OCD & Cables

[erg121]

I suffer badly from OCD and I'd like to create some sort of little box of tricks which will contain USB ports and power etc. so that all that runs to my scope is a power cable and a single USB cable that I can attach to the scope / mount?

I've seen something amazing on here at some point and was wondering if anyone has a plan of some sort to create one of these little control boxes instead of forking out £550 plus on something like the Pegasus Ultimate Power box?

[RayD]

There's a number of threads in the DIY forum for these.  If you do a search you should be able to find some real good ones.

[erg121]

19 minutes ago, RayD said:

There's a number of threads in the DIY forum for these.  If you do a search you should be able to find some real good ones.

Thanks RayD I'll take a look and see what I can find.

[choochoo_baloo]

25 minutes ago, erg121 said:

I suffer badly from OCD and I'd like to create some sort of little box of tricks which will contain USB ports and power etc. so that all that runs to my scope is a power cable and a single USB cable that I can attach to the scope / mount?

I've seen something amazing on here at some point and was wondering if anyone has a plan of some sort to create one of these little control boxes instead of forking out £550 plus on something like the Pegasus Ultimate Power box?

Same concerns. I was not prepared to have 4 off USB lines + 4 off 12v DC lines to my pier and back.

I semi-home-made my own hub. Detailed below.

USB

Dealt with by a Startech 4 USB to ethernet extender. At the local (PC) end the ethernet is changed back to a male USB. It therefore elegantly collapses 4 USB devices in to one.

Power

A quality 12V leisure battery with a quality marine grade cigar male. This splits to a plastic box with female RCA (all connected in parallel obviously) and a 4 channel dew controller. Both plastic boxes are Velcro-ed to an aluminium plate bolted to the Losmandy baseplate of my scopes. Then a single 12v/GND dual line goes from teh scopes back to the battery.

I firmly believe in taking the time to properly route data _ power. From pictures I've seen a reasonable number of imagers just leave an unsightly brids nest of cables flapping about.

[michaelmorris]

Here is my meagre effort.