|
Completed Polar Adjustment and base board support
Hi All,
Another exciting instalment (for me at least) on the Wedge mount. I have completed the polar adjustment rods and was able to get threaded rod extenders that allowed me to shorten the rod to a latitude of 46 deg. So if I live, move down to the freezing zone called Tasmania then it will still work without modification.
I can now insert various lengths of threaded rod to the end of the main rod to extend latitude further north. The picture shown is for a latitude of 24 deg. So if I want to got further North again without modification. The conduits provide a nice stability to the threaded rods, although the rods are 10mm I gave it a bit more rigidity with the conduit. The other advantage of the conduit is the conduit clamps can be inserted and the lot can be clipped during transport and allow for the base board to be used as a regular DOB.
Baseboard stability
A question came up about the stability of the base board while rotating. This is a good point, I had a small thought on this but as a prototype please not my implementation is functional not pretty.
I have used bearings call CAM Followers which I was going to use on my second EQ Platform. I am using a simple levering system with steel bracket to compress slightly onto the base board, as the altitude raises I may increase of decrease the tension as required but so far it is performing really well.
Another note something I was not expecting. The compression of the bearing also smoothes out the bumps around the surrounding strip. Although not ideal it save the need for trimming which I have left for another time if at all.
There are 4 CAM followers fitted
Next step now is adding base board friction motors (initial).
|