Popular Post +Graham Posted March 15, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted March 15, 2019 (edited) The new timing belts and pulleys arrived today. I had made the motor mounting brackets earlier on this week so it was a simple case of building them up ready for fitting tomorrow. I will now have a 1 to 1 ratio drive from the motors to the worms bringing the axis drives into the range of EQMOD so I can run the new mount from the motherboard of the HEQ 5. Edited March 15, 2019 by Graham +Ibbo, Bottletopburly, Smithysteve and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bottletopburly Posted March 16, 2019 Share Posted March 16, 2019 Graham your a damn genius my friend +Graham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted March 16, 2019 Share Posted March 16, 2019 It is all coming together very quickly, do you ever find time for eating, or sleeping? ? I hope you can show us a video of it in action at some point... when you stop for breath ??? +Graham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 17, 2019 Author Share Posted March 17, 2019 Well that didn't go quiet to plan. The motors all work exactly as planned using the custom mount settings in EQMOD. The bad news is the motors do not have enough grunt to turn the mount. So it is on to plan number two. Decided to bite the bullet and I am currently involved in the process of purchasing a Servocat and Argonavis set up to drive this using high powered servo motors. More to follow as it happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 17, 2019 Author Share Posted March 17, 2019 (edited) I am now the owner of an Argo Navis hand held Astronomy computer and a Generation 3 ServoCAT motor driver. More to follow as it happens Edited March 17, 2019 by Graham Bottletopburly, Smithysteve, tuckstar and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bottletopburly Posted March 18, 2019 Share Posted March 18, 2019 11 hours ago, Graham said: I am now the owner of an Argo Navis hand held Astronomy computer and a Generation 3 ServoCAT motor driver. More to follow as it happens That postman was quick Graham ? +Graham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 18, 2019 Author Share Posted March 18, 2019 Not that quick. Not here yet. Bottletopburly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted March 18, 2019 Share Posted March 18, 2019 Not as quick as you Graham ? Excellent stuff! ? +Graham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 22, 2019 Author Share Posted March 22, 2019 New optical encoder governed servo motors and cables ordered in from Servocat in the USA. New optical encoder and cable for each axis ordered in from Argo Navis in Australia. This is taking on a multinational flavour. Bottletopburly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bottletopburly Posted March 22, 2019 Share Posted March 22, 2019 How does all that work graham absolutely clueless , encoders ? Servo motor all new to me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 23, 2019 Author Share Posted March 23, 2019 Basically the servo motors are very powerful electric motors which will run incredibly slowly without juddering. They have an optical encoder built in. These encoders send pulses to the Servocat computer as they turn so the Servocat computer knows exactly how many revolutions the motor does to get to an exact point in the sky. It also means the computer knows what rate to turn the motors for tracking. The ArgoNavis unit also has another pair of encoders one mounted on each axis. These encoders also send pulses 20,000 per revolution of the axis to be precise. This means no matter what you do with the mount the ArgoNavis computer knows exactly where the scope is pointing. Using this information the ArgoNavis can work out where everything thing is in the sky and how to get there. Once you have done a two star alignment and locked it in to the system the mount can locate and track just about everything up there from planets through to man made satellites totally independently. No need for any computers. Once you have built up a sky map of say 50 stars it will track a target all night long without error using a feature called sky lock. So no guiding needed for dso imaging. Smithysteve and Bottletopburly 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bottletopburly Posted March 26, 2019 Share Posted March 26, 2019 On 23/03/2019 at 02:42, Graham said: Basically the servo motors are very powerful electric motors which will run incredibly slowly without juddering. They have an optical encoder built in. These encoders send pulses to the Servocat computer as they turn so the Servocat computer knows exactly how many revolutions the motor does to get to an exact point in the sky. It also means the computer knows what rate to turn the motors for tracking. The ArgoNavis unit also has another pair of encoders one mounted on each axis. These encoders also send pulses 20,000 per revolution of the axis to be precise. This means no matter what you do with the mount the ArgoNavis computer knows exactly where the scope is pointing. Using this information the ArgoNavis can work out where everything thing is in the sky and how to get there. Once you have done a two star alignment and locked it in to the system the mount can locate and track just about everything up there from planets through to man made satellites totally independently. No need for any computers. Once you have built up a sky map of say 50 stars it will track a target all night long without error using a feature called sky lock. So no guiding needed for dso imaging. Thanks for bringing me up to speed graham very clever stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted March 31, 2019 Author Share Posted March 31, 2019 The good news is the Argo Navis and the Servo Cat computers have arrived safe and sound. Just need the Optical encoders to arrive from Australia and the motors to arrive from America and I will be up and running. philjay and Bottletopburly 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 5, 2019 Author Share Posted April 5, 2019 More good news . The encoders arrived from Australia today. Just the motors from America to complete the jigsaw. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 7, 2019 Author Share Posted April 7, 2019 Motors are being dispatched on Monday ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 9, 2019 Author Share Posted April 9, 2019 New gears arrived today so I an now manufacture the bits and bobs I need to mount the encoders on the RA and DEC axis. Going to gear them up to a 3 to 1 ratio giving me 30,000 pulses per 360 degrees. Which if my math's is correct should give me sub arc min / arc second positioning and tracking. BAZ, Doc and Smithysteve 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 10, 2019 Author Share Posted April 10, 2019 Well that's the bits and bobs made. If the weather plays ball I might get them fitted when I get home from work tonight. BAZ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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