While still continuing to refine PEC on the homemade RA gear
I have been almost completely around the circumference of the
gear following stars etc.
Arc sec per step size has not needed to be drastically altered so far.
(this is good news....this means the spacing around the gear of the
hobbed teeth is pretty accurate.
My only big PE is the non-concentric worm.
This, as in the last few posts, is manageable with Bartels PEC
turned on. Luckily the PE is cyclic and repeats almost identically.
However, to move forward from here requires many nights of
collecting accurate PE data with K3 drift Explorer and a spreadsheet.
This is the easy part. The hardest part has been getting an accurate
sync point when switching on PEC.
I have to toggle it on right at the correct position of an imaginary clock
face on the worm shaft.
The Bartels system even has a function to add this sync via software
and a pin on the parallel port. For now I just wanted some sort of
visual feedback that I was in the vicinity.
With the occasional resync needed from inside with remote desktop
this becomes impossible......enter the webcam.
I fitted a rough printed dial to the worm shaft and sat the dome
webcam looking at it.
All of this is now visible via remote desktop from inside and I can
call the PEC on /off via the ASCOM interface and custom LX200
commands.
It also lets me check visually there has been no drive trouble..handy.
(a grub screw came loose on the 60:1 gearbox output shaft and
the toothed belt pulley was slipping). I saw this via the webcam!
Pics attached. A screengrab of the dome PC with Cartes
and ASCOM connected driving the scope.
The live webcam view is top left.
Note the advertising on the webcam image. You just can't
get away from bloody advertisers can you
Steve