My new pier

[bert (Brett)]

Hi Guys,

This is my first 'real' post. This is my weekends effort making a permanent pier for my backyard. I made it out of 6mm pipe and has a 10mm plate top.

Instead of making an adjustable plate for the top I made the adjustable bits hidden at the bottom (underground). There is a threaded rod that runs the length of the pier that holds the cg5 mount on and a pin for the azimuth adjustment on the top plate.

Sorry about the last picture, it was dark when I finished.

Let me know what you guys think!

Brett

[mrsnipey]

Looking good bert.
Now, if only I could weld.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

OK, thats pretty tall, are you going to fill it with concrete?

[leon]

Looks pretty good Bertt, but as Fred mentioned you would get a much less vibrating pier if you filled it with concrete or even sand, other than that a fine job indeed.

Leon

[bert (Brett)]

Yeah, unfortunetly I cannot fill the pier. It has a threaded rod down to the bottom of the pier with a nut which enables me to take the mount off without having to undo the leveling bolts. Filling it with sand or concrete will mess up the system.

Vibration is not too much of an issue, the steel is a lot thicker than most piers I have seen and is very solid.

Next step running a thousand cables!

[Matty P (Matt)]

Impressive Brett, it looks great.

Well done.

[leon]

Bert just a little advice if i may about your cabling, if you intend to run them up the center of the pier, don't run your power cables, with any data cables, unless very well insulated, you will get possible interference when data is transfered to any of your instruments, or image downloads.

Hope you don't mind me saying this

Leon

[bert (Brett)]

Thanks for the advice.

When you do not run them together do you mean seperate conduit?

Cable plan is;

Run 1x usb2 cable to a 4 port hub mounted on pier (1 for ccd, 1 for guider, 1 for gpusb, 1 for focuser).

12V for ccd and mount and maybe for future dew control.

Serial cable for mount control.

Which cables are best NOT to go together?

Thanks
Brett

[leon]

As you said Bert seperate conduit, keep all your power cables (electric) together, and the others, like USB, etc together, you would be surprised how a power lead can effect image down load if close together

Leon

[sheeny (Al)]

Looks good, Brett. The top of the pier looks neat without the adjusting bolts, etc. It's an innovative design, I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes.

It does look tall, but I suppose that's because you're mounting a reflector on it. How tall is it from ground level?

I hope you have success with the long centre bolt for attaching the mount. I have noticed with my CG5 that on very cold nights that cool very quickly the centre bolt has come loose - I'm guessing the tripod head has cooled quicker than the bolt. The first time it happened to me, it caused me no end of grief all night - polar alignment was impossible - it nearly drove me crazy. The other times I've noticed it when packing up and the cooling (and loosening has obviously happened after polar alignment and didn't affect what I was doing too much (maybe just goto accuracy). If you think you're mount is doing crazy things, check that centre bolt.

I have 3 of my own pier designs on CAD for the CG5: 1 definite flop, a maybe that I'm trying and another one that I did after committing to buy the parts for the second one which I think should be excellent. The first one was a flop because the top of the pier was too wide and would've resulted in restricted movement of the scope or a crash between the OTA and pier. The second, results in a pier top about the same diameter as the top of the CG5 tripod, but the pier itself is only 100x100x5 SHS. Being fairly short, I hope I'll get away with it (and I can fill it with sand to dampen vibrations). The fundamental natural frequency is about 60Hz as opposed to 90Hz for a 6" pipe of the same length. The final design I have (which I'll use if I can't live with my first attempt is also based on 6" pipe as you've done, so it's about as big in diameter as you can go with the CG5 without restricting OTA movement. (7" pipe would probably be OK). For $120 in laser cut parts and some welding practice though it's not a bad project.

Al.

[bert (Brett)]

Thanks for the comments Sheeny,

Its actually now that I measured it properly 140mm pipe. Yes I have access to centre bolt as it runs the length of the pier and can be adjusted at the bottom of the pier via 2 locked nuts on a threaded rod.

Its actually for a refractor, the plan is to have my 103 and 80mm vixen apos as imager and guider. Its probably taller than most piers because I am taller!

If you want sheeny I have made 2 of these (why do 1 when you can do 2 for double the effort!) that I was going to mount out in a dark sky area, feel free to borrow and try it out.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Run extra serial/USB cables, its much easier now, you never know. Make the 12v cable extra thick (like monster speaker cable) and very important, a draw wire incase you need to add one later. 12v DC and data together is not too bad (although seperate is always a good idea), 240vAC really does need seperation.

[bert (Brett)]

Thanks for the tips.

I dont think I will be running 240v I think I'll just be running 12v. My mount likes 15v so I think i'll be running a 12v laptop adapter instead of 240v.

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by bert

Its actually for a refractor, the plan is to have my 103 and 80mm vixen apos as imager and guider. Its probably taller than most piers because I am taller!

Yeah, I had that in mind as well.

Originally Posted by bert

If you want sheeny I have made 2 of these (why do 1 when you can do 2 for double the effort!) that I was going to mount out in a dark sky area, feel free to borrow and try it out.

Thanks for the offer, but that's OK. I have mine complete... just waiting for me to finish the site prep and pour the pier footing.

Al.