I was given By Chamberlain/merlin (thanks Andrew) a Prototype sectional door motor to motorise the roof. Chamberlain makes HALF the garage door motors in the world and I use their products almost exclusively, so I'm pretty stoked. Battery back up, belt not chain drive, fully enclosed drive shaft, dc soft start and 3/4 hp, which is massive!
I have not installed it yet its a little bigger than I had planned and 115v(I'll be running on battery anyway). Thats a project thats a few weeks away, and yep will be looking at making a few sensors and toys.
Finally got around to the automation. I have been working too much on other peoples observatories! I really put a lot of thought and development time into the automation side of it.
The controller is ascom compatible and can control any motorised roof with 12 to 24v (1 or 2 motors) dc motors even when they have to be synchronised, (A featurs I used on Doomsayers observatory). Its usb controlled, has sensitivity in case the roofs get jammed/obstructed (yes it does work after somebody I know closed a roof on an rcos), it has a wireless rolling code remote control for opening and closing, inputs for cloud/rain sensors, inbuilt diagnostics, soft start and finish all on a sesame seed bun! It can be setup to close the roof on loss of usb or computer control and can be fitted with battery backup but I havent gone to the bother on my particular application.
Im loving that I now can leave the scope running at night set an alarm, close it by remote from bed (yeah, yeah I should get ccdap to do it) and know that its all safe.
The motor I used is a sectional door motor that was 110v so I didnt mind hacking out all the electronics and just use the motor and gearbox inside. It does the trick nicely as the roof is very smooth running.
