Industrial Robot as a mount?

[erick (Eric)]

I'm in the Roboscope Yahoo group - more by accident than anything else - and usually quickly scan through, but was struck by a guy with an idea to buy a used industrial robot and fit it up as a mount to track satellites.

He's looking at this one:- http://www.robots.com/panasonic.php?robot=aw-005a

Apparently a couple of hundred dollars will get one. Wonder if you need three phase power!

Crazy or revolutionary?

I have seen a video once of a top end mount that was slewing at amazing speeds! Much faster than this GM2000 (which apparently can track satellites):-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6GvuO_9tLY

No, I'm not going to do this, but found it interesting.

[erick (Eric)]

I've been PM'd by a member who doesn't want to go public unless we do think he is crazy!

But he has an industrial robot which could potentially be sitting in his living area with him looking longingly at it with a vision of it being a sophisticated telescope mount.

He tells me:- "One of the advantages that a multi-axis robot can offer is a constant position eyepiece. It can slew the telescope around the sky but keep the eyepiece at a precise point! For star parties with kids this would be an amazing benefit and would be a very interesting innovation. Fortunately this constant positioning is actually an essential component of the robot's daily requirement as an industrial workhorse, so the software is already tuned for this."

Thinking about it, constant eyepiece position would be very useful for observing a satellite, HST or ISS transit across the sky.

You might need a converter to change one phase to three phase power, will need a bit of machining to mount your scope, and will need plenty of programming.

But it may not an impossible dream for those wanting to try!

[DavidU (Dave)]

Great ! I'm into this. any more details from the lurking member?

[hikerbob (Bob)]

Not something I've looked at but the example one weights 170Kg and has a payload of 5Kg's so it may not be very helpful for star parties.

I'd also be very amazed if you could get anything better than a toy for a couple of hundred dollars retail. 170Kg of steel would probably cost more than that let alone adding servo's, encoders, controllers etc.

I'd love to have a play with one and if anyone knows where to get them cheap I really want to know but as a telescope mount for an amature budget it seems unlikely.

Bob

[adman (Adam)]

Originally Posted by hikerbob

one weights 170Kg and has a payload of 5Kg's

sounds a bit like me....

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Trying to find a field with 3 phase power, nothing comes up in google earth Let alone a single phase.

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

I love robo-servants.
Notionally its a great idea.
Much like buying a surplus MiG or F16.
You can probably grab it for a song, but upkeep would be ridiculous.

I envision it more for gardening.....

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

This is what you want.

I've seen one faster on the net but haven't been able to find it. But this one is pretty cool
http://www.astelco.com/images/news/B..._in_motion.avi

[bojan]

All depends on the positional resolution of the system.. It may prove to be insufficient for the telescope mount (I don't know the actual numbers... I am just rising the issue).
Anybody knows?

[alistairsam]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

This is what you want.

I've seen one faster on the net but haven't been able to find it. But this one is pretty cool
http://www.astelco.com/images/news/B..._in_motion.avi

wow ken, thats impressive. but was this what you were looking for?
100deg per sec

http://www.astrosurf.com/sguisard/Vi...eg_per_sec.avi

edit: both are the same mount, second at max speed of 100deg.
uses direct drive motors, but impressive accuracy of 5 arc secs.
http://www.astelco.com/products/ntm/ntm.htm

but coming back to the robot idea, i love the concept of the fixed eyepiece position. i've seen robots do that, but to do that with a multi axis robot carrying a telescope would be really cool.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Originally Posted by bojan

All depends on the positional resolution of the system.. It may prove to be insufficient for the telescope mount (I don't know the actual numbers... I am just rising the issue).
Anybody knows?

Exactly. Industrial robots can go as fast as you like, allways have. Thats not the tricky bit. The positional resolution as required by astophotography is a whole different kettle of fish. It all only gets down to money. After that, its easy.

[alistairsam]

generally industrial robots do have very high positional accuracy.
if there is an error of even 0.1mm, the error accumulated over hundreds of thousands of repetitions of the same task would be unacceptable for any assembly line.
as you said, money is the big factor. with that, you could get very high resolution and guaranteed repeatability.
not sure how much the astelco systems mount costs, but from its specs, the unguided tracking accuracy is 1arc sec / 120 mins and 0.3 arc secs guided.
industrial robots would not be too far. all would depend on what industry it was designed for and what their acceptable tolerances were.

wonder why this video comes to mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOCmoYU6h1Q
thats a classic

and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZ...eature=related

[bojan]

Originally Posted by alistairsam

not sure how much the astelco systems mount costs, but from its specs, the unguided tracking accuracy is 1arc sec / 120 mins and 0.3 arc secs guided.
industrial robots would not be too far. all would depend on what industry it was designed for and what their acceptable tolerances were.

wonder why this video comes to mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOCmoYU6h1Q
thats a classic

and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxbjZ...eature=related

Hm...not too sure about this.

At 1m focal length, 1 arcsec equals 5um (0.005mm)
Sure there are industrial robots with this precision (semiconductor industry and some special scientific instrumentation... But why bother with positional speed??
EQ6 has +-20arsec PE in average.. guided it is better than 1".
You hardly can have much more bang for a buck than that... Industrial robot with such accuracy will cost 100x more.

[bartman (Bart)]

Oh and this one.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCKiRcp-97k

Sooo want one!!!!!!!
Stuff the scope......this is much more fun!!!!!!

sorry off topic.....
tsk tsk
Bartman

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by alistairsam

wow ken, thats impressive. but was this what you were looking for?
100deg per sec

http://www.astrosurf.com/sguisard/Vi...eg_per_sec.avi

Yes! Thanks Alistair, that's the video I meant

I didn't realise it was the same mount. Excellent spotting

[erick (Eric)]

I guess I was never thinking astrophotography, and not even slew speeds. It's that concept of maintaining fairly constant eyepiece position as a scope is pointed to different parts of the sky that I found most enticing.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by erick

I guess I was never thinking astrophotography, and not even slew speeds. It's that concept of maintaining fairly constant eyepiece position as a scope is pointed to different parts of the sky that I found most enticing.

Yes... something like that would be OK for binoculars up to 30x or so but un-usable for photography or visual at higher magnifications.
0.1mm positional accuracy of universal robot, while quite enough for example in car manufacturing industry, is not enough from astro point of view.

[hikerbob (Bob)]

On a much smaller scale Sparkfun has a link to this up today

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...iculated-robot

Note - the page and video include a spiel for funds. I think the robot is interesting and I may get a kit at some point for play but I'm not endorsing this in any way.

[renormalised (Carl)]

http://www.chronosmount.com/

There you go

[bojan]

http://www.mesu-optics.nl/mount_en.html