Modded SPC900NC

[astromerlin]

Well at least you have sussed the connections,easily done. I've never liked soldering directly to chips a little too much heat and it's toast especially if your soldering iron is not temperature controlled, a socket is a much better option.

Looking forward to your first LX images with the webcam..

[Glider]

Just thinking along different lines. If you buy another webcam from eBay, where they are going for £60 upwards and spend more time modifying it, imagine charging your time at minimum wage! There is a Meade DSI I camera on there at the moment for £100. That will do planets and DSO as a starter to imaging with no messing about.

Just a thought.

[davy999]

Ok.. good news

New chip arrived, and I left it to a m8 of mine to assemble the chip and resistors to a nice circuit board.. he delivered it with 5 12" wires hanging off it.

I have connected to camera and did a 5 second exposure in medium light. picture was total white-out.. it was fairly bright at the time.. so reduced it to 1 second and reduced light a bit more.. got a bright image.. so it now seems that the computer is controlling the exposure.. YIPPEE

I just gotta shorten the wires and solder onto the camera cus the whole thing is over a foot long at the moment.

Seems I must have fried the chip because all resistors are the same as I had.. all connections are the same (although nice and tidy on a board) so sorry for taking so much time when it was my clumsy soldering in the first place that caused it.

Once all tidied up I will send a piccy of the board etc.. ( no enclosure yet to fit it all in ) and when the skies allow I will post some LX pics..

Oh. and I suppose if I get a minute I might try out the new scope that still has not been used in anger yet!!

Thanks for all ur help guys.. even though the chip was fried your input has helped me understand a little more of how this mod works.

[Glider]

Excellent.

[astromerlin]

Glad you got it sorted, perserverance is usually rewarded. It's a great webcam and even better for DSO's if you eventually do the amp-off mod. I have also upgraded the firmware on mine to remove the ear artifacts you get on stars but I still have mixed feelings with the upgrade because I use it for planetary also so you need to keep switching firmware, not a good idea. Having the benefit of 2 webcams would enable you to have the best of both.

Look forward to your images..

[davy999]

Ok chaps

Here is my first image..

Unfortunately its of the camera and mod, as the skies are still not clear

Looks nice and neat since I didn't do some of the connections on the extra board!

b.t.w. how hard is the amp-off mod? I not really looked it up yet.

[astromerlin]

Looks tidy. The amp-off mod is tricky to say the least, You have to unsolder a leg on the imaging chip and connect a transistor close to the chip, cut a groove in the black shroud to allow the legs of the new transistor to come through. I chose to cut the leg using a sharp scaple, loads of time rubbing back and forth and a high magnifying lens to see the progress.

My advice is to use it for a while and get used to the imaging technique, you wont need the amp-off until you want to do exposures of more than a few minutes. If you do get amp glow it can be removed to a certain extent in processing.

Have fun.. clear skys permitting, what's up with this recent weather?

[davy999]

Recent weather I thought was my fault, but after seeing all the purchases made this week I think others are to blame also.

After reading a little more of making every photon count it is obvious on the mount I have faint DSO's are not really possible unless i buy a wedge so i think the amp off mod would only be more useful at that time.

When the skies clear i will try to get my first attempt done and upload for your critique, that is once i have done lots of visuals first.

[davy999]

Ok

Mod all finished and boxed and nice and tidy, what do u think?

[astromerlin]

Looks good to go, now all we need is clear sky crossed fingers for the weekend.

[davy999]

Thanks Astro

Free enclosure from work, the joys of working in a plastics factory!

Just took loads of frames of a streetlight on the other side of the village with trees waving in front of it.

Gonna spend the cloudy nights doing some basic processing. I know the picture will end up a garbled mess but hopefully I can begin to understand the basics of processing so that when I have had time with the visuals I will be able to start to plan out a procedure for deciding on a target, taking the necessary images and how best to begin the long process of imaging.

Oh. And next I need a list of every single target in the night skies so I can tick them off as I see them, there are only a few right?

[NIKOLAS]

Anybody knows which home appliances might use the 4066 switch ? or can i use anything else that is not a switch but the same type of chip ?

Thanks

[davy999]

Dont know what uses it but was only a few pence from Maplins