Serial Coms Port and Power supply

[KJ Dalley]

I'm not sure if this is the right section to post in but I hope someone with more knowledge than I have might provide some insight on what is happening with my setup. I've been experimenting this weekend with Stellarium on an HEQ5 PRO as a piece of mount control software and was pretty damn well impressed to say the least. The only thing that I am concerned about is something that may just be a coincidence or may be a problem. I have one of those portable Power Supply Units that double up as a compressor that you can get from the Maplin website that retail for about 50 squid and its served me admirably for about 6 -9 months now. I use it to power the mount, nothing else draws power from it and I personally can normally only cope with about two hours observation at a time before I call it quits for the night. When I retire for the night I put the PSU on charge and if not used for a couple of weeks I charge it just so that its ready.

Now when I used Stellarium to control the mount I used the Serial Com port on my laptop (yeah I know, I'm old enough to have a serial com port on my laptop without USB converters!). I'm not sure if its just my imagination but I think this setup is killing my PSU. The laptop is running off the mains, with a decent battery if things go wrong there, but my power to my mount is dead in about an hour. First time I tried it was this Fri just gone, second time about an hour ago. Same result. Battery dead in about an hour.

I know little about Serial Coms ports but is it possible that the laptop is causing power to be drained from the PSU battery?

I've put the battery on charge tonight after about an hours observations through the wind and C word and weather permitting I'm going to try tomorrow but just use the mount's hand controller and see if this makes any difference. I cannot imagine that using Stellarium is going to slew the mount in such a way that causes more power to be consumed but if anyone knows differently I'd be grateful if they'd share their knowledge.

Any comments or similar (or even completely dissimilar!) experiences are welcome.

Thanks for reading.

[Pig]

I have not used mine in real time with Stellarium before today as I have just dowmloaded it. However, I have been doing a mock up for about 2 hours slewing here and there and generally messing about testing it,

My notebook was plugged into the mains and I was using a usb to serial comms adaptor lead, this was in turn connected to the HC unit on the mount

I have just put my powerpack on charge and it is charging in the orange range, this is most unusual as it has never been this low even when I have been using it all night. This does not make any sense but I have not done anything different.

[Cornelius Varley]

I can't see how the two things are connected. It could be that you have been doing more gotos with Stellarium and, therefore, draining the battery quicker.

[Pig]

I can't see how the two things are connected. It could be that you have been doing more gotos with Stellarium and, therefore, draining the battery quicker.

I think so too - there is no connection.( excuse the pun)

Cornelius do you have a Moto Guzi or just like the pic ?

[Cornelius Varley]

It arrives today.

[Pig]

Excellent - I used to have have a Le Mans II until somebody stole it

What sort are you getting ?

[Cornelius Varley]

The one in the picture (V7 Classic)

[Pig]

Im sure you will love it Peter, I may even by myself another one of these days