My new motorized focus setup

[Chrb1985]

SkyMax 180 with motorized focuser. Works really well! 

[Merlin66]

Well done!

A very simple but effective way of providing a focuser drive motor. I use a very similar arrangement on all my solar scopes. (I did fit the same to the C11 and later upgraded)

[Chrb1985]

Wow nice pictures!!

[Robindonne]

On 15/08/2020 at 01:50, Merlin66 said:

Well done!

A very simple but effective way of providing a focuser drive motor. I use a very similar arrangement on all my solar scopes. (I did fit the same to the C11 and later upgraded)

Really nice idea to fix it yourself.  
May i ask you some questions about this solution?

How would you build this belt-system to a skywatcher focuser, a focuser with those “teeth-less” knobs?  And do you use a one-size-fits-all number of teeth/mm belt?

 

My sc focuser has a same belt/motor attached to an extra pulley, a pulley with some friction system in it. So manual focusing is still possible while the belt is connected.  
 

Do you know what these are called? Or even if they are available or not?

 

thx and sorry for breaking in in this thread

[Merlin66]

Robin,

I use a 30 tooth XML pulley and a 100 tooth XML belt for most of the motors. Fitting the motor bracket to the focuser can sometimes be challenging (!!) just requires some ingenuity.

Under gentle tension, the belt gives sufficient grip to the SW knobs to work very well, I just drop the belt if I need to manually refocus.

The set-up on the SCT focuser is interesting, I'm not familiar with a clutch/ toothed pulley option, but it sounds like a good alternative.

 

[Robindonne]

Thx very much.   Im going to look for some of the mentioned belts/pulleys.   The lenght is probably the only thing that can go wrong.  Some experimenting!!    But thx again