Screen-mod Synguider2 (now added PT-2 mod)

[p14b]

Having decided to stick to DSLR imaging, I bought a used Synguider-2 to allow me to hopefully get good 5min subs maybe even a little longer.

Having tried it out the other night I managed to get 7mins auto guiding with nice round stars, it did take a lot of messing about and adjustments to get to that stage but that's another story.

So now I know this Synguider works! my biggest problem was actually reading the small flat screen when its in place in the guide scope, without going into too much detail as i'm sure anyone who has used one of these knows the problems with the screen.

1- It really needs to be bigger. 

2- It needs to be angled or hinged, because once its all set up and in place, its near impossible to read as you can't get your eyes directly behind the screen to read it clearly. 

 

So first thing I did was take the SynG apart to see what I have to work with and what could be done to make it better (or more to the point usable ) > Pic's below from strip-down to my diy fix & faults found.

 

Only 4 screws hold the back cover in place. 

 

As you can see the easiest mod to do would be to either angle the screen or to make it tilt, I decided to 3D-Print a new screen holder at a set 20deg angle. 

Then all can be put back together again in the same way but with the screen at a 20deg angle and then just replace the cover which would just need a larger cut-out, no extra wiring or fiddly bits doing it this way.

 

   

 

Having designed the above new LCD-Screen holder it was time to print it and fit it in place, I used a little hot glue on the back to hold the LCD in place and also took the screen protector off the front cover and fitted it into 3d printed LCD holder.

 

 

Below is a close up of the LCD-Screen protective cover which fits nicely into the new holder above, be careful removing it! but its only weak glue so with a little time its comes out easily. 

 

 

last thing to do now was to cut out a bigger hole in the back cover to allow the new screen holder to come through, although this unit is not watertight!!! I thought it best to add some dense foam behind the cover to seal the small gaps around the screen.

finished pics below.

 

 

2x faults I found on stripping the Synguider ? I have added below because it may be a common fault.

1- IR filter was covered in silver like paint on the inside, looked clean until you look really closely, cleaned using cotton buds.

2- The main motherboard is held in place with 4 screws, I found one screw was only half way tightened because it was cross threaded from factory! this in turn made the motherboard sit off by a few MM in one corner, if you look closely at (pic-4 above) you can see the screw now has a washer and the mobo is flush to the body after this fix.  

 

 

 

Having tested the modded Synguider I now find it much easier to read the screen, for the sake of a few hours work I think this Mod is well worth it, and I hope it could help others also.

Any questions please ask 

Thx Paul

 

>>>> Part 2 to this mod <<<< 

More details can be found on PT 2 in my later post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mikeyj1]

nice going Paul,

i just aquired a synguider but haven't tried it out yet..  

Mike

[p14b]

From what I learned on the 1st time out with mine was that its takes a little getting use too, couldn't get any usable tracking for the first few hours trying, then after a while I tried again with a star at about 25-Bri at 300ms and it was better but then I found changing the Aggressiveness from 1150/800 to both set at 180ms it tracked great for 7mins.

All this may sound very new to you (me also) but once you use it you will understand what I typed above, Its like most items once you get use to it and know the settings it will work just great.

The screen mod for me was a must! as I can't use something I can't read/see!.

As I'm also new to this stand alone Synguider > if I find any good settings that work or things that need to be set I will gladly share my findings if it helps others, as I really don't want to use a laptop to guide my D5300 DSLR.

Thx Paul

 

[cjdawson]

I gave up on the SynGuider (still have it though) after failing to find guide stars most of the time.  The only stars that I was able to guide on in the end was Vega, the Trapizium and the Pleiades. After getting fed up with it last year, I swiched to a Starlight Express Superstar and PHD2.  The difference is so significant that I don't think I'll ever use the SynGuider again.

[p14b]

30 minutes ago, cjdawson said:

I gave up on the SynGuider (still have it though) after failing to find guide stars most of the time.  The only stars that I was able to guide on in the end was Vega, the Trapizium and the Pleiades. After getting fed up with it last year, I swiched to a Starlight Express Superstar and PHD2.  The difference is so significant that I don't think I'll ever use the SynGuider again.

I'm not experienced enough to offer any advice on the problems you encountered, as I have only used the SynG-2 for a few hours! but I can tell you my own findings so far used on a 60mm F/4 guide scope (with helical focuser).

Having setup my DX mount, main scope (tv-101) and my DSLR to image the Andromeda Galaxy, then once my main mount was tracking and keeping M31 in the CFOV of my camera I set about using the SynG-2 for the very first time.

My guide scope was already pointing at M31 so using a illuminated EP I got good focus and moved the guide scope to where a could see a few faint stars in EP , then I took out the EP and slotted in the SynG-2.

At first like you said I could not get a guide star on the SynG-2, I knew the focus was within a few MM of my EP but I just couldn't get it.

So I tried a different approach, again I used the EP but this time I found a good star on its own and got it dead center! then I slotted in the SynG-2 and this time with only a little adjustment to the helical focuser I got a nice bright star to lock onto, I adjusted the exposure as the star was way to bright at 255 (which is MAX) but it was always showing as to bright, but I did try a test guide at this point just to see if it all worked and it did! but not very well as I had no way of knowing if I was guiding on a focused star or a blob (plus the star was way to bright)

So now I used a fainter star and did the exact same thing, but this time I was able to to use the Bri reading to achieve a good focus (about 40bri reading on SynG-2) and log the Helical Marking down for future use.

Now I knew the exact focus for the EP and a good focus for the SynG-2 (going off the markings on my Helical focuser)

I then tried a few times in different areas of the sky and I always found good starts where ever I looked to guide from.

Yes after this I did encounter other problems but that again is another story, but the big problem at first is getting the exact focus point for your setup with the SynGuider, once this is done you can use a par-focal ring or in my case log the setting down and you really should never have to bother going through that headache again.

 

Just for the record I completely agree that using a guide camera and software on a laptop is just so much easier, but I'm not using a laptop anywhere in my DSLR setup! so a stand alone guider like the SynG-2 hopefully once mastered will give me what I need 5mins good guiding, if I had a dry observatory I would go the whole hog and do cooled camera and auto-guiding via a laptop. maybe in a years to come when I get more experienced but for now I will try to keep things to a minimal. 

Thx Paul 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

[cjdawson]

For me the problems wasn't getting focus, as I had it and an eyepiece plugged into a flip mirror.  This made getting starts centered easy, also the eyepiece was calibrated to be par focal - I did that when I managed to get it to point at Vega etc and double checked whenever I managed to get something.    This was connected to an ST-80, so I'm talking F/5 80mm scope, so really shouldn't have been a problem.

 

 

Having switched to PHD2, I don't think I'll be switching back.   The Starlight express/laptop combo is much better.  I can see the star field.  I can adjust the focus and the exposure as I please, and can see the work that the software is doing.     In addition to that, with my other kit, I'm working on getting plate solving working as well.  So, this is a complete change from the way I was imaging a year ago.   Yay for the learning curve (again)

[p14b]

Agree!! you should of got many many stars to guide from in that case, does the flip mirror give any light loss (ie split the light into 2) or is it just a simple flip mirror.

I was getting stars maxing the my Synguider out way less bright then Vaga, so I wonder if your Synguider is faulty ?

 

Just for the record and to add it to this thread -   One other thing I noticed is the FOV for the Synguider-2 CMOS 4.51mm x 2.88mm is roughly equal to about a 5mm-Eyepiece of 50deg

[Delboy_Hog]

Very interesting mod Paul, thanks for that - fascinating to see what the insides of one of these things looks like!  Interesting too that you found faults on opening it - I'm always too scared to open these kind of things up, but you always wonder what the quality of the build is like on the inside.

I got a Synguider a little while back, and I love it.  I use it with a diagonal which helps with viewing angle, though I have found the little grip screws have to be done up very tight to prevent the Synguider from rotating.  Yes, it takes a little bit of getting used to, but once you've got it in, aligned with the mount axis and focused, you're away...and now that I'm used to it, the setup only takes a couple of minutes.  As I use a DSLR and drive a fair distance out to a darker-sky site for almost all of my imaging, it's very convenient, and it works well - I've had flawless 20min exposures before, and 5-10 minutes don't trouble the Synguider at all.

 

For me, my only concern with the Synguider so far has been the slight lack of sensitivity - so it's ability to pick up suitable guide stars - though this is probably more about what my expectations where when I bought this unit, rather than an actual weakness of the Synguider itself.  There's not always a conveniently placed, sufficiently bright star to guide on in the field of view of some of the objects I want to image.  Not surprisingly, the issue seems worse under light-polluted skies.  Under much darker skies this really hasn't been a problem.  Sadly I don't know of anyway to improve the sensitivity. 

Quite often there's a bright enough star somewhere in the area, but having a fixed guidescope means your images are then dictated by the framing of the star in the Synguider, rather than on the imaging target in the imaging camera.  This I have become frustrated by, and having done some research I see a few other people have bought the skywatcher guidescope mount, so that you can move the guidescope to search slightly more widely around the target object for a guidestar.  It runs the risk of introducing differential flexure between the scopes, but people who have it seem to think it's been machined well enough to avoid any issues, so I'm going to contact FLO about getting one in the next week or so I think.

Great modding Paul, and hope the new-look Synguider serves you well!

Derek

[p14b]

59 minutes ago, Delboy_Hog said:

Very interesting mod Paul, thanks for that - fascinating to see what the insides of one of these things looks like!  Interesting too that you found faults on opening it - I'm always too scared to open these kind of things up, but you always wonder what the quality of the build is like on the inside.

I got a Synguider a little while back, and I love it.  I use it with a diagonal which helps with viewing angle, though I have found the little grip screws have to be done up very tight to prevent the Synguider from rotating.  Yes, it takes a little bit of getting used to, but once you've got it in, aligned with the mount axis and focused, you're away...and now that I'm used to it, the setup only takes a couple of minutes.  As I use a DSLR and drive a fair distance out to a darker-sky site for almost all of my imaging, it's very convenient, and it works well - I've had flawless 20min exposures before, and 5-10 minutes don't trouble the Synguider at all.

 

For me, my only concern with the Synguider so far has been the slight lack of sensitivity - so it's ability to pick up suitable guide stars - though this is probably more about what my expectations where when I bought this unit, rather than an actual weakness of the Synguider itself.  There's not always a conveniently placed, sufficiently bright star to guide on in the field of view of some of the objects I want to image.  Not surprisingly, the issue seems worse under light-polluted skies.  Under much darker skies this really hasn't been a problem.  Sadly I don't know of anyway to improve the sensitivity. 

Quite often there's a bright enough star somewhere in the area, but having a fixed guidescope means your images are then dictated by the framing of the star in the Synguider, rather than on the imaging target in the imaging camera.  This I have become frustrated by, and having done some research I see a few other people have bought the skywatcher guidescope mount, so that you can move the guidescope to search slightly more widely around the target object for a guidestar.  It runs the risk of introducing differential flexure between the scopes, but people who have it seem to think it's been machined well enough to avoid any issues, so I'm going to contact FLO about getting one in the next week or so I think.

Great modding Paul, and hope the new-look Synguider serves you well!

Derek

Thx for the incite Derek, nice to hear someone using and getting good results from the SynG, cj above also reported he was finding it hard to get a guide star (but very extreme in his case making it unusable) , but so far that's not been a major problem for me! but if it does happen I can live with it if it means not having to set up my Lappy all the time I wana guide. 

As for the SW-Guide-Mount it was ordered very second I got back in after first testing the SynG-2, after my first outing I though there's no way I can put up with adjusting the guide scope using the 3x screws on every outing, and the other fix is this screen mod to put the LCD on a angle to view it cleanly.

As for the SW-Guide-Mount (below) its absolutely rock solid with zero play, as you can see I mounted it the other way round so I can add it to my C9.25 SCT or my TV-101 scope as both have vixen top rails. not used it yet as It only came last week but I will happily share my findings with you, but it really is rock solid and gives a little more room when setup to get in close to read the Synguider LCD.

Depending on your guide scope and setup you may have to add some holes to the top! or bottom! plate on the SW-Guide-Mount, I had to add 2x holes to get the result below.

Thx paul

 

 

[Delboy_Hog]

Thanks Paul, that's helpful to know about the solidity of the mounting plate.  Look forward to hearing how you get on with the new-look setup!

All the best,

Derek

[cjdawson]

20 hours ago, p14b said:

Agree!! you should of got many many stars to guide from in that case, does the flip mirror give any light loss (ie split the light into 2) or is it just a simple flip mirror.

I was getting stars maxing the my Synguider out way less bright then Vaga, so I wonder if your Synguider is faulty ?

 

Just for the record and to add it to this thread -   One other thing I noticed is the FOV for the Synguider-2 CMOS 4.51mm x 2.88mm is roughly equal to about a 5mm-Eyepiece of 50deg

The flip mirror that I use is one of these...

http://www.365astronomy.com/Skywatcher-1.25-Flip-Mirror-for-Astrophotography-and-Precice-Focusing.html

There's no light loss as the mirror flips out of the way.    I think the thing that you are wondering about that splits the light path is an off axis guider.

[Jkulin]

Those Skywatcher Guidescope Mounts are brilliant, I have just changed both my scopes over to them and got rid of the rings, so much firmer and flexible when you need to be, I hated it when you had to keep setting up and adjusting the guide rings because you had knocked them, a thing of the past now.

[p14b]

Final part of this mod

The other part to this mod that I haven't mentioned yet was to add a clip on screen magnifier, I was just waiting for the Fresnel-Lens to arrive before seeing if it would actually work.

And it works just great and clips in place in few seconds, and makes the screen much easier to read as the 2"screen now magnifies to about a 3"screen  > see pics below < 

 

 

Having achieved my aim of angling the screen and making it bigger, I think this mod is now complete.

Any questions please just ask 

Thx Paul