[pmrid (Peter)]

Hi Bojan,
I just saw your original (2 years ago) post. I'll add myself to the list of the Bartelised.
I'm in the process of a grand refurbishment of a 16" Dob I bought last year - OK, so I'm slow - and would be grateful to be able to share some experiences and solutions with others who have done a Bartels implementation.
The mount for this scope is a heavy blighter, made from 2" box section sleel and steel plate. I'll attach a few photos.
The key to it is in the drives of course. The base of the mount has 3 wheels to which I have added a screw-down levelling system and a bearing or two. It is pullable but without dissasembly, an absolute beast to move anywhere far from home.
The Alt bearing is identical to the Az and is mounted on one arm of a yoke - with a slave shaft and bearing on the other side. I had a hell of a time getting all these to run true because the mount - while solidly built, was out of whack in several directions.
The drives in both Alt and Az are 200-step steppers run into a 25:1 reduction box and then through a worm drive to a 180-tooth gear driving a shaft on which the scope turns. My maths says this gives a 1.44 arc/second per step. But I am suffering major brain-fade when it comes to the software controlling these motors.
I bough a ready-made board from Mel (with the motors also) and although it has a field rotation capability as well as focus control, I don't use either yet - there isn't much point in getting the focus right if the thing can't track and slew.
So may I ask if anyone has been through the process of working out the Config.dat file for the Bartels software and is still sane.