Staples or finishing nails work fine, but be sure they dont bump up above the surface of the plastic. Focuser (GSO 2 speed low profile Crayford): $139 Ebony star strips: 2 @ $10 Ebony star ring: $59 Teflon strip: $11 Telrad base: $10 Baltic Birch " sheet (60X60): $42 Baltic Birch 5/8" sheet (60X60): $48 Circle cutting jig: $30 Birch Veneer (4X8 piece): $65 Hardware, stain, other supplies: $80 Total cost for supplies for this project: $1700 You should now be able to drill the 4 holes at each corner. large in diameter (1.6") so that adds to the fine-ness of the focus Most of these have one or two set screws. DIY Craford Focuser. I An electronic focuser, which moves the focus knob through a combination of hardware and software, solves this problem. Motion is very smooth. like, you can have as much focuser travel as you want no matter how on Introduction. Able to shift heavy loads of kit ie over 1000g. The box should be deep enough to allow the mirror box to swing all the way down. My secondary is 4; for tips on choosing size, click here. It turns out the the extra 1/16 allowed far too much side to side movement between the rocker and ground board. A 10 inch scope would not be very much longer or heavier than my 6 inch, yet it would allow me to see much more. I was finishing this inner debate when I got a copy of the book The Dobsonian Telescope by Kriege and Berry as a Christmas gift. 1N5408 3A Diode (you may need to make the pins smaller to fit through the holes in the board. love to hear from people who are interested in this focuser design. I didn't bother reading his whole article to figure out what f/# he used) I am not trying to say that good AP isn't possible with a sonotube scope, (the 'friend' may very well have pulled it out of the dob mount, added rings and a dovetail, and mounted it on his CGE-Pro or comparable) but in this case it is unlikely.". Measure the diameter of the exposed shaft. Homemade astronomy. This proved fatal for the stepper motor! I'm only hoping to supplement it a bit with some info and pictures aimed at those with limited skills (such as myself) :-) I'm not an electrical engineer, I'm more of a software guy with some limited knowledge of electronics and basic soldering and assembly skills. . astronowanabe, Pierre Lemay, LarsMalmgren and. Telescope Magazine. This allowed me to cut perfect identical circles. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion Contact cement is permanent, so the only solution would be to replace the tube! I made this Crayford style focuser using plywood scraps and surplus bearings. This project is based on Robert Brown's "Arduino ASCOM Focuser Pro2 DIY". After going over the surfaces with a tack cloth to pick up the saw dust, I applied the stain and went over it with cheese cloth rags for an even finish. scope, I only put knobs on the outsides. Two different construction supply companies told me that sonotubes were not available with a 14 inch diameter, even by special order. ScopeStuff is awesome!! After waiting for the stain to dry for a day, I applied polyurethane in two coats, going over the surface with 0000 steel wool between coats. The ARtemis module came in a kit form actually just two circuit boards one of which I had to source the parts, build and box myself. The 48 inch width of the veneer was close enough to the diameter of the tube that I used it as is. DIY Truss Dob input: How to design truss? I'd 10 years ago I'm also going to focus on only one version of Robert's focuser (there are many). Post 10 of the same LSDF focuser thread also links to Art Bianconi's archived 2008 original flush valve focuser posts. I also figured that the extra expense was worth it, considering the amount of money I was investing in the project overall. Share it with us! Before finishing the tube with a wrap of veneer, I wanted to make sure that the primary was in the correct position. It has a 6mm shaft. Very simple and portable. Using heavy grit sandpaper I brought back the surface of the keeper enough for the side bearings to fit inside the felt pads. focuser. Not sure if it is available in the USA. You can view and download the full file here. A decent machinest will do a far better job, but, there is always a lot more pleasure to be gained per astrophoto when you make bits yourself. Until I see photos of this scope setup for these pictures and an explanation of the exact equipment used, I cannot believe that these pictures were taken with this OTA. 1" Rack & Pinion Focuser. A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. Please feel free to email me at the address on the right. I also decided to make a separate mounting plate for the stepper motor, since I figured aligning the shafts precisely would be all but impossible. I set things up in daylight and collimated the scope. The heaviest piece is 40 lbs, and the total scope weighs about 60 lbs (not counting the baffle). But who cares, really? This motor has a larger shaft diameter (8mm) and is quite a bit heavier overall than the direct drive motor, mainly because of the gearbox. Two inch internal diameter drawtube. The scope including the optics, truss tubes, and eye pieces all stored in a single box making it easy to store and transport by car, but it was a little too big to fit in the overhead compartment or under the seat on most aircraft. Here is a link to the main FILES area on Robert Brown's site. you could probably space the bearings 3/4" apart instead of 1" and mount Next, attach the eyepiece and the focuser to the top part of the telescope tube. Fire up focusmax, and shoot some images! I started with a spacer that with a inch outer diameter. It just Cost is $25 - $30, and you will have 5 PCBs in about a week. Helicals are adaptable to both refractors and reflectors, but do not "play nice" with zoom eyepieces because "zooming" becomes a two handed operation to avoid changing focus. We tried this in our back yard, but found that it was too difficult to aim both the tube and the moving mirror at distant trees in our suburban yard. I don't have the skills to build a focuser using a. The project creator Robert Brown made a good video on testing the board. We were careful to press out any bubbles as we went, but when the job was done we found that there were multiple bubbles in the veneer. Sonotube (14 inch diameter, 12 feet long): $70, Focuser (GSO 2 speed low profile Crayford): $139, Total cost for supplies for this project: $1700. You will look through these as you rotate the wheel. Parts List (the full story of acquiring the parts), The primary, secondary, spider and secondary holderDiscovery Optics. on Introduction. I tried all of my other eyepieces and found that I could bring the image into focus in the other eyepieces, but it was very near the bottom of the focuser travel. I have several of the books on building a Dobsonian Telescope. Secondary mirror with spider holder Search on eBay for a matched set. To place the primary mirror, I installed the secondary and installed the primary in the mirror cell. Share it with us! My other telescope is a Celestron NexStar C6E. Line the underside of the rocker box with a ring of ABS plastic to allow it to ride on the base. To cut the circles, I started with a depth of about 1/8 inch, then lowered the bit and cut a little more with each pass until I was through the board. That helps with low-profile I have not yet figured out a better way to hold the tube. Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . There was the expense, for one, but also the The kit just contains the electronics - it is up to the user to find a stepper motor and attach it to their own telescope focuser. To glue the side bearings and rocker sides to full thickness, I covered a side with wood glue, then carefully lined up the pieces and put two small nails into the pieces to hold them in place. Download and unzip. I had talked with their owner about mirrors and mirror cells once, and I was very impressed by his knowledge of telescope building. I got no response to phone calls or emails after another week, and decided to wait until the primary would be finished in another two weeks. A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. I only use the OTA. When you're ready to go on to testing with the windows driver, you want "myFP2_DRV8825_312-1", open that folder. Edited by sunrag, 28 May 2020 - 10:44 PM. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches) Lighter than the existing focuser. I was certain not to move the jig at all before cutting the second circle. PhotoPictureResizer_190723_214534574_crop_2558x3105_copy_1023x1242.jpg. Start with the small components first. microcontrollers including Arduino and Raspberry Pi, Drones and 3D Printing, and more. wobbly knob still works, and adds character. When you want to focus, you just open the program and press focus. All Dobsonian telescope projects are unique buildshere are the notes from my latest version to help get you familiar with the process and determine how youll design yours. I like the old way of using stepper motors and other stuff introduced years ago by Mel Bartels, he is a master for me. The back of the mirror floats on 3 or more support points (this build uses 6) that are calculated usinga software tool called PLOP. One of the neat things about the square design is that the Pierre's Helical Crayford gets my vote hands-down for elegant simplicity. These are mounted 120 degrees apart and use 4 inexpensive bearings to support the tube. Concluding that I would not be able to buy a tube off the shelf, I found a couple of companies that took special orders on cardboard tubes. off the bearings. Attach the eye piece to another cardboard piece and pass it through the hole from the inside of the tube. If you don't want to go that route, contact me at gary.hethcoat@gmail.com since I have a lot of spare parts and I can sell you a "kit" with a PCB and only the parts you need. in the tube so they'll hit the knitting needle before your drawtube runs } catch(err) {}, SH-232 Sharpless sh-232, sh-231, sh-233, sh-235, NGC2174 Monkey Head Nebula, Sharpless 252, Sh2-252, HDW3 Hartl-Dengel-Weinberger 3 PN G149.4-09.2, SH-198 Sharpless 198, Soul Nebula, IC1848, NGC281 IC11, Sharpless Sh2-184, Pacman Nebula, SH2-173 SH2-173 Phantom of the Opera LBN 593, SH2-168 Sharpless HII regions. It uses a primary mirror to capture and reflect light, a secondary mirror to direct light into an eyepiece, and a focuser to make fine adjustments for viewing. In order to check your measurements, you can construct jigs for your mirror cell and secondary cage, positioning them on a straight, adjustable track such as 2 planks of wood. Whether you need a basic rack-and-pinion telescope focuser for your homemade telescope project or a premium Crayford-type model with dual-speed focusing as a performance upgrade, you have come to the right place. 8 years ago Rock Paper Scissors Using Tinkercad Circuits and Arduino, Punchy the MECH & the Autonomous Fight Club, PCB (printed circuit board) - download the, DRV8825 - stepper motor driver chip/board - again, clones available on. Built one of these http://emediadesigns.com/focuser/ working really well only cost less than 40.00. I attached them with very small brads, countersinking the brads. If you mess up, you can turn the hole into a slot, but avoid Trim off any unused fabric along the base. You simply glue or screw the 'nut' part to your scope OTA, and thread the tube part in/out to focus. I decided to order a mirror cell from them because the owner had talked about a new cell he was excited about. In my case I decided to make a custom bracket. This might have been tempting if I wanted to build a 6 inch scopeat that size, they say that first-timers do pretty well at grinding and figuring their own optics. I wanted to finish that instructable before the contest ended but was too late :-). I did run into a small problem with the focuser. As I continued to read, however, I was struck by the many complications of the design and, frankly, how many ways I could screw it up. After waiting for the contact cement to dry to the touch, and with my wife's help, I carefully aligned the edge of the veneer with the guideline on the tube and pressed the first inch together. If you follow the procedures described above, your telescope's optics will be perfectly aligned. occurred to me that a square turned 45 degrees would give me two flat Star Adventurer Pro Pack Counter Weight Bar Thumb Screw Upgrade. Actually getting the parts into my hands turned out to be more of a challenge than I would have expected, but in the end, I have a wonderful telescope that I enjoy very much. It stalled when tension on the belt increased. The focuser shaft on the telescope is 13.1mm in diameter. I call shenanigans on every picture in this post except for the the moon. forces the knitting needle against the drawtube and the drawtube against When I ordered the cell, I paid through paypal, which immediately deducts money from my checking account. It took about 3 weeks but, since Anttler's did not even reply to the Paypal dispute, I received a Paypal refund. think that design would be rigid enough under the weight of a diagonal The belt and pulleys are off-the-shelf items available on Amazon. (Technically, it should have been 62.5 for a 12.5 inch f/5, but when the mirror came it had a note on the back that the focal length was 61 inches.) a 3/4" thickness. Knitting needles are For a while I decided that 10 inch would be the best size. They said they would make the brackets extra long to accommodate the mirror and it would take about a week. Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. ill ask him for a detailed list of what he used and when i get that ill post it here for you. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. This was to allow the circle cutting jig to be attached to the board to cut the arcs from a center point of 25 inches above the ground. Deep space photos like these require HOURS of exposure for each one. I decided to order an aluminum mirror cell from University Optics instead so that the mirror could be supported at 9 different points. My wife helped me by moving the mirror into and out of the tube around the marked spot while I stood at the eyepiece trying to bring some distant trees into focus. They suggested a construction supply place on the other side of the city that I had not called yet. Unfortunately I don't have a 3d printer. 5 weeks after I had ordered the mirror, I called to ask about its status. my thoughts naturally gravitated toward a boxy focuser to go with it. I tried to call, but the voice mail had a recording stating that the customer was unable to receive messages. To get a slide-fit in a 3D printed part, you normally make the hole 0.5mm larger than the shaft. If you're not using heavy eyepieces, you probably don't need Use mild soap and distilled . The overall project is super cheap, we're building this thing for something like $50 in materials. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't adapter set screws to slide into. After another 3 weeks, I was concerned that I had not received the mirror. On the cutting diagram, you can see that the side bearings were cut 26 inches long. I plan to use an FTA over it in case an extension is needed. I wanted a tight / press fit, so I only added half that, 0.25mm. pageTracker._trackPageview(); This is my copy of the telescope that Sir Isaac Newton presented to the Royal Society of London in 1671, and is considered to be the first successful reflecting telescope. It doesn't. A tilted focuser will have no effect on the image quality. 4 years ago Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality. I found a used 16 primary on eBay. rod for the drive axle it would have a fairly fine motion. The arc at the top of the sides needed to have a radius 1/8 inch larger than that of the side bearings to account for the thickness of the teflon pads that would fit between. In scaling up the K/B 8 inch design, I made a few changes that, I hope, will improve the design for 12.5 inch aperture. how much travel you actually need, you can cut the tube off so none of During on-site assembly, attach each truss to its mounting T-nut using a bolt with a thumbscrew knob. This arrangement turns 100% true, no wobble. This is the mirror box for my 16", with Jim doing a bit of cleanup sanding. 1/4" x 20 bolt, and the nylon bolt end against the smooth knitting Building the mirror box is tricky, because the entire optical assembly (mirror cell, mirror box, trusses, secondary cage) must balance at the center of rotation of the arms. Best Wishes, Reply Ask Question Step 5: Stepper Motor Choice #2 - NEMA-17 Geared Stepper Motor If your optical train is heavy and the focuser has to bear it (see above) then this motor may be a better choice. I read the entire thread and surely its going to help me building my focuser. If you connect the 12V power with the barrel connector (right side of photo), the Nano should light up without the USB connection. Able to make myself using my own humble tools (or toys as the pros will call them!) So, am curious to see what others have designed and built and proud to show off here on the homage to Crayford thread. Having an RS trade counter 2 miles away is such a luxury! The wide square footprint would make it pretty stable when mounted to Also no obvious diffraction spikes in the m31 photo. Let me see if I can get similar plumbing parts here. It's easy to shim it to knob, and a drill press to make sure the hole for the knitting needle Make the drawtube longer than you think you'll need, just in If you go to buy all of the components for this project from dealers, you will see that you mostly have to buy at least 5 parts, sometimes bags of 50 parts! Before attaching the sides and front to the bottom with wood screws, I wanted to make sure those screws would not interfere with the Ebony Star ring that would be attached to the rocker bottom. Here is a simple 3D printed helical focuser that cost just a few cents (assuming you have a 3D printer). I got no response to phone calls or emails after another week, and decided to wait until the primary would be finished in another two weeks. Since my plan called for purchasing the mirrors and mechanical parts there were several decisions to be made and several vendors to contact. Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome of this project - focusing is now a joy. Focuser minimum height is 50 mm and maximum a little over 90 mm so it is good overall. It is not very powerful, it will not supply enough torque if you put any load on it or have a heavy optical train (like I do) and the focuser has to "pull" it upward when the telescope is vertical. The little app is simple and works great. You will need to remove the regular focus knob on your telescope's focuser. They eyepiece height ended up being about 5'10" high at zenith. New Creation Tamil 6.96K subscribers Welcome to New Creation Tamil Our Channel include of Guiding Videos: 1.DIY Projects 2.Awesome Ideas 3.Tips You are inter with New Creation Tamil you can enjoy. Nice one. Our websites use cookies to improve your browsing experience. It took yet another call a week later for the items to actually be mailed. This cost around $100 to build and all of the components came from Jaycar, except the brackets which were made with 1.2mm sheet metal. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion focusers, normally found in this type of device. Pioneered by John Dobson in the 1960s, the instrument combines a Newtonian reflector telescope with a unique two-axis movable base. Like i said these are not my photos and i cannot coment on exactly how he set it up as i was not there all i can say is i saw the mount he used when he picked up the telescope. That evening I spent most of my time rediscovering the many DSOs around Sagittarius, especially the Lagoon Nebula and the Trifid Nebula. I had considered a Moonlite or Featherlite focuser, but I knew from my experience with my 6 inch scope that I wanted a 2 speed focuser, and the price tag of their 2 speed focusers scared me away. 100A81BF-2145-44D5-BC76-66DBF43BAD58.jpeg. Today I purchased what is called atank nipple in India. The focuser is very smooth. I got a different stain, tested it, and went back to work. on Step 3. knitting needle where it goes through the hole, so it's not a big deal, Low, or Zero slop when changing direction. And a flat thing to put it all on Let me see if I am able to collect all the parts needed. Im sorry to hear you couldn't make the contest. Instead of the rack and pinion, they have a smooth spring-loaded shaft which holds the focus tube against four opposing bearing surfaces, and controls its movement. I also wanted to strengthen and protect the cardboard tube. on Step 5, After much debit and doubt i have taken the photos down cause i cannot be 100% sure that they were taking from my scope as i was not there to verify them and i do not want my contest entry to be based on photos and not the build process.

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homemade telescope focuser