ANZAC Day
Go Back   IceInSpace > Equipment > ATM and DIY Projects

Reply
 
Thread Tools Rating: Thread Rating: 2 votes, 5.00 average.
  #121  
Old 30-03-2025, 04:19 AM
pinakoza
Registered User

pinakoza is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2025
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 7
Hi Leo, thanks for your feedback. Yes, I frequently use sealed food containers from Dollar store as a project box. They are cheap and easy to cut out using heated knife/soldering iron. And if the project fails, nothing much to loose

Once, I too had a similar idea of using two different spider vanes as conductors, but then it requires to add insulators as well, so left it!

I actually striped down an old non-functional HDMI cable and used its thin single strand wires as sensor and heater cables. The width of two such twisted wires is just as that of a spider vane, and can easily carry the current for the sensor and 0.5 amps to secondary mirror heater. Problem solved

As you have mentioned, self-adhesive copper tape is a good idea to use as a conductor. I have used it in some of my past projects and this one too. If you check the 4th picture (Power supply, Primary heater band & Multimeter) in my post #119, you will see the Copper tape covering the top half of resistor row. Here, I have used it to spread the heat to the space between two resistors.

I will share more detailed pics of my build in a day or two.

BTW, Carbon RC8 is really a good choice. In last few weeks, I too was looking for a used RC6/8 or Nexstar 6/8SE (portable enough for travel visual astronomy), but then ordered SW-Virtuoso 150p. Its arriving soon.
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (hdmi.jpg)
8.1 KB11 views
Reply With Quote
  #122  
Old 30-03-2025, 10:56 AM
Leo.G (Leo)
Registered User

Leo.G is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Lithgow, NSW, Australia
Posts: 1,375
Yes, the carbon RC is very light, bulky but light.
Reply With Quote
  #123  
Old 30-03-2025, 12:49 PM
pinakoza
Registered User

pinakoza is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2025
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 7
Dew-heater details

Hello Chris, as discussed, I am uploading the pics from the inside of the dew-heater, and some other pics related to it's installation and working. As I mentioned to you earlier, the internal looks very chaotic, but for me they are very clear and well labelled (though only one label is visible in the pics attached), and insulated.

The dew heater's plastic box itself is glued to thick cardboard using hot glue, and then a candy stick is hot-glued horizontally to the top of the cardboard, and wedged between the telescope body and two mounting rings.

The entire dew-heater/power box is itself powered by 16 AWG umbilical cord (13 amps capacity) attached to 12v 30Amps power supply (using XT60 power plug). Dew heater has three 12v (5.5 x 2.1mm dc female jack) and one 5v 3amps USB output (through buck converter). One of the 12v output is further reduced to 6volt (for secondary mirror heater) using buck converter.

DS18B20 Sensor jacks are regular 3 pin stereo jacks, and cables for the sensors and secondary mirror heater are made up of the thin cables salvaged from an old 10 feet HDMI cable. Primary mirror heater cable is 22awg cable, and protected by 2amps mini fuse.

EQ6-R Pro mount has its own power supply.
Pictures attached.
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (20250329_192739-2.jpg)
121.7 KB13 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_192809-2.jpg)
88.4 KB12 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_192816-2.jpg)
92.9 KB7 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_192723-2.jpg)
84.7 KB14 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_203709-2.jpg)
83.1 KB10 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_211201-2.jpg)
87.9 KB8 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_210109-2.jpg)
112.3 KB9 views
Click for full-size image (20250329_204549(0)-2.jpg)
107.6 KB10 views
Reply With Quote
  #124  
Old 10-04-2025, 06:38 PM
ChrisV's Avatar
ChrisV (Chris)
Registered User

ChrisV is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,787
Have recently made a few updates to the dew heater controller & its PC interface. Its now on github, HERE. I'll even do occassional updates and fixes. So if anyone is interested, they'll all be on github.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +10. The time is now 02:15 AM.

Powered by vBulletin Version 3.8.7 | Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement
Bintel
Advertisement