Hi all,
Thanks for your replies, I do appreciate it.
Charles, I'm sorry you're having issues, as well.
How are you focusing lenses -- are you using the belt-driven system, instead?
I honestly don't think it's a temperature- or seeing-related issue, because, V-curves are performed one after the other. If I was taking 15-minutes between V-curve runs, I would agree that it might have something to do with the temperature. I do keep an eye on the temperature units and that can't be it. Also, the seeing can't be affecting it that much, either, to continually shift the focus position number downwards in huge increments. Furthermore, I do V-curves on a star at zenith/meridian. I find the appropriate star using FocusMax, itself: take image, plate solve, sync, go into AcquireStar's settings and disable return slew, enable zenith and disable meridian flipping; it then goes and finds an appropriate magnitude 4-5 star and centres it. I then stop the AcquireStar procedure and start the V-curve run.
I have the correct brass coupling, as I bought it from Jeremy/TI directly -- I indicated what telescope I had at the time of purchase.
The focus lock knob is not tightened, it's as loose as it can be.
Paul, I don't have any V-curve log output at the moment. I just let it do its thing so I can get to imaging. I will be sending my camera off to SBIG soon, so, will have to go through the process again -- I can provide logs then. If you mean regular focusing logs, I can provide them the next time I'm on my computer at home.
I have done the calibration routine. Without it, the process won't work at all, if I'm not mistaken. The focuser doesn't slip or jam during the process, so, I don't think it has a problem with the weight of the STL-11000M.
I haven't looked at the videos on the site. Maybe that's something I can try. I just read the instructions and got it going.
I don't have a spare control box, Paul, sorry -- I'll be using both of mine. One for focusing, and, the other for the Takometer.
If you send your box to Jeremy, he'll fix it for you -- he had to do mine twice.
I suspect that if I can't get this working properly by the time my camera comes back from SBIG, I will bite the bullet and get an FLI focuser. I wanted to stick with the RoboFocus as it doesn't use any of that precious back focus distance. I should be OK with an FLI, if I do go down that route, as I don't plan on adding an MMOAG or an AO-L unit.
This hobby is truly frustrating. I don't know why we continue to bother.
H