Mounting a dew heater controller or power box

[badhex]

Hello all,

Despite owning dew heater bands and a controller since I got back into astro a few years ago, I've been remarkably lucky and never really needed to use them, but I fear that luck my run out soon and probably on my next visit to darker skies!

I've never really liked the idea of using hard to undo fixtures like velcro tape on my scopes/mounts etc., so with that in mind I came up with a plan which should be adaptable for use with most mounts/tripods using commonly available camera rig parts. 

I bought a small cheese plate, a mini magic arm plus a set of ⅜" / ¼“ adapters for about €45. The largest part of that was the cheese plate (€25) and I could have probably found the one adapter I needed for less but I figured the bag of bits may come in handy for other projects. 

 

The Gitzo 5 series which is my main tripod has a ⅜" mount point for accessories like many other photographic tripods, so essentially I just utilised that to attach the mini magic arm and cheese plate.

I did use velcro tape on the cheese plate but depending on your dew heater, or even power unit, you might be able to bolt it directly onto the cheese plate. 

I tried the setup with both my powered AZ-GTi and unpowered Scopetech Mount Zero. Cables need a bit more tidying but once I've used it in earnest I'll know more about the best routing. 

 

If your mount/tripod setup does not have any suitable ⅜" or ¼" mount points, most camera magic arms come with a clamp which should open wide enough to fit on a SW EQ6-R pro sized tripod leg