homemade telescope focuser

It turns out the the extra 1/16 allowed far too much side to side movement between the rocker and ground board. Link to the motor speed controller kit:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=KC5225(a 5K external potentiometer will be required): http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=RP3508The drive motor:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=YG2734The gears:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=YG2736The motor forward/reverse switch:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=ST0506The push button:http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=SP0711 The dimensions of the Tube Box Sides are based on the outer diameter of my tube14 3/16. initiatives for the next generation of makers. 7 years ago They even offered to send the spider, secondary holder, and secondary mirror immediately so that I could begin working on the tube while I waited for the primary. So, for my telescope I used a 6mm to 5mm coupler available on Amazon. a try. Star Adventurer Pro Pack Counter Weight Bar Thumb Screw Upgrade. with a genuine question or comment about the design. Very simple and portable. I have several of the books on building a Dobsonian Telescope. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. My homemade motorized telescope focuser for Celestron C8. homemade Crayford focuser. During on-site assembly, attach each truss to its mounting T-nut using a bolt with a thumbscrew knob. Here is what I was working on but looks like I need a better design. Participated in the Celestron Space Challenge. I was inspired to build telescopes during a trip out to McDonald Observatory in west Texas, where I saw a 36 fork-mounted telescope, tiny in comparison to the huge research telescopes at the site. This allows for a small clearance between the outside of the tube and the inside of the tube box (14 3/8). A Pocket Sundial From a Broken Pocket Watch! Thanks for the great comment. The base of the telescope should be a wide, sturdy square or circle of wood with teflon bearing pads matched to the ABS plastic ring of the rocker box. narrow the frame. Pretty dry but important! Plan ahead by carefully weighing all components and approximating the center mass of the optical assembly. My plan for wrapping the tube seemed good, but I am not too pleased with the final result. The 48 inch width of the veneer was close enough to the diameter of the tube that I used it as is. both sides. I do have another tube that can be used around the drawtube, but it doesn't really add anything. It's the same in form, but has a perfect, true 13.35mm hole. my thoughts naturally gravitated toward a boxy focuser to go with it. Put it all together Pierre Lemay, thanks for sharing your simple and incredible design. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches). When you add the minimum distance from the eyepiece to the secondary mirror together with the distance from the secondary mirror to the primary, the total length should be the primary mirrors focal length. on my binocular scope for quite a while now and really like them. You will need to remove the regular focus knob on your telescope's focuser. My telescope is the Orion ED80T-CF. Ideally, the spacer would be 1 inch long and have a smaller diameter, but I didn't get this one right the first time. 3D Printed Futuristic Space Age Wall Clock, http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=4721255. The focuser 'knob' on the Celestron is just a rubber sleeve that usually pulls off easily. Dozens of projects in every issue covering electronics, craft, fabrication, and more, Learn tips and skill-building tutorials from experts in the maker community. The pivot bolt consists of a 1 1/8 inch brass spacer with an 11/16 inch outer diameter, a 3/8 inch bolt 2 inches long, a stop nut, and two large washers. Among amateur telescopes, the most common are focusers with landing diameters of 1.25 ", 2", rarely 0.965 ", and even less often - 3". Slewing to find an object and then tracking an object on the sky, so when you make a homemade telescope on the motorisation process you will need high speed for slewing and low speed for tracking or fine movements. Remember: It is the quality and SIZE of the capture chip, NOT the megapixels that determines quality. I help eliminate slippage when the focuser is pointed straight upward. Rock Paper Scissors Using Tinkercad Circuits and Arduino, Punchy the MECH & the Autonomous Fight Club, Soft-sensor-saurus | an E-textile Soft Sensor Soft Toy With LED Light. I had already made a lightweight focuser for I ordered the focuser, received an immediate email confirming the order, and it arrived two days later. The Focuser and other items: (Scope Stuff). Low, or Zero slop when changing direction. I had nearly completed the base and put things together for the first time. A smart collection of books, magazines, electronics kits, robots, microcontrollers, tools, supplies, and more OK, no, I do not have a homemade Crayford focuser but am planning to build a 3 incher for next years 17" reflector telescope project and to hold my new 30mm ES 100 degree EP. I waited until dark and pointed the scope at the sky. Not sure how your toilets are built over there, but here they use what is called a tank flush valve. 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. 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. To test the concept I used a short piece of two inch PVC for the draw tube. I have seen some VERY impressive photos similar to those, taken with Nikon D700 and D300 cameras, with the proper filters- and mounts- on a quality scope. That way you won't be dropping your drawtube and A few months later I ordered some other things from Scopestuff, including strips of Ebony Star laminate for the side bearings, a ring of Ebony Star for the rocker bottom, a strip of teflon to cut pieces for the ground board and side bearings, and a new base for my Telrad finder. If you found some good surplus lenses, you will have made a stunningly good objective for your scope. This NEMA-17 direct drive stepper motor is available from Adafruit and many other sellers. After a few weeks of no communication from them, no ability to phone or email them, and no mirror cell arriving. Part numbers 351-4574 and 336-422. I will get good 30-40 mm focusing range. really stiff and light for their size, and even though a #2 is pretty When you're ready to go on to testing with the windows driver, you want "myFP2_DRV8825_312-1", open that folder. I used my router to "mill" a flat area for better contact with the focus adjustment rod. And the legs of the base should be as wide as possible to accommodate weight imbalance as the telescope is moved around, to avoid tipping. Membership connects and supports the people and projects that shape our future and supports the learning Thanks for your article. adapter set screws to slide into. Just as it was about to come into focus, the focuser bottomed out. The focuser is very smooth. 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. I pointed it at distant trees and had no problem bringing the image into focus with all of my eyepieces. Share it with us! As it turned out, the mirror cell was too large to fit into my 14 inch sonotube. On the cutting diagram, you can see that the side bearings were cut 26 inches long. 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. 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 laughed, packed up the cell with a long letter describing the series of events that led to the return, and put it in the mail. In my build, the cage was cut on a CNC router from plywood, with threaded T-nuts added to support a truss assembly. At some point in the building process, my goal became to finish the scope by RocheStar Fest, an annual event of the Rochester Astronomy Club. This combination has the best resolution (steps/revolution), so I didn't see any reason to build anything else. Over how many nights did this photography session take place? think that design would be rigid enough under the weight of a diagonal 10 years ago "https://ssl." can't click on it or copy and paste it; it's a graphic file to thwart Another vote for Pierre's helical Crayford design. on Step 5, 9 years ago Here is a link to the main FILES area on Robert Brown's site. The silly colours are mainly due to me experimenting with various clothes dyes in the anodising. Not sure if it is available in the USA. 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. The focal length of the mirror is 61 inches. forward and back along with the drawtube when you focus, and you'll get I would also like to know about how you can take such fantastic pictures without a field rotator and an autoguider system. For the ATMer I do find that there are an endless number of parts that can be designed and printed for home built telescopes and binoscopes. Finally it was etched in caustic soda, and anodised matt black. forces the knitting needle against the drawtube and the drawtube against A project collaboration and documentation platform. Since there is no drill bit that exactly matches the 13.1mm of the shaft, I had to do some rough enlargement of the hole. I called to express my concern and was told that it had all been packaged a few weeks ago and that it, For complete instructions on building a telescope such as this one, I strongly recommend buying a copy of, After cutting the circles for the side bearings, I set up the jig to cut the curved edges of the rocker sides. Page 1 of 2 - DIY focuser design - posted in ATM, Optics and DIY Forum: Hi I am working on a diy focuser design for my 6 F/8 telescope and asking suggestions for simple focuser. Read the documentation though, there are a lot of functions and options. Thanks Peter. Perfect for astrophotography or during high power planetary observation. You won't need to write any sketches from scratch, but you will at least need to figure out how to upload them to the Nano. I used the "LEDandBuzzer" and "TestStepsDRV8825" tests. case you need more focuser travel than you thought. I called to express my concern and was told that it had all been packaged a few weeks ago and that it should have been sent. Our websites use cookies to improve your browsing experience. Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. Once I had my design set, I was ready to buy the parts. Using plywood, make 4 attachment blocks to pair the trusses together and create a small ledge for the secondary cage to rest on while you secure it. 4 years ago 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! It would cost less and they have a very good reputation. The wood would cost the same, as would pretty much everything except the mirror, so why not spend a little more on the mirror and go BIG. So, am curious to see what others have designed and built and proud to show off here on the homage to Crayford thread. When you want to focus, you just open the program and press focus. I feel it is a wonderful thing to free oneself from the "store-bought" world, as Tombaugh did, and to use your imagination and skills to develop your own, personal way of viewing the sky. This arrangement turns 100% true, no wobble. I installed the spider first, about one inch down from the end of the square end of the tube. I'd My homemade motorized telescope focuser for Celestron C8. To get this arc, I actually moved the radius of the jig, At some point in the building process, my goal became to finish the scope by RocheStar Fest, an annual event of the. Get hands-on with kits, books, and more from the Maker Shed, Skill builder, project tutorials, and more. Knitting needles are It stalled when tension on the belt increased. I got a different stain, tested it, and went back to work. For about $3 we can buy a tank valve kit that has a threaded 2" i.d. The rocker arms must also have guides to keep it on the track; flat metal 12 braces lined with ABS plastic work nicely. Then it was time to stain and finish. I had talked with their owner about mirrors and mirror cells once, and I was very impressed by his knowledge of telescope building. A couple setscrews and you're up & running with an off the shelf solution. Realizing that it could not be the University Optics cell already, I thought, Noit couldn't be but, in fact, it was. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? The length of the Rocker Front also had to be changed so that the outside edge of the Side Bearings matched the outside edge of the Rocker Sides precisely. 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. 11 years ago I told them I was on my way. Many sources point out that 10 inches is a kind of sweet spot in the balance between power and portability. telescope page, I wasn't really eager to buy two commercial Crayford and an eyepiece. Before finishing the tube with a wrap of veneer, I wanted to make sure that the primary was in the correct position. Able to shift heavy loads of kit ie over 1000g. Share it with us! Drawing lines between opposite corners of the tube box sides allowed me to locate the center point on each side. For a while I decided that 10 inch would be the best size. Connect the Arduino USB cable and upload some test sketches. If you want a Crayford focuser with a knob instead of turning the draw tube, then Jerry Oltion's designhttp://www.jerryoltixycrayfords.htm using box frames and knitting needle drive shafts is also a fairly easy build. I have no dog in this hunt whatsoever, but if people are impressed by these photographs and vote for it because of them when there's no proof that this scope generated the photos and there IS data to the contrary (see below), then that's certainly not fair to the other contestants. (Sorry you When they arrived, they were beautifully and carefully packaged with the secondary already installed in its holder. The blue pieces of the rocker box and ground board are arranged as in the diagrams in (figure 2). It seems to Just to make sure I liked the stain, I applied some to a piece of scrap wood. Im quite happy with the result, and the view in its large mirror is phenomenal. on Introduction. Once I decided to build a scope myself I had to decide on the aperture of the scope. I attached keepers 1 inches wide by 5 inches long, extending above the bottom of the arcs by about 1 inches. Your design is simple and nice. Because thebasic movement and optics requirements are relatively simple, much of the design is left to the builder. accessible by all ages and skill ranges. Download the Gerber Files. I had considered using a clear finish alone, but decided to use a dark red finish on the base and a clear finish on the tube, just because I like the look. It has become an indispensable piece of equipment for me that so beats hacking and filing PVC pipes etc. A neet site: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/CAMERAS.HTM Cool instructable, Dude! The mirror box encloses the mirror cell and allows the entire telescope to rotate vertically. 5 weeks after I had ordered the mirror, I called to ask about its status. There was the expense, for one, but also the Edited by howardcano, 24 May 2020 - 09:29 PM. After the second call, I received a response that it would be ready at the end of the following week. Make the hole diameter fairly snug, too. In the "ARDUINO FIRMWARE" folder, in it you will find a ZIP file "myFP2-Firmware 312-1.zip". 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. The Crayford Focuser and DIY Focuser for Homemade Telescope By trukmeeilee in Circuits Cameras 3,461 3 1 Download Favorite By trukmeeilee Follow More by the author: The Crayford focuser is a simplified focusing mechanism for amateur astronomical telescopes. i am not trying to win this contest with photos. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't crafts, science & engineering, design, and technology. I marked the expected position of the secondary by measuring 61 inches down from the end of the tube. I've been using the above pair It wouldn't be a two-speed design, but if I used a thin enough All Orion 1.25" and 2" telescope focusers are engineered to provide smooth drawtube action to ensure you hit the exact focus point . 11 years ago This consists of a small black box of electronics. It was May 12th. All that remained was to design and print a bracket, and buy the needed parts. 8 years ago This can be shimmed out with paper wrapped around the - Bill. And, once your telescope is finished, be sure to join a local astronomy club to learn more about the sky and share your hobby with others. More commercial crayford focusers are of a more enclosed form, whereas mine is more "open frame" approach. Start with the small components first. Robert Brown did an excellent video on how to work out your stepper motor requirements. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. Unbelievable! I also wanted to buy the other mechanical partsmirror cell, spider, secondary holder, and focuserso that the performance of these pieces was not limited by my skills. experimented with various wires and rods and eventually decided that a I will post the pic of final focuser once ready. rod for the drive axle it would have a fairly fine motion. needle so the knitting needle will be snug against the drawtube without Just drill holes in both ends and mount the lenses. The drawings are only approximately to scale. once. To interface with the computer, I have used the Artemis Focuser module from Steve, Arthur and Co. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches) Lighter than the existing focuser. Nice one. on Step 1, interesting build, its just like my old Odyssey brand scope from the mid 1990's. This makes for better sky photographs as the exposure time can be lengthened,. As I set of the scope, several club members came over to check things out and it was nice to hear the positive comments on the appearance of the scope. If you look in the FILES area on Robert Brown's site (see link above) you will see a sub-folder "3D Printed Parts". I Hope to give you ideas if you are thinking about building one for yourself! You can see that my Moonlite focuser was slightly larger than the sides of the tube. Position "0" is with the focuser all the way IN (at least for a refractor). how much travel you actually need, you can cut the tube off so none of If you're not using heavy eyepieces, you probably don't need Yet I was also becoming infected with aperture fever. Parts List (the full story of acquiring the parts), The primary, secondary, spider and secondary holderDiscovery Optics. But let me see what items I can arrange to make a helical. I decided to order a mirror cell from them because the owner had talked about a new cell he was excited about. A wide hole will let the knitting needle creep Place the focuser, draw the position of the screws with a pencil and remove the focuser. The premier publication of maker projects, skill-building tutorials, in-depth reviews, and inspirational stories, but try for a snug fit if you can. The secondary holder is adjustable, so I could didn't have to get the location perfect. The hole did need to be enlarged slightly by moving the bit within the hole , but in the end, the fit seems right. We moved the operation to a nearby park and got a focused image of the most distant trees (300-400 yards away) quite easily. To get this arc, I actually moved the radius of the jig in by 1/8 inch. Lining up this center point with the center of the top of the side bearing, I brought the corner of the side bearing up to the edge of the tube box and attached it with screws. They have many items for ATMers and I had frequently visited their website when planning my scope. I would love to see your build when you are finished with it . To view, go here: http://emediadesigns.com/focuser/ : "http://www. The heaviest piece is 40 lbs, and the total scope weighs about 60 lbs (not counting the baffle). on Step 1, Richards in our local astronomy club. I have already seen some designs on CN, Stellafane and web but still checking if someone has recently made anything simpler. I marked the spot and moved things back inside to install the mirror. It has reminded me of one of my long term aims to make a telescope that has been buried by the demands of the rest of my life! I phoned in the order in the last week of February and was told that it would take about 4 weeks to deliver the mirror. One 6in dob I made was a complete failure. We then spread contact cement over the remaining veneer and tube surface, waited for the glue to dry, and carefully rolled the tube over the veneer. Some of these are essential for the basic functionalities of our websites. DIY Craford Focuser. Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. The lumber yard also gave me a lower price than I expected. Showcasing amazing maker projects of 2022. This extra space would allow the tube to be repositioned within the tube box to rotate the eyepiece or balance the tube. You will have to line up the diagonal and primary so that you see a centered image of the sonotube opening and the spyder in the eyepiece hole. These have slop as you change direction, you can't do fine adjustments, they weigh a ton, and can flex alarmingly over time. Fire up focusmax, and shoot some images! I built a second set of electronics, and I had the NEMA 17 Direct Drive motor left over since it didn't work for my Orion ED80T-CF refractor. These are mounted 120 degrees apart and use 4 inexpensive bearings to support the tube. This simple homemade device will reduce star trails far better than if the camera was mounted on a tripod alone. After the second call, I received a response that it would be ready at the end of the following week. I also figured that the extra expense was worth it, considering the amount of money I was investing in the project overall. Tips If you've got a 1.25 inch focuser, You can also use it for an objective. I did run into a small problem with the focuser. This motor has a 5mm drive shaft. I'll use an aluminum tube for the finished draw tube but for now the plastic tube . I could not find a spacer to fit my 9/16 hole, so I bought the 11/16 spacer (1 1/8 long because that's what the store had) and a bit of the same size. I gave them a call and they said they had one on the shelf14 inches in diameter and 12 feet long! It took yet another call a week later for the items to actually be mailed. Several of my Recent Images have been focused with this system. These will be stored in your browser only with your consent and you have the option to opt-out. This is where you will use screws to strongly attach the focuser onto the tube. I centered the focuser 8 inches from the top of the tube, using a 2.5 inch hole drilling saw with smaller holes for the bolts that would hold the focuser.

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homemade telescope focuser