Doc Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 One day Phil. Need to stop spending money at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted March 28, 2020 Author Share Posted March 28, 2020 Went into the shed to set up an experiment. I needed to know how high I needed to raise the mount so I cleared the adapter plates. As you can see from the photo's below. I first tried a 45mm lump of wood and then set the PA to 53° which is the correct latitude for nottingham and the gap between the casting and the adapter is about 10mm. I then included another piece of wood to make the height 60mm and this gave me a gap of 22mm. So in essence any lump of aluminium between 40mm and 60mm will do. I just need to think how and where to position the adjuster to make PA easy. philjay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithysteve Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 Certainly keeping you busy Mick! All good stuff (albeit heavy and solid stuff!) and your man shed is brilliantly set up 👍🔭💫✨ Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philjay Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 Its getting heavier Mick 😁 Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 2, 2020 Author Share Posted April 2, 2020 (edited) Not grab and go thats's for sure. Bit of a pause at the moment, she has got me painting the kitchen. Edited April 2, 2020 by Doc BAZ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philjay Posted April 2, 2020 Share Posted April 2, 2020 Xavier Debeest has modded his mk4 and has a turnbuckle for RA adjustment, Smithysteve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 2, 2020 Author Share Posted April 2, 2020 Classic telescope and mount, I love it. As I've not put mine on a pier I have to raise the mount so it clears the tripod to mount adapter I made to give me Azimuth adjustment, and will also fit a turnbuckle similar to Xavier's to get altitude adjustment, just have to make sure there is enough room to do it. I've also planned Goto and motors the same as his. I have looked at his mount for years and it's pretty awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Doc Posted April 7, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 7, 2020 Spent a few hours today raising the height of the Fullerscope mount so the polar axis casing clears the adapter plates. A lump of ash wood 65mm thick was used. There is now enough room between the casing and plates to design a turnbuckle to raise and lower the polar axis to enable polar alignment. The last one is a video. +Streetbob, +DaveJW, BAZ and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 That is awesome Mick. Any further updates on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 14, 2020 Author Share Posted April 14, 2020 (edited) Not at the moment Graham, I'm painting the kitchen at the moment. In your opinion what is the best way to proceed with drives and go-to. I've been looking at the following, they all need retrofitting I could go with either Skywatcher, Onstep, AstroEQ, TeenAstro, AWR. or Sidereal Technology. I don't mind making up brackets etc, but the software side of it confuses me. The best one I think is Onstep they do a package for the Losmandy G11 which has a 360 tooth gear, my Fullerscope has a 359 tooth gear so pretty close. It is a direct mount onto the worm drive which sounds great so no cogs or pulleys to get involved with. You can buy ready made kits unlike some of the other brands mentioned, see here: http://instein.eu/onstep.htm AstroEQ and TeenAstro are a little more complicated as you have to build them and I have never really soldered anything substantial and most of the tutorials go way above my head. Would love to know what you think. Edited April 14, 2020 by Doc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 Mick I use a Servo Cat with the Argo Navis hand set (The same set up as Mesu use on his mounts ) on my bespoke builds. Not exactly cheap coming in at several thousand pounds with the servos but it has the advantage of being able to run any type of mount with any gear ratio. It is also " stand alone " in operation so no computers needed. If you want you could use a Skywatcher EQ 5 upgrade kit. I would also invest in some gears and belts and run the Worm at a 2 to 1 ratio. This would give you a final ratio of 718. Slewing would not be very fast but it would be deadly accurate. Once fitted you can set it up in Custom mode and put your own gear ratios in. Obviously you will need to make your own brackets up but that won't be a problem for a man of your talents. Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 15, 2020 Author Share Posted April 15, 2020 Thanks for the input Graham. I don't want to spend that sort of money, mainly due to this only being for visual and not imaging. I'll look into the EQ5 upgrade kit. Why do you think it's better to use belts and a 2:1 ratio set up instead of a direct drive straight of the worm, I would have thought the direct drive was more efficent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 By gearing it down you provide more torque so the motor does not have to work so hard. Stepper motors work most efficiently at higher rpm rates. Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted April 15, 2020 Share Posted April 15, 2020 3 hours ago, Graham said: By gearing it down you provide more torque so the motor does not have to work so hard. Stepper motors work most efficiently at higher rpm rates. Up to a point, once you start stepping them too fast you start loosing torque, but in astronomical mount applications that is only ever likely to occur when slewing. Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 16, 2020 Author Share Posted April 16, 2020 Thanks guys I'll do a bit more research, ask a few more questions and then I will make a decision. Still edging towards a ready built onstep set up, if you read their forum it sounds great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 New one on me. I will give it a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 16, 2020 Author Share Posted April 16, 2020 Have a look here Graham: http://instein.eu/onstep.htm https://onstep.groups.io/g/main/messages?start=4:2020:-60 https://onstep.groups.io/g/main/topic/gotomote_onstep_ios_app_is/28579372?p=Created,,,20,2,20,0 http://www.stellarjourney.com/index.php?r=site/equipment_onstep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 19, 2020 Author Share Posted April 19, 2020 (edited) Made a latitude adjuster today. It consists of two clevis yokes which I made in the milling machine. The next part is a left handed and a right handed M10 threaded bar with a 6mm hole in the end for the clevis pin. The middle part is an hexagon bar with a M10 left hand thread in one end and a M10 right handed thread in the other. The way it works is you screw in for the mount to raise and unscrew for it to lower. I have about a 3° latitude adjustment. It was quite hard to do as there was not a lot of room between the polar shaft body and the adapter plates but it was fun project, and it works very well. Edited April 19, 2020 by Doc Smithysteve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 20, 2020 Author Share Posted April 20, 2020 (edited) Another day in the workshop. I designed and built an adjuster to adjust the azimuth axix on my Fullerscope mount. It works really well and has about 10° of adjustment for polar alignment. The last video shows the altitude adjuster which has about 9° of adjustment. For some reason only works on full screen. Edited April 20, 2020 by Doc Smithysteve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philjay Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 (edited) Thats nifty. Are tge knobs off a focuser? Edited April 21, 2020 by philjay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 That is coming along very nicely Mick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 21, 2020 Author Share Posted April 21, 2020 Thanks guys for you comments. To be honest Phil I cannot remember where they came from, found them in the bottom of the metal box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Graham Posted April 21, 2020 Share Posted April 21, 2020 You see you knew they would come in handy one day 😉 Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Bino-viewer Posted April 27, 2020 Share Posted April 27, 2020 Just caught up with this this Mick..... Really impressive so far....its a bit of a beast isn't it ? We seem to be going in different directions with our mounts....i'm more into miniaturisation with mine ! 😀 Doc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted April 27, 2020 Author Share Posted April 27, 2020 (edited) It's basically to give me something to do Rob. I haven't bought any metal yet, it's whats in my workshop. Only thing I've bought is a lump of woof for £10. Keeps me busy and my mind ticking over. Also this mount will stay at home, it's not really ideal for transporting to a dark site but will eventually handle a large scope fingers crossed. Edited April 27, 2020 by Doc +Bino-viewer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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