Saxon 8inch rebuild

[Pepper]

Hi all.
Just thought id share the rbuild im doing on an 8 inch newt i bought to go in my observatory(when its finally built!)
With a bit of time on my hands having a few weeks away from the grindstone, I figured i may as well give it a freshen up.

Stage one was stripping everything down.
The black is a bit boring, and ive already got a black scope, so i thought a paint job will be in order and do a bit of bodywork on the poor old girl.
I decided to order some paint a few weeks ago and have been waiting for a nice day to do the deed.
Well today is the day.
I applied a couple of coats of black basecoat until the tube was completely black, then put on 6 coats of the colour, then 4 coats of 2k clear.

had a couple of nasties where i had paint spatter cause some minor runs, but nothing a sticker or two wont fix..

i did the finder scope holder with only a couple of coats of the colour so it had a bit of a duller look. Might take a few days to dry proper then i can start reassembly..

pics coming.

[sfarndell]

Looks really nice so far. looking forward to watching your progress

[Pepper]

Thanks Scott. I’m surprised myself how nice it came out.
Took more paint than I expected. Another few coats would have been tops.

[FlashDrive]

Nice colour Steve :)

[Pepper]

Thanks Col. it’s Red Rush from DNA paints somewhere in Covid country.

[jahnpahwa]

yeah, that colour is sensational!

Good on you for putting in the work here :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

You need a sticker made now that says "Christmas Beetle" :P

[Pepper]

Hahah. i still need to attach legs and wings yet
By the time i have a clear sky here it WILL be christmas.

Will be flocking the tube and doing some reassembly today.

[Max Vondel]

Much better than another black tube

[Pepper]

Put the tube back together. Drew a cover for the rear cell to incorporate a fan with freecad. Had a few iterations before I got it right.
Fits a 90mm pc fan exactly. And left room for knobs.
Once it’s all a-ok I can paint the tube ends and get it all collimated. No rush, expecting a bit of rain over weekend.

I’m also on the hunt for some custom tube rings, something bit better than the stock flimsy junk.

[doug mc]

Agree with your point about standard tube rings. Have thought in the past of adding an extra tube ring, or even two to the dovetail bar to get extra stiffness.

[Pepper]

Bought a dew controller From jaycar, however there is some issues with the code to make it work properly. Got my nerd brother onto it to find the fix.
Also finished phase one of my tube holder. I plan on making them out of carbon fibre eventually, but these will do for now. Possibly need one more in middle.

[jahnpahwa]

Geez that tube is class!

Is the jaycar controller the one they have build jnstructions online for? Or bought as is?

[Pepper]

yeah JP, the one online.bought the parts from the partslist from jaycar.
my bro will sort it though.

[Pepper]

Unfortunately I’m back at work this week so my progress has been slowed.
Shame as it’s flatlining on cloud free night for this week. Was cloudy just about every day over my 3 weeks leave. Typical!
Anyway, I designed and printed my focus motor bracket to suit a nema11.
My focus (no pun intended) was to make everything as light as possible.

End result, fits like a glove. Certainly needs some refinement in the way of wire routing but I’ll address that in the final version.
I have a arduino mega to control this, the fan on the rear and my dew controller.
Printed a new slipper gear to replace the brass htd gear on focus knob, but to save weight I may do away with the fine focus knob all together.

[Pepper]

Bit of an update.
I have Collimation somewhat sorted. Still have all the electronics to add but couldn’t resist testing last night.
Stars seem a little elongated, but otherwise better than expected.
Little eq5 held it up, tracking was better than I thought it would be.
Now to sort out the electronics and perhaps a new mount.
I’ll give it another test when the moon goes away.

[Pepper]

got out tonight before the moon got too high and did another round of testing.
had tweaked collimation a little bit more and had much better results.
ic4628
11x120sec iso800
added darks to get rid of the hot pixels.
also found the spacing wrong on the coma corrector.
starting to look good.
was on eq5 mount. tracking ok at around a buck thirty.