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Old 14-02-2017, 10:05 PM
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luka
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luka is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Perth, Australia
Posts: 1,164
Nico, hopefully things will get better soon. I know the feeling when kids bring all kind of sicknesses home. Luckily it is summer here so we are in the clear for a bit longer.
Do you have access to the whole Google drive folder? If not can you PM me your email address. The drive has all documentation about cam86 (and cam90) and the source code, also with my modifications.
Alternatively few posts above I posted an open link to a folder with the latest ASCOM drivers and firmware. This should be accessible by everybody.


Ryan, welcome to the club of DIY addicts
Sorry for the very short PM today but I had to rush out. You should have the access to our GD by now. The BOM file should have all the components listed and the Eagle CAD should have the build files.

It looks like you are very well geared up for building the electronics. I have few spare cam86 PCBs so you can have one if you want. Also there is a difficult to solder FTDI chip in LQFP-64 package. Let me know if you need help with this as I can solder it under a stereoscope. Otherwise you will need a magnifier of some sort to do it properly.
And for the machining of the case, clearly it should not be a problem for you. My resources for this are very limited (hand drill, hammer and few screwdrivers ) but some very nice people from IIS are helping me with the case.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Ukrainians have just released the build files for Cam90. It is very similar to Cam86 but with a 10Mpixel sensor (ICX493AQA instead of ICX453AQA). I am not sure about the noise levels but you may want to consider building this one instead of Cam86. Actually if you are considering Cam90 then I would advise waiting few weeks for the issues to be ironed out before starting. And few of us may do the build as well, not sure. The advantage is really only in megapixels which is not that important for AP.

Also few of us were (loudly) thinking of building Cam10 which is a guide cam. But this has not gone anywhere yet. Cam10 is much simpler than Cam86.

(Hope I did not scare you with all the different builds )

Regarding your gear, not all webcams are made equal for AP but the good ones are not cheap (I am not very knowledgeable on this). It may be easier and cheaper to mount your existing DSLR onto the scope, not sure. Nikon/Canon adapters can be easily bought for <$50, not sure about Sony. Webcam would be more suitable for planetary imaging... what is actually your AP interest (planetary, DSO)? You should have much darker skies than me (<5km from city).

Your mount will limit the exposure time but even then building this CCD will significantly reduce the noise (as it is cooled) compared to a DSLR. Also the unmodified DSLRs block a significant proportion of Ha which is not the case for us.
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