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Obsy design MKII


dyfiastro

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Hi everyone

Following a devastating incident a during the last storm a few weeks back I am now investigating and looking at the possibility of building a new upgraded obsy.
The roof and entire front of the obsy got ripped apart, the roof ended up in next doors garden and various equipment including scopes etc.. got damaged and scattered across the garden. 

I am now investigating what options I have to build a mkII version and also reduce the chance of the above from happening again.
This will be a complete new build due to having the pull down the old one for safety reasons.

The original design was a ROR but I am looking at possible designs that will prevent or at least mitigate any possible risk of the roof being ripped off again.
The original was 7x5 but open to options. Budget is going to be a factor due to having to replace equipment etc... but want to do it right.

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13 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

Did your damaged obsy have shackles or locking bolts to keep the roof in place?

Yes the roof was locked down the the main structure using 4 large hinged latch bolts (one on each corner).
The roof was ripped from the latches and they was still in their locked positions so how it happened I still do not understand.

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9 hours ago, dyfiastro said:

Yes the roof was locked down the the main structure using 4 large hinged latch bolts (one on each corner).
The roof was ripped from the latches and they was still in their locked positions so how it happened I still do not understand.

That must have been one hell of a blow going on there!

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Sounds devastating, but one consolation is that if your roof ended up next door, that you don't mention it caused any damage to property or persons, that would have been even worse.

Sharkmelley lost his roof a few years ago, it was a double width observatory, and he had to re-build.  He now uses long straps with ratchet type buckles to anchor the roof down if there is any chance of bad wind.  Not sure of the proper name for them. 

Carole 

 

 

 

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Thanks everyone.
No other property got damaged so thankful of that, it happened during the night so everyone was in bed.
Living on the west wales coast the obsy has withstood 60+ mph winds with no issue and even a mini tornado. What ever hit did so from a different angle and some serious force, there was lot of properties got damaged that night including an entire balcony being ripped off the side of a house just down the road.

I am in the process of looking locally at options for a shed to convert. 

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That's tragic. Sad when something you have put time and energy into gets trached. Fortunately, as you say, no injuries.

Now that it is 'back to the drawing board' for you, I wonder what you would do differently with the MkII?

Are then any little irritations that you would take the opportunity to fix? Things that with hindsight you would do differently? Or will it just be a straight replacement?

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I don't know if anyone has tried this as a roof securing method-

Install ground anchors such as bolt loops in the floor of the obsy, perhaps even concreted in. Install eye bolts in the roof sructure and then get long ratchet straps between the two to tie the roof down to the ground?

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Hi everyone

Been doing a fair amount of thinking and research and think I have come up with a possible solution.
I have decided to go with a complete roll off structure instead of just a roll off roof.
This I am able to run on a set of rails and the entire structure can be secured and bolted down when not in use.

This is very much a compromise in some ways but does have its benefits being able to image down low etc... due to having no walls in the way and the cost is going to be a lot lower as well.

 

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We initially used this approach but still lost a couple of moveable structures. We now use fixed structures for four of our instruments, the instruments themselves roll out on rails and obviously only get deployed in suitable conditions. This would probably only work well for visual use.   😀

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The [destructive] power of the wind rises as the cube of velocity and is often extremely localized. The danger is when the wind can enter a building and inflate its surfaces to destruction. Suction on corners and flat roof surfaces is often very damaging. A double garage roof, made of hefty, old fashioned, corrugated steel, unpeeled, lifted and flew hundreds of yards over the intervening houses [including ours] and lots of 40' tall trees before landing in a tight roll in the field behind us. It had rolled against the corrugations! Not with them! We only lost a quarter of our roof while the farm behind us was almost ripped to pieces when the wind got inside the giant ports of the attached barns on either side of the house.  Wind speeds were about 35m/s or 70-75mph.

IMO: A ROR ought to be held down with at least four angled turnbuckles into very serious eye-bolts through heavy timbers. The building ought to be bolted down to a heavy slab. Though I used lots of buried, pyramidal, concrete, carport anchors myself. Cladding it in plywood using decent screws all over the framework will provide serious triangulation against building distortion and gaps opening up. Ship-lap and T&G boards with corner braces do NOT provide the same degree of geometric stiffening as sturdy sheet materials. Though they can be easily added on top of the plywood if the appearance of boards appeals.

Fortunately I have access to decoratively grooved 4x8 plywood in 9 & 12mm thickness which I used [in 12mm] throughout my two story building, using hundreds of stainless steel screws into the 2x4 and 2x6 framework. My shed next door using this technique and the same materials has survived unpainted for two decades. Both buildings entirely DIY, working alone. I used fierce, double sided, galvanized, bulldog, truss jointing 'washers' on all the joints of the shed. Screwfix sells them, amongst others. The dome has shown no signs of lifting in any wind so far. It has eight restraints on the base ring to stop it lifting.

The Welsh coast was a ten year battle against the wind while I still lived there. I doubt much has changed.   :huh2:

P1360328 rsz 600 upright bright.JPG

my pics 030 shed rsz 600.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks everyone

I have now decided on a removable structure. 
A 4x3 shed has been ordered from screwfix and should be here next week.
This will be used as a base for the roll-off shed structure and should be just big enough for my needs.
The shed will be braced and strengthened. I am still in the planning phase of the rail setup but will done in such a way that there will be additional precautions in place to prevent it from lifting.

Room is going to be a premium but considering 90% of my imaging is done remotely from the office I am not too worries as long as everything fits in a custom park position and clears the doors.

overlap_4x3_views_and_sizes.jpg.bfe2c9f9468fd20df6bfd0754ea55d75.jpg

overlap_-_4x3_-_double_doors_-_hd_im.jpg

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Hi everyone
The last two days have been spent getting the ground work and based sorted.
I have stayed with the "Tod" pier that I originally had however this has now been sunk into the ground a fair amount for two reasons, extra stability and also to allow everything to easily fit through the doors.
The rat cage will also either be replaced or complexly removed at some point

I will be letting the muck harden over the next few days and then will be finishing with a top layer of gravel.
 

IMG_20190715_194235.thumb.jpg.af9f94fb935cf9332cbe015e23d615dc.jpg

 IMG_20190716_113125.thumb.jpg.2519fd65ec79a477805c437769efad80.jpgIMG_20190716_182722.thumb.jpg.a8b2975aa5bec19eedfde0032fcdeb38.jpg

One thing I am currently trying to work out is the best way to go about running power and ethernet. The fact that the obsy will be moving back and forth is something I have to take into account and currently thinking
about running the main of the power directly to the pier and then using an extension to power the actual obsy when needed. If anyone has experience here and come up with a solution that would allow me to maintain power and ethernet to the obsy directly please let me know.

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2 hours ago, fwm891 said:

I hope you're not going to be using those 4 pieces of studding at their current length - very unstable arrangement

No I had to raise it to be able to get the bolt out, it will be lowered right down again afterwards if I have not managed to replace the entire thing before then.

Its normally about 1/5 of that hight.

 

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I'd be looking for an offcut of PVC drainpipe to sandwich between the studs and the boards.

It would stiffen things up nicely and look quite purposeful at the same time.

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12 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

I would discard the studs completely and bolt through the top of the block. A support ring would probably be needed to seat the mount base.   😀 

That is actually how I originally had it when it was first built.

18193438_1896928833916228_8296846225618124805_o.thumb.jpg.ced7647c45eff78f94eae184c2f268e3.jpg

I can use the original tripod mount and bolt it directly through the top of the block.
The only reason I changed it originally was due to losing too much southern horizon and not being able to get Saturn etc... for a large portion of the night (something that will no longer be an issue with not having any walls).

 

I am also trying to figure out as part of the electrics etc... if I should replace the obsy pc or go down the route of a rpi4. both have their pro's and cons but nothing is final yet.


 

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Thought I would post a quick update.

I had confirmation that the donor shed will arrive on monday and over the last few days I have added most of the gravel to finish off the base.
Tomorrow I will be dealing with electrics, painting the base and making a new pier top to remove the rats nest.
I am still not sure how I intend to deal with the obsy pc but that will come together better I think once the obsy is in place and I can see everything easier.

1300713547_IMG_20190720_1226072.thumb.jpg.a0fac0b044439e05aec5359cfc86f61f.jpg

 

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Well a quick update on the build.
The shed arrived yesterday evening and I managed to get most of the larger panels painted. I also created something of an "Art Piece" on one of the side panels which is something I have never done before.
Today I manged to get the base rolling and 90% of the obsy shell built. I had a small issue with the rollers due to not being as described and have gone with a less than ideal solution for now until it can be address down the road. Tomorrow will consist of some final painting, Strengthening / lining the inside, installing to tie downs and finish off the electrics. I am hoping to have 99% of it finished by the end of tomorrow to the point where the scope and mount can go back in.

After looking at the Pi 3 and the current state of the Pi 4 I felt they just did not fit my requirements at present for the obsy. I do live stream sessions on occasion so decided to go with the most powerful pc I could get my hands on for a decent price. I should have a Dell 3020 tower coming tomorrow for the grand sum of £95 and already have a few bits to throw into the mix with it.

PC specs (including upgrades):

Dell 3020 Tower
Intel i5 4590
8GB Ram
256GB SSD
Radeon RX570 4GB (will be used for hardware based stream encoding)

I also received my amazon order which including some active and powered 5M USB cable extensions along with USB hubs. This I am hoping will allow me to only have to run 3 cables from the mount back to the Obsy (2x USB cables and a mains power cable). One slight snag is the connectors do not fit into the flexible conduit that I intend running the power cables in, this will have to be looked into.

Will post an update with photos tomorrow.

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You will have to be very disciplined and have a strict routine for cleaning out files from your SSD.
I added a second 500GB T5 SSD to my onboard 256GB SSD on my laptop and still end up deep into the red on both.
The little ZWO 120 produces massive files as fast as I can capture them on solar. :blush:

 

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