If you're not using heavy eyepieces, you probably don't need I made a similar helical focuser with a nice 2 inch thing I found in Classifieds. Likewise, the side bearings are made of two identical semicircles of 5/8 inch plywood glued together, creating side bearings that are 1 inches thick. . Measure twice, drill 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're ready to go on to testing with the windows driver, you want "myFP2_DRV8825_312-1", open that folder. an eyepiece. They use a simple plywood mirror cell, stating that for an 8 inch mirror this cell will be adequate. The cell from Anttler's, for which I had received a refund, had arrived. Funny how the bigger they are the better for dobs. By adjusting the bolts, the mirror can be pointed toward the correct spot. Here we see the following components installed: Notice we are NOT populating the parts of the board intended for Wifi or BLED. When you figure out Using heavy grit sandpaper I brought back the surface of the keeper enough for the side bearings to fit inside the felt pads. 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. on Introduction. When they arrived, they were beautifully and carefully packaged with the secondary already installed in its holder. My homemade motorized telescope focuser for Celestron C8. After the pieces were glued together, I used a belt sander to smooth out any rough edges, being careful to keep both rocker sides and both side bearings exactly the same. Upload that main sketch to the Nano. The lumber yard also gave me a lower price than I expected. Orion Dynamo Mini for powering a Nexstar 6SE? crafts, science & engineering, design, and technology. To view, go here: http://emediadesigns.com/focuser/ The cutting diagram in (figure 1) shows how I cut the required pieces from two 60 X 60 pieces of Baltic Birch plywood, one inch thick, and one 5/8. (I didn't have the primary mirror yet). Cost is $25 - $30, and you will have 5 PCBs in about a week. I decided to order a mirror cell from them because the owner had talked about a new cell he was excited about. It turned out that they had an incorrect zip code and the package was still waiting to be sent. The last time I checked, that particular SBIG camera used on TelescopeGeek had an eight month lead time.A 20" scope gathers 2.6 times more light than a 12.5" scope, therefore equivalent exposures on this one would take 200+ minutes, at least. Make the drawtube longer than you think you'll need, just in knitting needle where it goes through the hole, so it's not a big deal, There are some test sketches in the "Tests" folder, start with those. I used my router to "mill" a flat area for better contact with the focus adjustment rod. 8 years ago 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. Along with some silver bits It may take you a while to adjust the image correctly, but it's not hard to do, just time consuming. I'll use an aluminum tube for the finished draw tube but for now the plastic tube . the nylon screws going up from the bottom, but I found the knitting both sides. Just drill holes in both ends and mount the lenses. work really well, for a fraction of the cost of a commercial Crayford A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. 24 T-nuts, with matching 2 bolts and knobs, 8 Aluminum tubing, thin wall, 1 square, 4 lengths I got mine from Cycle 24, Black woven velveteen, 68 Cut it so it stretches along the 6 axis. 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. As the thread shows you could also build the dual speed version, all made of plywood, if you feel ready to tackle a slightly more complex project for a cost of about 5$ more. Now attach the screw eyes and the rubber band on the side of the board. i am not trying to win this contest with photos. The blue pieces of the rocker box and ground board are arranged as in the diagrams in (figure 2). Topics such as
It doesn't. A tilted focuser will have no effect on the image quality. 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. 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. Although they don't usually sell these parts, because I had ordered the mirrors from them they offered to sell me the spider and secondary holder that they use in their scopes. I found a used 16 primary on eBay. We use cookies to continuously improve our websites for you and optimize its design and customization. To place the primary mirror, I installed the secondary and installed the primary in the mirror cell. 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 Drawing lines between opposite corners of the tube box sides allowed me to locate the center point on each side. Brandon Lawler is a hobbyist telescope Maker and an active member of the Central Texas Astronomical Society. If you enter it in the next contest please let me know and i will make sure to vote for you. The little app is simple and works great. 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. This is not recommended for shared computers. It turns out the the extra 1/16 allowed far too much side to side movement between the rocker and ground board. I drew a guide line straight down the side of the tube and cut the veneer to length with one extra inch on each side68 inches long. Be creative! Accordingly, with 1.25 focuser, you can use 1.25 eyepieces, with 2 focuser - both 2 eyepieces and 1.25 (through a special . 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. I placed my telrad, optical finder, and an eyepiece on the focuser end of the tube and, using a broomstick as a balance point, found that the tube balanced 22 inches from the bottom. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches). The specific hardware used for this is described on the Building page. I then temporarily installed the secondary mirror so that I could measure the approximate distance to the center of the secondary in order to locate the holes for the focuser. the bearings right at the edge of the frame, reducing the frame to In amateur astrophotography, we run our telescopes overnight. Or in my case, back to SolidWorks :-). And a couple of upright bearing blocks. Depending on your telescope, one of the Brackets that Robert has may work for you. Attach the ball head to the top board. that is a great website that guy has some fantastic photos. Your choice here will be recorded for all Make.co Websites. Pierre's Helical Crayford gets my vote hands-down for elegant simplicity. This is the first telescope that I have built. I decided to keep this tube for now and if I run into problems with it, I can replace it later. 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. I hate focusing. The focuser is the part of the telescope that holds the eyepiece or camera, and by moving in or out, closer or farther from the . This is the mirror box for my 16", with Jim doing a bit of cleanup sanding. I attached them with very small brads, countersinking the brads. A bit of a monster! The hole is made slightly larger than the shaft, this is normal. Dobsonian telescopes are popular with amateur telescope makers for their ease of design and construction, portability, and their use of large optical mirrors. My plan for wrapping the tube seemed good, but I am not too pleased with the final result. After another 3 weeks, I was concerned that I had not received the mirror. 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. 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. After researching several possible sources for a primary mirror, I decided to order an f/5 12.5 inch mirror from Discovery Optics. I read the entire thread and surely its going to help me building my focuser. It's the same in form, but has a perfect, true 13.35mm hole. on Introduction. What materials did you use? As I read the book I decided that I should build a 12.5 inch truss tube scope. Did you make this project? I gave them a call and they said they had one on the shelf14 inches in diameter and 12 feet long! Meade Zero Image-Shift Electronic Micro-Focuser This high precision focuser allows you to obtain an extremely accurate image focus. I will have a lot of fun building my homemade 12.5 inch Dobsonian Telescope!!! Keeping with the 'simple ' part of your request, here is a helical 2"/1.25" focuser made from std plumbing parts. Very simple and portable. If the telescope rotates forward or backward on its own, then the mirror box is too deep or too shallow. Fast forward a few months to the next time I had the tube outside. However more than the focuser, I liked your scope. My other telescope is a Celestron NexStar C6E. Make the hole diameter fairly snug, too. 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. Thin-wall aluminum tubing is used to attach the mirror box to the secondary cage. The Focuser and other items: (Scope Stuff). I sourced my own Stepper motor and 1:150 reduction gearbox from RS, who are just up the road. The current needs to be adjusted on the DRV8825. try { Then it was time to stain and finish. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. For a while I decided that 10 inch would be the best size. I bought a 4" PVC Sewer pipe cap, used a hole saw to cut a 2.25" hole then attached the helical thing to the PVC cap. I want to put my 12.5 mirror in a collapsible structure so I can haul it easy, Say a truss tube design, 7 years ago Inside the OTA is a ring of tightly fitting flocking paper that prevents any light getting in around the drawtube. document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); So I was looking for a cheap, light-but-sturdy design for a Using a compass I drew circles on the top and bottom of the ground board to mark the inside and outside of the teflon ring on the bottom of the rocker bottom. All Orion 1.25" and 2" telescope focusers are engineered to provide smooth drawtube action to ensure you hit the exact focus point . 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. In order for the Rocker Box to pivot on the Ground Board, a center pin is placed in a hole at the exact center of the Ground Board and Rocker Bottom. 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. Two different construction supply companies told me that sonotubes were not available with a 14 inch diameter, even by special order. Make an account on JLCPCB.com, upload the Gerber zip file, that's it! needle to be just a little too flexible for the weight of a diagonal and 1N5408 3A Diode (you may need to make the pins smaller to fit through the holes in the board. I have already seen some designs on CN, Stellafane and web but still checking if someone has recently made anything simpler. It take automatic control of the CCD camera and focuser, and dances around magically on the screen, arriving at perfect focus within about 30s to 3 minutes depending on where you started from. accessible by all ages and skill ranges. To test the concept I used a short piece of two inch PVC for the draw tube. There are sub-folders for the different versions. This NEMA-17 direct drive stepper motor is available from Adafruit and many other sellers. 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. On that noteWARNING:do not look directly into the sun and never point a telescope into the sun without proper filtration you can damage your telescope and burn your retinas and possibly go blind i am not a astrophotographer so i cant comment on the quality of the pictures since there is so much doubt on the photos i will gladly take them down. See above, this motor does not produce a lot of torque, but you don't need much for this application since there is no 'load' on the focusing shaft. 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. Thicker knitting needles would be even "); Orient this assembly to allow you to view an object on the far horizon. I redrilled the holes for the mirror cell and got ready to wrap it. Before you do this, the stepper motor will probably move, but it will make a 'stuttering' sound instead of moving smoothly. on Introduction. Two of the holes for the bolts were blocked by knobs. An electronic focuser, which moves the focus knob through a combination of hardware and software, solves this problem. (The 8 inches from the center of the secondary to the field stop in the focuser is the same 8 inches from the center of the focuser to the top of the tube.) So, I duplicated the aluminum gear pulley in SolidWorks, and printed it out. $299.99 More About Telescope Focusers love to hear from people who are interested in this focuser design. CNC files (optional) Download the Sketchup files. 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. I also have an extended photographic build diary of this telescope posted on Imgur. As the authors describe the benefits of a truss design, it is hard to dispute their arguments. I started by trying to drill out a metal gear for the focuser shaft. I don't have the skills to build a focuser using a. an inch or so apart, so the focuser body could be pretty low profile. Community Forum Software by IP.BoardLicensed to: Cloudy Nights. Another vote for Pierre's helical Crayford design. Quick demo of my motorized focuser, and I will create a detailed tutorial if enough people are interested. Some quick tips to note if you are making a homemade telescope are: 1. This cost around $100 to build and all of the components came from. You need some purple bits 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. Im quite happy with the result, and the view in its large mirror is phenomenal. Motion is very smooth. 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. 100A81BF-2145-44D5-BC76-66DBF43BAD58.jpeg. I will get good 30-40 mm focusing range. Also no obvious diffraction spikes in the m31 photo. I found out pretty quickly that building my own telescope would only be a bargain if I made my own mirror and mechanical parts. I file a dispute with Paypal to begin the process of getting my money back. I also doubled the thickness of the rocker sides (not the front wall) to provide better support for the heavier tube. Since my focuser shaft is 6mm, I ordered the coupler shown here in the 6mm to 8mm version from Amazon. After looking at many focuser options with a big range of prices, I decided to order a GSO 2 speed Crayford focuser from ScopeStuff. For my project I needed a 14 inch diameter, and I had a tough time finding one. Robert Brown did an excellent video on how to work out your stepper motor requirements. I do it with aluminium alloy, aluminium tube and nice work. Below are cutting diagrams and diagrams of the rocker and tube box with side bearings. The cage should be a hollow cylinder about wider than the mirror, with the focuser mounted directly facing the secondary mirror. We moved the operation to a nearby park and got a focused image of the most distant trees (300-400 yards away) quite easily. It is size 1.25 inch with a clear inside dia-meter. Finally, I attached Keepers to the sides of the rocker at the bottom of the arcs using screws and glue. 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. 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. It wouldn't be a two-speed design, but if I used a thin enough The mirror box encloses the mirror cell and allows the entire telescope to rotate vertically. I had to take apart the focuser in order to get my bolts in place. Im sorry to hear you couldn't make the contest. The shroud made from two 22 inch tall containers came out short, so I had to add an eleven inch strip of nylon. focuser. This software creates a model of your telescope by measuring out of focus star sizes at various points. case you need more focuser travel than you thought. The last chapter of the book describes a plan for an 8 inch sonotube dob with a few design elements from their truss design, and, as I read that chapter, the simplicity of its construction was very appealing. Once its cut to length, drill a hole through each end of the tubing with a drill press. A project collaboration and documentation platform. I made this Crayford style focuser using plywood scraps and surplus bearings. They're fairly I really had to, since the underside of my telescope's focuser is all curves, no flat area for attaching the mounting bracket. 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. I suppose that one could complete this project without these two tools, but it would be difficult to cut the pieces accurately enough for a good fit. But I wanted a larger mirror, and, at that size, grinding my own was not an option. Feel free to take on that part if you like, but you're on your own :-). With adapters for any Meade 1x200-ACF or LS model, and chord to plug into focuser port. Dozens of projects in every issue covering electronics, craft, fabrication, and more, Learn tips and skill-building tutorials from experts in the maker community. Pierre Lemay, thanks for sharing your simple and incredible design. But let me see what items I can arrange to make a helical. To do this, the mirror cell needs to be supported by 3 large bolts, at least 2 of which are adjustable. Here's my 8" f/6 travel scope with a 2" PVC draw tube and the helical Crayford focuser built right in the focuser board. After the glue dried but before the clamps were removed, I added corner braces to all four corners of the tube using glue and brads to hold them in place. Tips If you've got a 1.25 inch focuser, You can also use it for an objective. 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. How to build a 12.5 inch closed tube Dobsonian telescope. The Crayford focuser is a simplified focusing mechanism for amateur astronomical telescopes. on Step 3. After you've done that, put a couple of tiny pan-head screws Star Adventurer Pro Pack Counter Weight Bar Thumb Screw Upgrade. 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. If you found some good surplus lenses, you will have made a stunningly good objective for your scope. Plus it comes in black, so . Please feel free to email me at the address on the right. Thanks Pinbout for sharing your design. In addition, we use third-party cookies to help us analyze and understand usage. I used the "LEDandBuzzer" and "TestStepsDRV8825" tests. weight. 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 Attach the eye piece to another cardboard piece and pass it through the hole from the inside of the tube. homemade Crayford focuser. I only use the OTA. The sides were attached with wood glue and clamps with a few small brads to hold everything in place. Once you get it working, there's some calibration you need to do. it sticks into your light path. I did not glue the bearings to the tube box in case I needed to adjust the position later. You should watch (and bookmark) this video. Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. My DIY Motorized Telescope Focuser - YouTube I use a 3D printer and an old gear motor to create an electronic telescope focuser.This is my first attempt at voiceover, I'm using a headset. A wide hole will let the knitting needle creep I waited until dark and pointed the scope at the sky. Here are a few photos of the "bracket", which is a simple 3D printed plate that mounts to the telescope's focuser ring, and serves as a mount for the stepper motor. It was important that the two circles be identical because the edges had to match perfectly when glued together and the two side bearings had to be identical in order for the altitude motion to work well. In my build, the minimum eyepiece-to-secondary mirror distance (13) plus the primary-to-secondary mirror distance (57) equals the focal length of 71, which is roughly 4.5 times the width of the 16 mirror. narrow the frame. small, it's surprisingly rigid. telescope page, I wasn't really eager to buy two commercial Crayford 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. Once built, line the undersides of the arms with textured ABS plastic as a bearing surface. A Pocket Sundial From a Broken Pocket Watch! The part is very strong! This focuser (see pic at bottom) was motorised by me several years ago, but the motorised system didn't give me very fine control, and the motor running at fast speed tended to make the Artemis camera crash. So I decided to make my own, using my normal "blunder in naively and see what happens" approach to making things. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't The box should be deep enough to allow the mirror box to swing all the way down. Most of these have one or two set screws. I described it two years ago in this thread:https://www.cloudyniuser/?p=8879835 . Edited by Pierre Lemay, 25 May 2020 - 08:10 AM. I pointed it at distant trees and had no problem bringing the image into focus with all of my eyepieces. Crayford focusers are considered superior to entry-level rack and pinion Start with the small components first. but try for a snug fit if you can. If you look in the FILES area on Robert Brown's site (see link above) you will see a sub-folder "3D Printed Parts". They eyepiece height ended up being about 5'10" high at zenith. Finally it was etched in caustic soda, and anodised matt black. You will look through these as you rotate the wheel. My DIY Motorized Telescope Focuser - YouTube I use a 3D printer and an old gear motor to create an electronic telescope focuser.This is my first attempt at voiceover, I'm using a headset. 1" Rack & Pinion Focuser. Thin 1/16 Kydex plastic should be cut to length to line the inside of the cage as a baffle to block outside light. This will determine the size of the coupler you will use to connect the stepper motor. I particularly like that the design can be integrated directly into the focuser board to make a very, very simple UTA. guarantee a response, but I'll do my best to answer everyone who writes I am using scrap upvc pipe material. Two such companies would not give me a price because the order of a single tube was too small. Let me see if I am able to collect all the parts needed. (Sorry you The plate has slotted screw holes for tensioning the 6mm belt. my thoughts naturally gravitated toward a boxy focuser to go with it. Once I decided to build a scope myself I had to decide on the aperture of the scope. until a 2" eyepiece or 1.25" adapter is snug. Thanks again for the 'ible. This allows for a small clearance between the outside of the tube and the inside of the tube box (14 3/8). I don't *do* pretty. I Hope to give you ideas if you are thinking about building one for yourself! To cut the circles, I used a router with a straight cutting bit and a circle cutting jig. Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . Most people will want a knob on But -- you have to be careful that the mechanism is true and the motor does not have a load on it at any time, otherwise it will 'stall' and stop moving. experimented with various wires and rods and eventually decided that a on my binocular scope for quite a while now and really like them. Many sources point out that 10 inches is a kind of sweet spot in the balance between power and portability. The email bounced back to me. drneilmb, thanks for sharing the focuser design. large in diameter (1.6") so that adds to the fine-ness of the focus 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. 11 years ago I like the old way of using stepper motors and other stuff introduced years ago by Mel Bartels, he is a master for me. That's pretty much the focuser. The dimensions of the Tube Box Sides are based on the outer diameter of my tube14 3/16. This is the kind of simple off the shelf design I was looking for. If not, you may need to design and print your own bracket(s), gears, and so on. Now I can simply insert the PVC cap on the end of a 4" pvc tube. Low, or Zero slop when changing direction. Thanks Bob. Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. Rack & Pinion: For many years the standard focuser was of the rack-and-pinion type - a small pinion gear moved the flat toothed rack that was attached to or built into the moving focusing tube that holds the eyepiece.However, this geared system was far from ideal, with some wobble due to the friction fit between the fixed and moving tubes and backlash due to the gears. This allowed me to cut perfect identical circles. Before finishing the tube with a wrap of veneer, I wanted to make sure that the primary was in the correct position. Share it with us! Frustrated by these difficulties, I stopped by one more hardware store to ask for advice. 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. The spider, or secondary mirror holder, will suspend the mirror in the optical path in order to direct light into the focuser. I got a different stain, tested it, and went back to work. Download and check them out, I just grabbed the first one and printed it. During assembly, youll attach the trusses to the mirror box, then sit the secondary cage on top and bolt everything in place. Another thing, the resolution on the Dumbell nebula seems a bit too high for that telescope. I had nearly completed the base and put things together for the first time. This project is based on Robert Brown's "Arduino ASCOM Focuser Pro2 DIY". 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 wasn't there so i can be 100% but i do not think my friend was lying to me and i believe the pictures are from my telescope my kids use it for stargazing a lot i have seen some deepspace but i use it mainly for sketching the moon and i like to view solar flares. 11 years ago The focuser knob had two set screws. The mirror cell: University Optics (eventually). Just as it was about to come into focus, the focuser bottomed out. This one is based on the DRV8825 driver chip and a NEMA-17 stepper motor.
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