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Posted

Looking for some dew heaters that have 2.1mm plugs. I have an ASIAIR Plus, which boasts 2.1mm sockets, but all of the heater straps seem to come with either RCA plugs, or the cheapo ones off Amazon tend to use USB. I know I can buy adapters, but it’s all extra expense, and additional junk hanging off the telescope. Any options anywhere?

Posted

I use two cheap 5 volt USB CooWoo dew heaters from Amazon - one for the guide scope and one for the main scope (102mm refractor). I plug one of the USBs into my mount and the other into a spare USB hub on the back of the camera. This works well for me.

  • Like 1
Posted

Thanks everyone. But it’s adapters I’m specifically trying to avoid. Was hoping to snare some straps with native 2.1mm’s already fitted. I may have to go the DIY route as an absolute last resort.

Posted

You shouldn't plug a dew heater into those 12v sockets. They will run at 100% and a) overheat your optics, b) run down any batteries and c) introduce volt drop on the main feed into your ASIAIR Plus.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, AstroKeith said:

You shouldn't plug a dew heater into those 12v sockets. They will run at 100% and a) overheat your optics, b) run down any batteries and c) introduce volt drop on the main feed into your ASIAIR Plus.

The RVO ones come with a controller. 

Graeme

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, AstroKeith said:

You shouldn't plug a dew heater into those 12v sockets. They will run at 100% and a) overheat your optics, b) run down any batteries and c) introduce volt drop on the main feed into your ASIAIR Plus.

I’m fairly sure there is a menu in the ASIAIR app that allows control over how much the straps draw.

Posted
1 hour ago, jacko61 said:

The RVO ones come with a controller. 

Graeme

Indeed - nice, although rather clunky? Looking at the product photo its not clear how they connect up when not using the RCA lead - looks like the controller stub has the wrong ends?! Must work though - just looks wrong.

Posted
5 minutes ago, Ande said:

I’m fairly sure there is a menu in the ASIAIR app that allows control over how much the straps draw.

I looked and don't believe so. The Eagle4 can.

Posted

When using dew straps, whether with integral or external control, there is the same problem.

The controllers turn the power on/off at intervals. In other words each strap goes from full to nothing very few tenths of a second, or maybe every few seconds, depending on the controller.
This on/off switching is very important.

Suppose you have 5 straps and each takes 1amp at full power (no controller). You need to know your power supply will deliver 5amps.

Take the same 5 straps and run them via controllers at 20% load and you may think you now need only a 1 amp power supply. Not so.
If there is nothing to synchronise switching and limit peak demand, they might all switch on at the same time.

The result is a 5 amps load on your supply until one or more switch off. Maybe you will get a voltage drop on all the (grotty) cigar plug and (equally grotty) 2.1mm plug connections, and resistance of long leads.
The step voltage drop then causes your goto mount to lose its bearings.

This is one reason many people keep dew heaters and camera cooling on one supply. Then mount + other control electronics on another.

HTH, David.

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Ande said:

They look just the ticket. Thank you 😊 

They're brilliant, I bought the same ones to use with my ASI Air Pro for my main scope and guide scope. They have a little scroll wheel to adjust the amount of power for heating. 

I've recently upgraded to a Pegasus Powerbox Pro Advance and mini-pc, but I can re-use the RVO Dew heaters by removing the 12V DC plug and use the RCA adapter provided with the dew heater. Worked perfectly fine last night, so the dew heater will work well in both scenarios :)

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Posted
3 hours ago, AstroKeith said:

Indeed - nice, although rather clunky? Looking at the product photo its not clear how they connect up when not using the RCA lead - looks like the controller stub has the wrong ends?! Must work though - just looks wrong.

The RCA adaptor is an extra in case you want to use the strap with a 2 or 4 port mains controller e.g. lynx astro or hitecastro. In my case, I have a  5.5 x 2.1 mm power lead coming from a standard  12 volt power supply to the mount. The small black controller wire plugs into that then the strap plugs into the controller wire.  (in fact, my power lead has a 4 way splitter at the mount end so I can plug 2 heaters and the ASI camera power into one supply.  Hope this helps.

Graeme 

Posted
13 minutes ago, jacko61 said:

The RCA adaptor is an extra in case you want to use the strap with a 2 or 4 port mains controller e.g. lynx astro or hitecastro. In my case, I have a  5.5 x 2.1 mm power lead coming from a standard  12 volt power supply to the mount. The small black controller wire plugs into that then the strap plugs into the controller wire.  (in fact, my power lead has a 4 way splitter at the mount end so I can plug 2 heaters and the ASI camera power into one supply.  Hope this helps.

Graeme 

Graeme, have you looked at dewcontrol  options or not as they are UK based 

Posted
4 hours ago, AstroKeith said:

I looked and don't believe so. The Eagle4 can.

I think you’re right. I could have sworn I’d seen a YouTube video outlining dew heater control in a software update. It must have been wishful thinking followed by a vivid dream 😂

Posted
16 hours ago, Ande said:

pI’m fairly sure there is a menu in the ASIAIR app that allows control over how much the straps draw.o/

Agreed, at least for the Plus version, there is a power setting tab where you can adjust the percentage for each of the 4 outputs. It does seem to require that the corresponding O/P is named before you can access the adjustment.

Good to see that the dew control product can be had with a shorter lead, too. Saves trying to manage metres of excess cable.

Ian

Posted
30 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

Agreed, at least for the Plus version, there is a power setting tab where you can adjust the percentage for each of the 4 outputs. It does seem to require that the corresponding O/P is named before you can access the adjustment.

Good to see that the dew control product can be had with a shorter lead, too. Saves trying to manage metres of excess cable.

Ian

Thanks Ian. I thought I was going slowly mad.  That will make cable management so much easier.

Posted
24 minutes ago, Ande said:

Thanks Ian. I thought I was going slowly mad.  That will make cable management so much easier.

To confirm even the ASI Pro version will allow dew heater adjustments in 10% increments (using PWM) providing the port is named as being a dew heater. From memory only 2 of the ports can be used in this setting. I’ve used the RVO heaters mentioned above for the last year with no issues at all.

HTH

  • Like 1
Posted
13 hours ago, fozzybear said:

Graeme, have you looked at dewcontrol  options or not as they are UK based 

No, sorry. I found what I needed at RVO and have stuck with those.  Maybe if I was starting from scratch I would go for a separate 4 port controller and RCA connected straps but for now I'm happy enough.

GRaeme

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