A DIY EQUATORIAL MOUNT USING HARMONIC DRIVES

[Dark Raven]

Not sure if it was already posted. Thought it would be interesting here.

Structurally, the whole thing is constructed from 10 mm thick aluminium plates that were cut with a waterjet and subsequently milled to finish.

On the electronics side, a custom PCB was produced, with a pair of TMC2130-based stepper drivers, controlled by a teensy 4.0. The simple design was constructed with Eagle PCB, and can be found on the Alkaid project GitHub, together with details of the frame and a suitable copy of the OnStep telescope controller firmware. Some 3D-printed side panels hold the electronics in place and box-in the internals giving the mount a tidy. kind of industrial look. One important metric for any such mount, is the total weight, which [Alan] reports as being around 5.5 kg which is less than half that of an HEQ-5 mount, without its counterbalances. Hopefully, it is heavy enough to dampen out any vibrations transmitted from the tripod, but testing will prove that one way or the other.

DIY equatorial mount with HarmonicDrive