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HerniaMaster™ MkI trolley for Stargate 500p dob


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Hi all, been off the air for a while. I quickly whipped together a trolley for the SW 500p dob base and mirror yesterday and finished this morning. VERY agricultural, but robust and the base sits in there nicely. I've loaded it into my van with my ramps and it works a treat, just make sure tyres are lined up properly and get a little momentum onto the bottom of the ramps, then the rest is smooth sailing.

This trolley is effectively a working prototype lacking any semblance of aesthetics, but then again, it's not actually lacking much on the practical side, just need to refine wheel mounting system a bit (note heavy fence wire used for quick release wheels instead of clevis pins) for those longer trips on foot to that perfect spot. Might also lop off a few mm of extra thread from the bolts to tidy it up a bit and put on rubber caps on the bolt ends.

The base of the dob and GOTO sits cleanly with good weight distribution on the soft pine without any stress points.

All made with scrap materials from the skip next door, wheels and tyres are off a neighbours old kayak trolley I believe, minus two heavy duty 16mm pillow block bearings for the axle which is an 800mm piece of 16mm mild steel rod, plus about ten M8 x 100 carriage bolts with penny washers and wingnuts. Total cost around £30, over half of which were the pillow block bearings (£20), but they are perfect for this. 

When I've reached my viewing spot, I'll remove wheels and slide out the frame, or simply put wooden blocks under the three swivel feet and level from there without trolley removal.

Now I won't have to split the heavy mirror from the equally heavy base (probably 70-80kg for both and very bulky) and rethread the fiddly GOTO drive cable, plus I'll save my back and won't have to risk carrying the mirror around and stumbling on something - my absolute worst fear! 

This will also let me load/set up quickly and have more time on the big dob...

 

 

 

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Edited by Ships and Stars
typos
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Wheel bearing fixed. I'm already thinking about refining it and making a MkII version. It does load into the van nicely. Got it out for a few hours last night until the moon climbed a bit too high for good DSO viewing. Lots of little tuning bits still to do. Wish I had a home observatory! Someday...

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  • 1 month later...

While I had a 500p (before returning it because of the problems with the mirror) I used a high-capacity handtruck. I bought one with a longer base, that would extend under the base triangle with ease. This made it very easy to move the completed scope from place to place. Something like this: 

YjEzMTk5NWZjYWFmYTE1ZjI1YTIzN2YyMDAzMTk1

This is a "Master Sacktruck with Pneumatic Wheels" and the larger diameter tires do make it easier to move about on lawns and other rough ground.

It's really important to note that if moving the assembled scope, that the side bearings are not actually connected to the base. When I moved mine, I ensured that I had the scope strapped together so that there was no relative movement when tipping the scope to get  it moving.

 

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16 hours ago, cathalferris said:

This is a "Master Sacktruck with Pneumatic Wheels" and the larger diameter tires do make it easier to move about on lawns and other rough ground.

 

I bought the exact same trolley in blue! The base flips down. Brilliant minds, eh? Mine is partially buried in the back of my shed already, I was going to chop it up to fit the 500p better but never got around to it after I made the wooden one. I still need to do that.

Sorry you had to return yours, I've been struggling to get time to use mine due to a family illness, but when I do get the chance, it has given me some incredible views, even from my LP garden when I can't go out for the night. I have a small 130pds and 200p on EQ5 which I may sell and replace with a 10"-14" undriven flextube dob which would seem like a grab and go scope...

I'll probably change my mind again next week!

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I used one of the closed-cell packing squares, chopped to fit under the 500P base, as a buffer between the base and the handtruck plate. That way, there was no slack in the listing of the scope from the build location, and it was quite a lot easier to position into the observing location. There was much less tilt of the handtruck needed to lift the 500p from the ground, and that meant much greater control of the whole thing when moving.

Compression straps such as these types ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-449682-Tie-Down-Capacity-Breaking/dp/B003H0YMSQ ) are fantastic for quick reversible immobilisation of things. I have a handful available from years of tying kayaks to roofracks, so they were re-purposed for 500p transport.

 

I do miss the 500p to be honest. But, I'll be putting the pennies away to get something of an equivalent size at some point, dependent on the living situation at that point. If apartment in Switzerland it'll be a cpc100 with hyperstar, if somewhere else than a driven 20" from the Dobson Factory I think.. Best of luck with the dealing with the family illness - that is a whole lot of not-fun for everyone involved. 

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