Thank you Andrew, Peter, Marc and Ray.
So far it seems to have been a successful project. My stars seem better and the mirror cell appears with a laser to hold collimation much better. I tested it with a meridian flip and in various areas of the night sky and the stars at least visually seem to maintain a even shape. I’m looking at getting an auto collimating eyepiece soon which will really test the theory but at the end of the day it’s the overall outcome that matters.
One of the challenges I faced upon completion was that the primary obviously moved slightly up the tube. This meant that initially I couldn’t get enough out focus. I solved that with a 2” nose piece on the front of my MPCC. This has also had the added bonus of making my focal point more central in my focuser tube’s travel. I had already modified my focuser to hold the tube more concentric so now having it half way through its travel it has even less flexure. 2 birds one stone.
With regards to the triangles and their fixings. As Peter quite correctly noticed they are bolted to the original cell. On both the bolt head side and inbetween the cell and triangle I have rubber washers. The bolts are tightened just enough to take up the clearance allowing the triangles to flex as required to find even surface support.
As far a bending the aluminium C channel goes. That was done by hand. I bought a 1m length. With a block on the ground to wedge one side up, I gently pushed down in the center to begin the bend. Working backwards and forwards over the length to create an even curve. Once the radius tightened significantly I then moved to bending it over my knee. Once I had created enough of a radius in the center of the length I proceeded to cut out the section lengths that I required. A very crude way of going about it I know but I didn’t have a metal bender. Having seen what I could achieve with my hands though, I think I may invest in a small vice mounted one for some other projects I have in mind.
Thank you for your interest guys
Ryan
