What 12V mini computer for mount ???

[scotty38]

20 hours ago, Clarkey said:

I did have to make my own cable though as I struggled to find a suitable power cable).

I use one of these together with a USB C cable to power my Mele Quieter 2, works just fine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09F5W2NCR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Padraic M]

26 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I use one of these together with a USB C cable to power my Mele Quieter 2, works just fine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09F5W2NCR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use the Quieter2 for capture control and it works great. Wifi is only ok (my house wifi isn't great anyway) so I'll buy a 5m Cat 6 cable at some stage instead.

For running Nina, Ascom and Phd2 the performance is more than good enough. I can also copy images off the PC to the local network while imaging is in progress, and it doesn't miss a beat.

I use this adapter https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07XZ7Q2N7?ref_=pe_27091401_487187591_302_E_DDE_dt_1&th=1 so that all of my power cables are the same; I run everything from a 13.8V Nevada Radio PSU through a Pocket Powerbox Advance.

PC spec is 256G embedded SSD, with an additional 1GB SSD which I have remapped as the boot partition - that way, if the SSD fails it doesn't brick the PC.

As an extra note, the PC does support NVMe SSDs as well as SATA SSDs, but as it's a single-lane PCIe bus you don't get any speed bonus.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Padraic M

[scotty38]

43 minutes ago, Padraic M said:

I use this adapter https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07XZ7Q2N7?ref_=pe_27091401_487187591_302_E_DDE_dt_1&th=1 so that all of my power cables are the same; I run everything from a 13.8V Nevada Radio PSU through a Pocket Powerbox Advance.

Yes I power mine exactly the same way and in fact started off with the exact same adapter but didn't like how, together with the 2.1mm dc plug, it pulled on the USB power port so that's why I swapped it out

Edited March 10, 2022 by scotty38

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Looking into this more I read that Intel do not actually make a fanless NUC as they all have fans.
So the fanless NUC's are 3rd party builds using the NUC motherboards.

Steve

[DaveS]

On 10/03/2022 at 16:44, Padraic M said:

I use this adapter https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07XZ7Q2N7?ref_=pe_27091401_487187591_302_E_DDE_dt_1&th=1 

Gah! that's Amazon.de, don't want to go through the hoopla of importing from Germany. 

[scotty38]

1 minute ago, DaveS said:

Gah! that's Amazon.de, don't want to go through the hoopla of importing from Germany. 

I have a couple of these that I no longer use although I bought mine from the .co.uk site. PM me your address and I'll stick one in the post.....

[teoria_del_big_bang]

3 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Gah! that's Amazon.de, don't want to go through the hoopla of importing from Germany. 

UK Amazon

Steve

[DaveS]

13 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I have a couple of these that I no longer use although I bought mine from the .co.uk site. PM me your address and I'll stick one in the post.....

 

12 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

UK Amazon

Steve

Thanks Scotty

Thanks Steve, added to basket.

[Space Oddities]

I'm using the relatively new Minisforum GK50 :

https://store.minisforum.de/products/elitemini-gk50

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MINISFORUM-Pentium-Silver-N5030-3-10GHz/dp/B0963T2LTW?th=1

It ticked a lot of boxes for me:

• inexpensive
• fanless design (doesn't make a sound!)
• runs off 12V, directly from a classic 5.5mm power cable (5.5x2.5mm), and doesn't consume much power (about 0.8-1 amp when idle, 3 amps max)
• has 4 USB 3.0 ports, all facing the same side, which can be convenient
• You can add a 2nd SSD (2.5" SATA) inside, perfect for backup or if you need more space
• has 2 ethernet ports, which can be useful if you want to use it as a switch of some kind, or relay the wifi into Ethernet (I think it's possible in Windows)
• comes with Win10 Pro, so very easy to RDP into it
• comes with a VESA mount, so easy to attach to your rig or in a box like I did. It weighs only 400g

There's also the similar GK41 from the same brand, which runs with the Celeron J4125. I think they're both very close, the GK41 might be slightly faster, but the GK50 wins on the power consumption side. The recent Intel N5030 is very efficient!

Of course it's not the fastest PC out there, but compared to PC sticks I tried, it's much better. It's really fluid and runs fast enough for the usual astro software.

This brand has a good reputation from what I hear, with a nice community behind. I believe they're based in Germany.

Really happy with my purchase. Hope that helps!

[Dave_D]

I've just bought the Quieter3Q. trying to set everything up on win11 was a disaster, such as the ascom mount picker locked up as soon as i select properties.

reflashing it with windows 10

[Dave_D]

One difference if anyone is thinking of getting the Quieter3Q, the 3Q can't boot from the SSD slot like the 2 could... gave me a bit of a headache and a lot of googling. Win 10 is setting up now after i bought a USB stick.

fortunately, win10 and win11 installations are available to download on the Mele site

 

[Dave_D]

all good with win10... the usual messing about with ports but everything just works

[adyj1]

Talking about ports, I found a really simple program on source forge that will pop up a notification when you plug a USB device in in and say what com port it is on. It is quite old (2016),but in my experience has worked a treat in Windows 10. 

Serial Port Notifier

No more scrabbling around in device manager trying to work it out 👍 

[Alien 13]

On 12/03/2022 at 14:44, Space Oddities said:

I'm using the relatively new Minisforum GK50 :

https://store.minisforum.de/products/elitemini-gk50

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MINISFORUM-Pentium-Silver-N5030-3-10GHz/dp/B0963T2LTW?th=1

It ticked a lot of boxes for me:

• inexpensive
• fanless design (doesn't make a sound!)
• runs off 12V, directly from a classic 5.5mm power cable (5.5x2.5mm), and doesn't consume much power (about 0.8-1 amp when idle, 3 amps max)
• has 4 USB 3.0 ports, all facing the same side, which can be convenient
• You can add a 2nd SSD (2.5" SATA) inside, perfect for backup or if you need more space
• has 2 ethernet ports, which can be useful if you want to use it as a switch of some kind, or relay the wifi into Ethernet (I think it's possible in Windows)
• comes with Win10 Pro, so very easy to RDP into it
• comes with a VESA mount, so easy to attach to your rig or in a box like I did. It weighs only 400g

There's also the similar GK41 from the same brand, which runs with the Celeron J4125. I think they're both very close, the GK41 might be slightly faster, but the GK50 wins on the power consumption side. The recent Intel N5030 is very efficient!

Of course it's not the fastest PC out there, but compared to PC sticks I tried, it's much better. It's really fluid and runs fast enough for the usual astro software.

This brand has a good reputation from what I hear, with a nice community behind. I believe they're based in Germany.

Really happy with my purchase. Hope that helps!

Am a big fan of Minisforum, recently bought one of there premium models to to use as my main PC and its super fast.

Alan 

[Skyline]

I use a Quieter 2 Mini PC 8GB & 256 SSD loaded with Ubuntu, Indi, Kstars, PHD2 and a Linux USB3.0 Wifi. 

I can control my mount using eqmod and camera, guidescope from the kstars app on my windows pc upstairs linking onto my Quieter 2 Mini PC outside, its so easy.

No hungry windows, no ascom, it just works!

Edited July 7, 2022 by Skyline