The long awaited and much antipicated arrival of my EQ platform has finally come!
My platform was custom made for -33.4S (+/- 5 deg) by Brian Reed of Round Table Platforms in the USA. Brian was very friendly and great to deal with. It's a magnificently crafted piece of work, it looks absolutely fantastic.
The platform is quite reasonable in price. Shipping to Australia isn't very reasonable as it turns out, but unfortunately, if you can't make your own or find someone locally to make one for you, paying the shipping costs is the only option.
It can be powered via 8 AA batteries, or a 12v battery pack with an auto plug. It has an auto-cutoff when it reaches the end of it's slide, and you just drag it back to starting position to go again. It tracks for about 50 minutes. It has fine speed adjustment, too.
Of course Murphy has struck, it's cloudy tonight so I can't give it first light - but as you can imagine i've turned on inside and it works great.
Thanks very much to Brian for a great looking platform, I'd definitely recommend Brian to anyone who doesn't want to buy a GEQ for their newt, but who still wants the convenience of the dob with tracking.
Looks like a fine piece of gear, Mike. Should get some really nice pics with that! L.
ps. Just noticed the cables in pic 3, that come out of the motor are not sealed,(waterproofed). Maybe a dob of silicon?
I intend to check out Mike's platform at the next Central Coast session, hopefully this weekend. If I like it I may order 1 for myself, if anyone else on the Coast or in Sydney is interested let me know as we could all order togther and significantly defray the shipping costs.
I would love to see a close up of how the friction drive is achieved and how well it works, whether a light bump will cause it to slip etc.
You may have to pad the inside of the dob base where the altitude hubs sit as there can be a fair bit of side to side movement possible when the scope is leaning over.
I had to do this for my dsc to releive stress on the altitude encoder mount.
Hi Mike,
This has been the most fun I have had building a platform and a real learning experience. I am very happy to see it arrived in good condition. Sorry about the cloud cover. Clouds always follow new astronomy equipment.
I would not recomend sealing the motor where the wires exit. The motor generates some heat when runnung and this gives the moisture a place to escape.
Thanks guys, I can't wait to try it out.. hopefully the weather gods will be kinder to me over the next few days.
Stuart, yes I can still use my DSC's. The skycommander has an option for "table reset", so I just need to hit that option when I reset the table and then it's good to go again. At the very most i'll need to do a quick "realign on object". But I shouldn't need to do a 2-star alignment again.
So you have joined the Eq club at long last Mike .
It's a fairly simple straight forward lite design.
If I had have known it was so straight forward i could have made the mechanicals for you .
You'd only needed to get the motor and controller.
Would have saved a bucket load in shipping.
Speeking of the controller does it vary siderial speed for adjustment of tracking rate?
Are they using steppers or servo motors?
Here are the raw materials ready for making my DEC friction drive disc and the rings for making a bearing to allow my newt to rotate withing the fork.
Could have wipped a platform up for ya while i was at it
Bet you can't wait to get out and do some real imaging now.
Hope to see some pics soon.
So this spells the end of Mikes self abuse with a non-tracking dob mount, I am almost sad. Look out jupiter indeed. Well done Mike, and when the curse has cleared, let us know how it actually works.
Gary
Speeking of the controller does it vary siderial speed for adjustment of tracking rate?
Yep, it's got a little knob for adjusting the speed.
Quote:
Are they using steppers or servo motors?
Pass.. brian?
Quote:
Could have wipped a platform up for ya while i was at it
Why didn't you tell me that earlier??
I haven't had a chance to use it outside yet, the sky is clear at 1:30pm, but it's predicted to come over cloudy tonight.. maybe if it just holds off for a few hours more I'll get a chance!
Thanks guys for sharing in my excitement And of course i'll post when i've given it first light, and first imaging light
The motor is 300:1 stepper. The stock 1M pot on the driver has been replaced with a 78K series of resisters and a 100K pot to give it a finer adjustment range.
Thanks Brian
My EQ platform is here!
L.![[1ponders]'s Avatar](../vbiis/customavatars/avatar45_9.gif){kind=avatar}
.
Will follow with interest how it works.
