Power to my scope.

[cjdawson]

It's been a while since I last posted on this one.  It's a busy time for me.  (Had a break in, so have been dealing with that) my power box project is still on track for completion.  Currently I'm working on the main power box.  I decided to take a photo and post up the project so far.  It's starting to look like spagetti, so you know it's a good project

Here's an image of the progress so far.

Talking you through the box.

On the left is the power splitter board, with fuse holder and connector for the power LED.

The Power LED is on a plug, so that I can disconnect it.

Working clockwise, you'll see the other homemade board - this one is the breakout for the two heater knobs.  Again, the knob potentiometers will be connected to plugs - similar to PC fan plugs.

On the right (lower level) is the two vellemann K8004 PWM circuits, one for each due heater element.  Each has it's own power switch.

Top right is an XLR socket, this will provide the input power for the whole project.

Bottom right is the DB9 socket that will be used for the outputs.

And finally lower middle (to the right of the power breakout board) is the 12v to 5v DC-DC converter.

I'm already thinking about changing the 5v converter for 2 velleman 1A PSU circuits, one will be at 5v (direct replacement) and the other will stack on top as an 8v supply.  The 8v will then be used to power my DSLR.   I'm going to do that at a later stage as an upgrade rather than rush in right now.  I kinda need to get this project completed so that I can use my telescope.

[cjdawson]

Last night I wired in the knobs (potentiometers) and finished hooking up the switches.  Turns out that I'd make a mistake with the switches...  I wanted the switches to feed the 12v line to the device, rather than the 0v (ground)  This way, the due controllers remain grounded.  So, I took a 12v line from the control board, to the switch.  Then from the switch to the relevent K8004.  This bit worked great, with no issues at all.  The bit that I messed up was that I took another 12v from the distribution to the switch for the indicator, oops.  So last night I switched that over and redid the relevent wires for the indicator, down to ground.  This creates the circuit.    Now, the switches light up when the heaters are on.

I've also hooked up the XLR plug to some cable that I've put a cigarette lighter socket on.  This provides power to the whole box.    Next I tested out the box to see if everything is working properly.  Turns out that one of my K8004 PWM circuits is no longer working   so I've ordered a new one from CPC for about £10.  Whilst I was at it, I've also ordered a couple of 1A PSU circuits.  Whilst the 5V supply here is working, I'm thinking about changing this over to a Vellman Kit, so that I can have two of them in the box, one at 5v and one at 8v.  The 8v will be to supply power to my DSLR.  This is something that I'm thinking about adding later.

I've tested out the cabling and everything is working apart from the broken K8004.  One other change that I'm going to make is to swap the two dew controllers at the DB9.  This will make it more intuitive when in use.  Channel 1 is currently on the left on the control box, but it's on the right on the output box which is confusing.  So, I'll simply switch the wires around (actually, I'm going to redo those wires as I want the blue to be nearest the DB9)  So looking at the picture above the blue will be the K8004 at the top of the box, the Orange will be at the bottom.

Once I've switched around the wiring, and made a new working K8004, This will be phase one of the project done.  I'll be taking a breather for a while so that I can actually get some use in on the Kit.

Overall, I'm really happy with how this is turning out.

[cjdawson]

I completed the project today, and checked out that everything working properly.

So what does it look like?

Let's start off at the battery (I've got another project lined up to neaten this part up)

12v Auto plug with a 10 Amp Fuse.

This goes to an XLR plug which connected into my control box (this is the second box that I made in the posts above)

The single LED on the left shows that there's power to the box.  The two switches also have lights built in, I don't think they're LED's as they do get warm when turned on.

the knobs control the output power provided to each of the heaters.

This box, also provides 12v and 5v to along the DB9 connector.

The DB9 uses a 5meter cable to connect to the box attached to the scope (first box that I built in the posts above)

Here is attached to the scope

One of the three 12v outputs is connected to the telescope.

The 5v line is connected to the Synguider on my Guide scope.

There is a dew heater connected to channel 1 of my dew controller.

This means that I have channel 2 available, as well as 2 more 12v outputs.

There are 2 unallocated terminals on the DB9 cable.  I'm thinking about adding a 6v supply for my SkyFi - I didn't do this initially as I thought that powering that seperately would be wise.  I'm still debating that one in my head.  Also I'm thinking about adding an 8V output, so that I can power my DSLR.

For now, I want to get some scope time in, so thoughts about modifications can wait.  I am extremely happy with how this project has turned out.

Next phase is to modify my JCB site system box (It's a trolly that can hold a leisure battery) to include 4 12v sockets, 4usb an xlr and a couple of terminals for battery charging and adding extra batteries.