Another EQ5 Upgrade Project

[m000c400]

I've been having lots of fun over the pas two seasons with my EQ3 project, but I secretly knew it was a bit sticky and not really man enough for the job.  So in about September, when I stumbled across a 'graded stock'  EQ5 at about 1/2 price Paypal got exercised quite quickly.

At first it was going to be a , 'just move the existing motors and controllers across' project, but as is always the case I realised I could 'make it better by just.......' and eventually it became a bit more of a project.

I quickly realised that if I spent a bit more time and upfront design effort, I could squeeze the whole lot into the existing motor housing, and after what has been quite a few months of fiddling it finally made it outside over the last few evenings.

On the left is a standard 5x2.1mm power jack. On the right a USB connection and connector for the DEC motor. The RA motor, pulleys and belts etc,  plus all the control electronics are in that standard plastic housing.

Inside started out as basic strip board, but in the end because it is so cheap and easy these days , I did a very basic custom PCB

Computing power is provided by a super cheap STM32 module.  These are a bit like the popular Adruino boards, but require a little more experience to get up and running. On the plus side, they are a 32 bit processor running at 70-80Mhz, so there is about 4-5 times the horsepower available.  Thanks to the current craze for 3D printers and the like, there are some nice stepper motor modules around now. So I've put two standard sockets in, and finally settled on some slightly more expensive ones, as the cheapest ones you can buy aren't quite as good as they sound.  The last 'I could just..' was to modify my software to support two ( simultaneous if required ) ports and squeeze a Bluetooth module inside (not shown).  In theory (although only tested indoors so far) you can plonk the mount down and attach a 12V battery and that is it for connectors and wires.... I also have a tiny USB2 hub on the mount, so the 'full' setup ( guide camera, DSLR, interalometer, etc)  only requires the addition of a a single USB cable 

The performance last night was much better than my old system, but not without some room for fettling and tinkering, I might even take some pictures...

Thanks for looking, 

Mike

[Keltoi]

hi this looks interesting,  how has it been holding up?

would you be prepared to do a more detailed write up?