrealiable and 100 guid is for more trouble is not very appealing right now sigh.

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[Capricorn]

Everything that is remotely electronic with Skywatcher equipment is getting troublesome. If the small dual axis box is also getting bad then as they cannot be exactly costly someone is cutting costs and standards too much.

I suppose that determining which bit is failing is an option then replacing it - if a single and simple component like a resister etc - with a better item as ij 1/2 watt instead of 1/4 watt. If there is a controller chip of any sort and this is dying then little chance.

I do not know of anyone that produces an alternative AWR might but AWR are more costly then the Synta stuff. Not aware of anything on the TS site that are alternatives alone the lines of the Goto Nova equipment.

Sky's the Limit have motors and controller but not for the EQ5.

TS do this:

EQ5 Dual Motors

Not Skywatcher, means another set of motors and I have no idea on how good they are, but the system is not Synta and may be a bit more robust. About double the price however. If you get a set keep us informed, I am thinking of a set of motors for an EQ5 and with the reports of just about everything from Skywatcher I would look for alternatives.

[Astro_Baby]

Well it could well be a bad batch of components, it happens with manufacturing, you have to depend on you sub contractors and it can be annoying if they screw up. When I worked for a major electronics manufacturer we once gook in a shipment of duff chips, we disnt find out till the product started dying in the field by which rime the factory had churned about about 1000 units and shipped them to the UK. Every single one had to be either scrapped or reworked. Dead ones returned from customers were scrapped as the fault caused a kind of chain reaction effect. Unshipped units were reworked.

If these were bought new and under 12 months old you could get them swapped, if the repacements fail keep swapping with the supplier until the problem is fixed.

If anyone wants to send me

A burnt out one I could take a look and see if I can identify where the problem is.

[Cornelius Varley]

No chance the last one I got from a kind chap on the forum trouble is they seem unable to take the use I put them through plus they are poorly made. Too be honest I dont think they would ever last longer then a year on my sessions. Seriously thinking of selling all my stuff its been so dire weatherwise.

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Are you adding a ST4 port to them ? The phrase "they seem unable to take the use I put them through" seems to suggest that you are using the handset in a way it was not originally designed for. Adding a guide port and using the handset in this way is giving the handset more work to do than just simply tracking. May be time for a Synscan upgrade.

[JamesF]

I am so sure I have seen an Arduino project to build a controller for these motors that would do guiding, but I just can't find it any more. If anyone else does, please do post a link.

James

[Ajohn]

This site may have something to offer not sure as I only found it yesterday. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/EQMOD/

It sorts of lines up with my interest - forget the handset and us a pc. A netbook in my case. Trouble is I'm most interested in alt az in the synscan area and not sure if it will cope with that. Also interested in similar set ups for early Vixen go to on a gp dx. The goto is great but the steppers make one hell of a noise. More modern drive chips would probably be quieter. The Littlefoot kit was interesting but not now at 600 euro.

If anyone knows of any other similar links I'd be grateful if they posted them.

John

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[Quatermass]

Thank you all for your kind suggestions but I think for me this is the end of the line for these controllers. If skywatcher did the sensible thing and sold them separately I may will have got another but there is no way I want to pay out 100.00 quid and have it fail on me a 4th time. So I will wait and save up for an Heq5 mount which will be much better in the long run I hope.

[Quatermass]

I have a good friend who is cool with electronics and he is going to test the units and see what part is causing the problems I will post back on here if we find out what is causing it in case anyone else is suffering from these poorly made control units. In the mean time Skywatcher please listen to your customers and stop cutting corners on important components.

[Ajohn]

I'm amazed some one hasn't come up with a pc interface direct to the mount for all of them or even that via a retrofitted motor drive. The only place that sort of thing seems to be going on is in Germany. There is all sorts of drive software available but nothing to replace the handset as far as I can tell.

As to the problem it is probably the stepper motor drive chips especially if they are more likely to fail with auto guide added. I assume the mod just interfaces to the switches so if the electronics in that is sensible there shouldn't be a problem. If on the other hand it uses a different power source and or isn't sensibly done that could be the problem.

A search for Arduino telescope brings up a project. Personally I think a stepper drive offers more possibilities than dc motors and encoders but each to their own. It also looks like the person who is working on this hopes to make some money in the end. I have worked in firmware for a long time and would have thought many micro controllers would be perfectly capable of maintaining stepper motors and doing the sums. If not why not use 2.

The TS kit looks interesting but bear in mind my comment about the Vixen kit. One reason for the noise is metal gears and a metal worm wheel etc. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a copy of Vixen gear actually.

John

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[AstroTux]

I've recently posted this http://stargazerslou...all-telescopes/ as a fix for the awful motors used on the cheaper mounts and it could quite easily be modified to work as a dual-axis controller. The control module costs about £6 to make and could possibly be used with the control panel for the EQ5 controller.

Maybe you would be interested in modifying one of your duff controllers. If so I would be quite happy to provide as much assistance as would be needed.

Hope this helps.........

[JamesF]

That was exactly the project I was thinking of AstroTux. Thank you for reposting it.

James

[Quatermass]

I've recently posted this http://stargazerslou...all-telescopes/ as a fix for the awful motors used on the cheaper mounts and it could quite easily be modified to work as a dual-axis controller. The control module costs about £6 to make and could possibly be used with the control panel for the EQ5 controller.

Maybe you would be interested in modifying one of your duff controllers. If so I would be quite happy to provide as much assistance as would be needed.

Hope this helps.........

Many thanks Astro I will get back to you if my mate has no luck cheers

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[Astro_Baby]

I nvere read your sig but you seem to have added a guide port, if thats the case then you cant really blame the hardware if you add some home brew to it and it packs up. Uou should look at getting a Synscan kit for the EQ5 or better still getting an HEQ5 espcially for a 200 newt with astro imaging in mind.

The problem with a lot of home brew stuff is you cant ever be sure id its going to work, be reliable etc and for astro imaging unreliable and wonky is making things hard for yourself.

[Ajohn]

If some one posts the circuit used for the mod or a link to it etc I may be able to comment on possible problems. The one I mentioned about the motor drivers is pretty obvious. Normally some one will be pushing buttons from time to time while the scope tracks. The chips used to do this will be rated for that sort of use - hopefully. Add an auto guide and the motors may be switched back wards and forwards a lot more often. It's the switching process that generates heat and the rate that is done at may well blow something up. The power dissipation is usually rather low when the actual switching has been accomplished. Most power is dissipated at the point where the unit switches to the next step.

John

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[Cornelius Varley]

The conversion is fairly simple, just soldering some extra wires and a socket to the pcb . If you do a seach online for Shoestring Astronomy for the instructions

[JamesF]

If some one posts the circuit used for the mod or a link to it etc I may be able to comment on possible problems. The one I mentioned about the motor drivers is pretty obvious. Normally some one will be pushing buttons from time to time while the scope tracks. The chips used to do this will be rated for that sort of use - hopefully. Add an auto guide and the motors may be switched back wards and forwards a lot more often. It's the switching process that generates heat and the rate that is done at may well blow something up. The power dissipation is usually rather low when the actual switching has been accomplished. Most power is dissipated at the point where the unit switches to the next step.

My recollection is that the mod just involves bringing out the connections to the RA+, RA-, DEC+ and DEC- buttons on a multi-core cable and remaking them across some opto-isolated switches operated by the guiding unit.

James