Observatory Pier PC

[Adam J]

Just purchased a mini PC and a wifi extender for the observatory to allow me to remote in from any place in the house. I am planning to operate the PC without its own monitor etc.

Any things I need to know about / consider?

Is it sensible to leave the entire rig powered or just the PC or maybe I should turn it all off each time.. 

Adam  

[andrew s]

I always keep the PC on.

Regards Andrew 

[MultumInParvo]

I have mine connected to an IKEA Tradfri plug so I can turn it on and off remotely via Google Assistant, but any wifi plug would do the same job, I just had these bits hanging around.

It turns the whole rig on and off (cameras, mount, roof automation, two SBCs,, dew heaters, etc) so saving a fair bit of electricity (and a little of the planet's resources) over time I would assume.

I have run a cable up to the obsy as wifi has a limited bandwith, dependent on what you buy, and is affected by simple things like leaves on trees.

Will the mini PC just be controlling things and then do your processing on a local machine in the house, or does the mini PC have enough grunt to do all the heavy lifting?

I have a Raspberry Pi to control things and an Odroid N2 for the processing, but then my aim was to be able to remote in from distant lands as I work away a lot, rather than just from my house.

Ian

Edited October 30, 2019 by MultumInParvo

[Adam J]

1 hour ago, MultumInParvo said:

I have mine connected to an IKEA Tradfri plug so I can turn it on and off remotely via Google Assistant, but any wifi plug would do the same job, I just had these bits hanging around.

It turns the whole rig on and off (cameras, mount, roof automation, two SBCs,, dew heaters, etc) so saving a fair bit of electricity (and a little of the planet's resources) over time I would assume.

I have run a cable up to the obsy as wifi has a limited bandwith, dependent on what you buy, and is affected by simple things like leaves on trees.

Will the mini PC just be controlling things and then do your processing on a local machine in the house, or does the mini PC have enough grunt to do all the heavy lifting?

I have a Raspberry Pi to control things and an Odroid N2 for the processing, but then my aim was to be able to remote in from distant lands as I work away a lot, rather than just from my house.

Ian

Its a quad core celeron with 4GB of ram and a SSD, so sufficient to preview images in APP during capture etc, but I would be doing the processing in my house on the  i7, 16GB PC. 

The obsy is only 3 meters from the back of the house so I think the wifi extender will give me full strength wifi in that area. 

I am happy to go out and turn things on and off as I need to roll the roof back anyway, its more in terms of what will give me the highest level of reliability. 

I have also been wondering about keeping the dew straps running 24/7 to protect the optics from damp on my nice new scope. 

Adam 

[Bukko]

Spiders and other assorted creepie crawlies will look for a place to hide. I found them making a home inside the PC before now. I would suggest you take a close look at any vent holes, etc. and make sure nothing can get in.

On my new rig here in France, we have an autumnal invasion of shield bugs. They are pretty large, but will creep into any small crevice for the winter. I even found one had crawled between the fan blades on the camera and was going to call it home for the winter...

Apart from that, I see no reason not to leave the PC switched on, the mount will continue to track until homed. I have never left a mount on all the time but would guess once in the home position would stop tracking.

For sure, the less you need to turn on, the quicker you will be up and running.

Gordon.