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Fred,
I opted to make my own custom home made Dome control made up of electronic timers, switches and electromechanical relays , very primitive but works ok
However I do run into problems above 70deg in Altitude where the object is moving towards the Zenith , I have to override and manually rotate the Dome around to keep the motion of the object within the 600mm slot opening
Most objects I can track automatically for hours without manual intervention
Control box and gear cost me $450 and I just wired it into the existing NexDome motor control box
I adjust the timer for azimuthal rotation increments based on the predetermined path and movement of the object , I have a window of error as my slot is 600mm wide. If the slot was only 400mm wide it would restrict this system and probably wouldn’t work that well
I was thinking of using a old April PLC with handcontroller programmer but these things have no replacement parts anymore so I opted for a cheaper simple system. New PLC’s aren’t cheap
Cheers
Martin
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