Lets see fro the Meade 14" ?? shopping list for starters
Dew sheild
2 D weight & rail system
rail system & mounting bar cw tube rings to suit ED 100
digital motorised focuser controller
adapters for fitting LPI, DSI-Pro,ME2 camera, CFW-2 filter wheel, to 1 1/4' and 2" focusers
Mitty 14' wedge to concrete peir adaptor plate
hi Robert, l'm just starting to do the shields for the 14" and the weight and rail system will be done soon and be able to be used in either 2D or 3D format and l'm working on the guide scope mounting rail so some of it is under way.
I guess I'll just be happy about my EQ mount costing less than $500 to build, & my motor drive which is being built as we speak (the controller for the stepper) which is costing me about $50.
Mick i would put in an order for sure for an Eq style mount for my 12".... nothing flash just the ability to put dsc's on later no motors or anything like that... just to be able to get rid of that ugly wooden box they come in !
Is there anything like that without "buzz click" stuff attached? ? ? ? no power no wires just a mount on a tripod ? ? ?? ?
l'm pretty sure that nobody in Australia could compete with the Chinese when it comes to making affordable yet wonky EQ mounts, the set up and research costs including Australian made components would put the mount into the high end market, unfortunetly then you start competing on the price level of Losmandy etc, personally paying something like $1300 for an EQ6 is quite reasonable and l think that unfortunetly in most peoples price range then the Chinese have us by the you know whats.
a dob has two degrees of freedom i assume. one in 360 degrees around the base and one from zero to 90 degrees. How hard to motorize these two movements.
Can someone display some close up pics of the two areas, ie the base and top pivot point. I played with stepper motors in the late 80's as part of my BAppSci. How hard to spin base and (x&y axes) and then z axis again. I can easily link stepper motor(s) control through my laptop parallel port to control.
a dob has two degrees of freedom i assume. one in 360 degrees around the base and one from zero to 90 degrees. How hard to motorize these two movements.
Can someone display some close up pics of the two areas, ie the base and top pivot point. I played with stepper motors in the late 80's as part of my BAppSci. How hard to spin base and (x&y axes) and then z axis again. I can easily link stepper motor(s) control through my laptop parallel port to control.
Hello Dave,
This is the way I went about it with my scope. I bought the motors ect as a kit and then installed them(a picture says a thousand words)
now for the arguments-------how accurate are these setups compared to eq's.
Mick, as we discussed on phone, noobies are going for dobs for cost. I am also thinking dob for my 5 year old daughter as it i not too far off the ground. Also as i start to play with linking webcam and servos, would stability suggest dobs are better?
Orion, have you linked to a computer? I assume this is what people talk about when they mention GOTO?
GoTo is the capability for the scope to slew to its destination. This can be achieved by several ways. I don't use a computer as such I use the argonavis via the servocat and that gives me GoTo and tracking capability. You can use the computer for GoTo as well if you wish.
$1000 for a 12" dob which i can always buy a e6 mount down the track and attach scope to , but i spose you are looking at $1500 odd for a good sturdy e6. how much more for motors as opposed to adapting a dob?
1/ A wheely bar like the JMI or scopebuggy to move around scopes , very expensive the ones mentioned
2/Wedges , the meade superwedge is pricey and needs to be retofitted to make it work smoother , the Mitty and Milburn types cost probarly double that of the meade.
2/Mounting assisant plates with accessory holes for LXs
3/Bolts with hand knurled knobs to replace standard LX type allen key bolts, found it impossible to find anything suitable locally with american bolt threads.Just makes life easier without needing tools to set a scope.
4/ Dont know if its possible but what about a tripod with 2.5 inch tubular legs like the meade 12"lx200 feild tripod
motorising the dob would be a big job.. as you can see on orion's scope.. alot of work, time and effort. To simply whack something together would be easy.. but to get something that works at a level that would be usable.. it'd be hard. It's something that I've given some thought to over the last couple weeks. Plus u'r main hardware, which would probably be u'r steppers(u'd need some decent ones) and a couple of good encoders would work out around/over $500.. plus labour and other hardware, encoder box etc it'd get fairly pricey.. add to that initial development costs it'd be hard to make a go of it as a business.. as it'd really only be good for people like orion who are lucky enough to have monster dobs, as pricewise it'd come close to an eq6. but it'd be a great DIY project, which is the way i'm looking at it.
hi Dave,to buy and then motorize a large aparture dob l can understand because the eq mount required to carry the ota would be truely expensive, l'm talking 14" and over, but in the 8 to 12" range why would you want to buy a dob and then go to all the trouble of fitting tracking to a base that did not have this purpose in mind in the first place. l certainly understand that a lot of people buy dobs because of the lower cost per aparture way of getting into astronomy and when people join this forum and ask about scopes generally they are pointed in this direction but then a lot of these people see the great photos that are posted and think l would like to do that only to find that the scope they have bought does not have that ability, l am not saying that everybody that starts in astronomy should rush out and buy a 10" SCT but it should be understood that this is not a cheap hobby, in my opinion a little bit more money spent in the beginning will save money in the long run, we've all seen what second hand equipment sells for compared to new.
mick.. as point for your business perhaps you should concentrate or more 'solid' products.. adapters, wedges, t-mounts, wheel bases etc. things that aren't complex to make but are abit more specialised and aren't mass produced.. Wheeled bases would probably be your best bet for a new product as it is something that almost all astronomers could use, so you've have access to a large market providng you could cater for different types of scopes/mounts. It may also be worth down the track looking a truss dobs and parts, as they are large and bulky and a pain for shipping.. so there would be a local advantage, but a smaller market there.
I hope this works out well for you mate.
