Powering SS2K from Deben Tracer

[Ludd]

I recently bought a dinky (but expensive) Tracer battery from the lovely folk at FLO.  It powers the DD1 motors on my GP mount very happily, but it doesn't seem to produce any sign of life when I connect it up to my Skysensor 2000 drive system - not a flicker.

I know the Skysensor is power-hungry, but does it need more voltage than the Tracer can supply?  I don't have a voltmeter, I'm afraid, so I can't check what voltage it actually has across its terminals.  Might I have been better off with a leisure battery, I wonder?

All a bit disappointing, and I'm hoping to take the Skysensor to a remote dark sky site later this week.  I may have to stock up on D cells!

[Tinker1947]

I would check out the connection a Tracer or any Battery fully charged should kick the Skysensor into life, if it doesn't look else where for the problem....

[Ludd]

I wonder if I need to shorten the cables - the Tracer has a short flex with a female cigarette socket, and I've been running from that a rather long flex that has a voltage regulator in it, that I had set at 12V (it's highest setting).  I might have a go a shortening the cable run - need to make sure I don't get the polarity wrong!

[Lonestar70]

Hi Ludd,

The SkySensor needs a 12 Volt external power-supply capable of sourcing 2 amperes. It comes with a battery holder that needs eight, D cell batteries. I quickly determined that I did not want to keep feeding batteries to this thing. My SkySensor now has two power sources. One is 1.2 amp, 13.8 volt AC adapter that was salvaged from an old Logitech Scanner. The other is a 12Volt, 12 amp hour battery. Another good choice would be the Portable Power Station available from Orion. Using these alternative power sources required attaching an appropriate connector. The connector is a common female, 2.1 mm barrel connector obtainable from Radio Shack. The center post needs to be wired to the Negative power supply lead.

 Be Careful! There are a lot of "Cigar Lighter" cables with a connector that looks just like the SkySensor 2000 connector. The problem is that these cables provide a center positive post. These are not compatible with the center negative SkySensor 2000. You can use them if you reverse the wires.

Hope fully you have not damaged your mount by using a reverse polarity plug... Most mount types use TIP POSITIVE... yours is TIP NEGATIVE.

The Tracer should be more than adequate once you get the polarity right.

Best regards.

Sandy.

[Ludd]

Thanks Tinker1947 and Lonestar70 - I even managed to dig out a little polarity checker to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong.  I've shortened the connections and seem to have eliminated whatever it was that was preventing the right sort of electrons getting to the handset - all hunky dory now, and set for travel to clear dark skies.

V relieved that the Tracer seems, after all, to be up to the job.

[Ludd]

...and I should probably add here that, having spent about three nights observing last week, running a power-hungry Skysensor 2000 system on a GP-DX mount, the battery is still showing green lights on its charge level indicator.

I'm really impressed with this battery.  Quite a lot of money compared to other options, but very handy for travelling (unless you're flying, of course!).