Quote:
Originally Posted by snowyskiesau
Despite moving down to Tassie from Sydney a number of years ago, I never took advantage of the dark skies and the telescope(s) have sat in boxes under the bed 
A friend recently expressed an interest in astrophotography (he's was a professional photographer) and it got me interested again.
Motor drive being a must for photography, I went looking for low cost options and found OnStep.
I have stepper motors and drivers from my 3D printer spares box , I've just placed an order with Mouser for the components and the PCBs are being made for a ridiculously low price in China. Pulleys and belts courtesy of Aliepxpress. All have to do is stick 'em together - when they arrive.
As a minimum order of PCBs is 5 off, I'll have a few spares or both the main controller and the smart hand controller. I'm happy to offer these free (plus postage) to anyone else who wants to build one of these. I can provide the BOM from Mouser as well.
I might even get interested in the astonomy stuff again, it's very dark at night in southern Tasmania (60km south of Hobart) and to be honest, there's not an awful lot to do 
I'll post mores details once parts arrive and construction begins.
(Telescope is a Skywatcher ED80 on a Vixen SP mount)
Regards
Geoff |
Hi Geoff,
My workhorse 16" planetary is using a Bartels controller and I've been thinking for a while that I should upgrade to a more user friendly approach that doesn't require an old PC for generating the PWM waveforms. Each time I want to use the scope, I have to drag out the trolley with the PC and plug in the cables.
My mount is Alt/Az so the setup is useless for planetary imaging without a proper controller that can also drive the field rotator.
From a brief look at OnStep it seems that it has field rotator control so it sounds like a good option.
I'll PM you with my address in case a set of the PCBs is still available.
Cheers,
Stefan