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Old 06-05-2008, 07:18 PM
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war bird
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900 nc mod

I was asked to show how i moded the 900nc to fit scope so here it is.
I used all original parts that came with cam. I used an old 4mm eye piece kindly donated to me by the good guys at bintel.
The set up basicly snapes together just like original cam design.
I knocked all the original lenses out of the cam so i could use its housing as a light shield or else it would shine all over ccd chip. The fit between the silver focuser on cam and the drilled eye piece must be well centered and tight.
Any other questions i will be happy to anwser.
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  #2  
Old 07-05-2008, 04:14 AM
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iceman (Mike)
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That's cool, well done.

The 900nc definitely seems a bit harder to attach an adapter to than the older 840k.

Have you 'modded' it as in long-exposure mod?
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  #3  
Old 07-05-2008, 10:22 AM
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No Mike not at this stage.
I use a 400d for my dso and enjoy manual guiding rather than a computer doing all the work.
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Old 07-05-2008, 11:15 AM
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I found it easier to use a mogg adapter... screw out the lens, screw in the adapter.
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Old 07-05-2008, 06:43 PM
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war bird
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re mogg adapter

yeh but 0 dollars and 30 mins of my leisure time.
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Old 26-06-2008, 07:53 PM
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hikerbob (Bob)
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Another 900NC

I put a bought adaptor on my 900NC earlier in the week. While I was waiting for it I'd used the fitting from an old eyepiece to do similar.

I've used a small plastic box from Dick Smith to rehouse the camera. In the temporary setup I turned up a piece of timber to fit inside the 1.25" fitting and over the sensor surround.

For the setup with the bought adaptor I've bored out an old 2" to 1.25" adaptor so that the 900NC adaptor fits inside it and turned down part of the external flange so that the 2" to 1.25" adaptor fits well down inside the focusser. That has ensured that I have plenty of infocus with my Dob. The plastic housing is screwed to the larger adaptor to provide some additional mechanical strength rather than relying on the sensor surround.

I'm doing the research on the long exposure mod at the moment. I've still not worked out what to do about the lack of the a parallel port.

Has anybody had experience with the mod without connecting to a parallel port?

Bob
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Old 27-06-2008, 08:52 AM
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Screwdriverone (Chris)
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Hi Bob,

Apparently you can use a USB to Parallel converter and it works fine, otherwise I think the mod can be done and interfaced to a 9 pin D serial cable, however you may need a USB to serial adapter there as well.
Check here at Jaycar

Cheers

Chris
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Old 27-06-2008, 09:45 AM
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Parallel ports

Chris I've seen in a couple of places on the web that USB to Parallel adaptors don't work with modified web cams. See the snippet below as an example. I may need to join the QCUIAG forum to see what the discussion is there.

I am having a think about trying to use an Arduino card (http://www.arduino.cc/) but have not worked my way throught the issues yet (such as getting camera software to use it). If thats viable I might also be able to use it for speed control for an EQPlatform I'm working on. I've not played with an arduino yet but the writeups I've seen on them suggest that they are very versatile.

I may end up having to do what is described below but I'm trying to look at options first in case there is a better way of doing this.

http://slscope.co.uk/astro_projects/...ackground.html

"USB to parallel adaptor are available, but DO NOT WORK with modified webcams. Also PCMCIA to parallel adaptors are not usable for this task. This topic has been discussed on the QCUIAG forum.

USB to serial adaptors are available and these can be used to control modified webcams via yet another adaptor. The down side is that serial ports provide only two lines which can be used for control purposes (ie RTS and DTR). This means that it's not possible to provide full functionality for an SC2 mod (see below) via a serial port. However, it is possible to control basic long exposure and amp-off operation via USB/serial operation. Refer to Steve Chambers circuit. This arrangement provides an interface between a serial port and a conventional SC1.5 or SC2 (again see below) modified webcam, but long exposure operation must be enabled/disabled via a manually operated switch.

So in the absence of a genuine parallel port, the procedure is to modify a webcam in the usual SC1.5 or SC2 (again see below) way, make up a serial to parallel webcam adaptor, fit a USB to serial converter to the computer, and then plug them all together."

Bob
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Old 27-06-2008, 10:28 AM
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Screwdriverone (Chris)
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Hi Bob,

Yes, I read some of those and thought that might be the case, however the Jaycar one is bidirectional and for the price may just work. Check out this thread for the alternative PCMCIA card that Sheeny uses. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...t=usb+parallel

It may be better to err on the side of caution.

Chris
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Old 27-06-2008, 11:56 AM
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hikerbob (Bob)
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Trans PC card

Chris, thanks for that. The PCMCIA card looks like it will do the job http://www.transdigital.net/ although it's reducing the price advantage of a converted webcam.

Another link in my research. When I'm done I'll have to put together a summary of what I've done for the site. I seem to be finding bits of info all over the place.

Bob
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Old 05-07-2008, 05:17 AM
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kinetic (Steve)
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Hi all,

I've done a Parallel port mod on the SPC900 and it works fine.
I have read on a webcam astronomy forum ( QCUIAG) that
the PCMCIA parallel path is a bit touch and go and people
have trouble with various cards.

A true parallel port need bi directional signals and I think the
PCMCIA cards don't truly emulate this.

My SPC900 works faultlessly...hardly any dropped frames, I can dial in
any shutter length without dropped frames (previous webcam mods gave
bad dropped frames if I selected certain shutter times).

I use K3 registered ver for driving it. Great software, worth the money
for it with drift explorer and other gadgets.

All of my mods are fitted with a Nikon T-ring bayonet arrangement
so I can use a range of Nikon SLR lenses (great for comets).
I also have machined up a Bayonet to 1.25 adaptor to plug it
into my homemade 8" Newt.

regards,
Steve
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Old 05-07-2008, 01:55 PM
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I have just bought a port replicator for my laptop which conveniently gives me 2 extra USB ports, and a parallel and serial port what a dream it is for astronomy.. serial port to the synscan, usb to webcam, parallel to the webcam for lx mod and still got 3 USB ports to play with for DSLR/GPUSB etc..

Have tested and parallel works with the LX modded 900NC and serial works fine with the synscan v3 controller..

The replicator, rather than converting usb->serial/usb->parallel, it connects to the laptops motherboard via an opening in the base of the laptop, thus being somewhat like a PCI serial/parallel/usb card all in one...

Perhaps a good way to beat the blues.. (provided you can find a replicator for your specific laptop.)

Alex.
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  #13  
Old 05-07-2008, 04:48 PM
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Thanks for the xtra info

Steve and Alex thanks for the extra info.

I do have an older laptop Thinkpad T20 with a parallel port. When I've tried the SPC900NC on it (unmodified, just via the USB port) it did not work but I'm wondering if using a powered USB hub might help. Something to try.

Steve did you do and amp off mod and if so which one did you go with. I've made up a circuit board with the long exposure mod circuitry but not yet added it to the camera. I want to sort out the amp off stuff first so that I don't have to do this twice.

Bob
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Old 05-07-2008, 05:00 PM
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kinetic (Steve)
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Bob,

No I didn't do an amp-off mod.
I was always going to at a later stage and probably the least
invasive versionthe one where you only solder to a leg
of the CCD).

I found that my SPC900 had high noise in the blue channel
at mid to high gain and if I couldn't eliminate that then I
assumed the amp-off mod might make it worse.
(A few forums state that the amp-off mod lowers the sensitivity
and adds electronic noise to the image because of the wiring
hanging off the boards due to mods).

In use I minimise the blue noise by having long exp frames below
15 secs, gamma at 50% (DSOs) and gain at about 50% or lower.
HTH,

Steve
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