Kutter 2" f/28.2 (finished)

[Chriske]

I do have a lathe and a mill indeed.
A specific worm/wheel combination is not something I can choose freely. Depending on the diameter of the wormwheel and the tap I get a certain amount of teeth. I do not know exactly in advance how many teeth I'll end up with.
To give an example using a 50mm diameter wheel, cutting with a M8 on that diameter I get a reduction around 140:1. Using a M6 tap  I get 156:1
Using again a M8 and I reduce the diameter to 45mm I get 113:1 - for diameter 40 I get 100 teeth and I also tested on a 35mm diameter disk and I got 88 teeth.

There's something else, something I discussed earlier with PeterDrew and ZiggyNZ a few posts higher up.
I said that there's no issue at all cutting a wormwheel. After one rotation the teeth are in sync I claimed.  Well, that's not always the case I discovered a few days ago.
I was testing cutting teeth on different diameters and suddenly the tap started 'eating' all teeth away. I was left with a wormwheel with something that looked like barbed wire instead of teeth. So, just to see what would happen, I continued pushing the tap toward the wheel. And yes while cutting even further, the wheel started to clean itself up and a completely new set of teeth appeared on the smaller diameter.
So you see each diameter has its own number of teeth.

[bluemaxroe]

Yes...I can understand that. There will be an optimum blank diameter to achieve a set number of teeth.   As you move the tap forward you essentially start to simultaneously turn down the blank and cut teeth at the same time.  

For what I need.    number of teeth is not so important.   I am driving the worm wheel with a 400 step nema motor so could change the code in the sketch to compensate.

What Iis your proffession if you work in inventor

[Chriske]

I was a teacher in a (technical) school in Belgium. I teached my boys all about lathes, milling,....and also Inventor.
My pupils made Stirling engines(working models). During open door (in our school) these Stirling engines ran on a 40 yard long track. The stirling engine locomotive in the movie is a two cylinder.
To make a long storie short, Stirling engines run on hot air. So there is no combustion involved at all.

I had lots of fun, it was not work at all, it was more like a hobby, loved it..!

[Chriske]

Expect for collimation and also checking on tracking speed this little guy is completely done. For the moment there's no coating on the (3)optics. Purpose is to observe the sun during open door at our observatory. I think we'll not going to observe at all, weather forecast is not promising at all for the next few days.

[Peter Drew]

If it works as well as it looks,  wow.   

[Chriske]

It does, I already observed a few sunspots with this Kutter.
Collimation is done with a powerfull green laser, fine'tuning' still to be done.

[Chriske]

Rainy days during open door, but now and then a few large gaps in the clouds. So from time to time we could observe the sun. There were a few smaller sunspots.
Two smaller errors has to be dealt with, the tracking speed was not 100% correct and there was some play in the worm/wormwheel system.

[Chriske]

After a few adjustments this scope performs very well indeed.
Observing the Moon was really fun. This scope delivers stunning sharp images. Very high contrast to, that was to be expected because this type of telescope is known for it's very high contrast performance. At 50x(Erfle) it was a real feast for the eye. I have a 4.7 Nagler and tried it on this little scope as well(of course), and it was not that bad at all. I know, I know, enlarging 300x on a 50mm scope is way over the edge, but I was pleased with it nevertheless.

Next step is to build a few larger Kutters. Just started a course for advanced ATM at our observatory. A few of the pupils will build Kutters up to 6".

[Stu]

Look forward to hearing more about this, and the subsequent scopes.

This one looks fabulous, a lot of fun I should think?

[Chriske]

Lots of fun...?
Absolutely...! I have a few friends helping me out with a few things I would not be able to do. Especially the electronics, it is all done by my pal Guy. He's a real wizard. It's a very pleasant co-work.
He's also the man behind the coatings of all our mirrors.

In the pictures he's preparing to coat 2 sets of 50mm(2") Kutters and one set of 150mm(6") Kutter