Archive for July, 2009
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How we got to worshipping heroines. -
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How bout some 900Mhz designs. -
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We'll install just the RF blocks & use these as pure radios to prove the system. Then we'll move the complete ground station & flight computer to the radio boards. -
Views: 246
They'll be radios with a twist.
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Views: 268
Transmitter wired up & lubricated. -
Views: 238
Lubrication did so well extending o-ring life, we now have lubricated plastic. -
Views: 240
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Clearing the wheels & servo path required grinding 12 bolts as flush as possible over 2 hours & 4 grinding wheels. -
Views: 243
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Electronics mounting
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Views: 283
2 commutes & the dobson drive circuit is fabricated. That's 2 MOSFET H bridges & a computer. -
Views: 246
It's 3 dimensional. -
Views: 234
Soon to be corroded copper. -
Views: 269
The Airtronics transmitter we hoped to use for a silky smooth joystick has a problem. -
Views: 234
Its 21 year old plastic is disintegrating. -
Views: 244
The MOSFET H bridge. -
Views: 247
The brain. -
Views: 213
BJT H bridges from 2003.
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Views: 303
The azimuth drive was easy. The altitude drive separates the heroines from the men. -
Views: 231
Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough friction & the platform is too unbalanced to point anywhere but level. We're looking at counterweights for that one since U couldn't easily shift the platform up & down. -
Views: 229
Unfortunately, it already weighs enough without counter weights. It's definitely a matter of not enough bearing friction now. -
Views: 256
It's the most complex MDF job we've done.
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The azimuth drive works. It's not very even. The wheel sometimes slips. The motor gets hot. The RPM is erratic. -
Views: 261
This was the first time we tightly bolted the altitude assembly & it was a disaster. Completely immobile. Probably going to take some shims to fix that one. -
Views: 270
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This took forever. Any misalignment of the bolts & the lazy susan bearing warps, making it immobile. -
Views: 254
Next comes the azimuth -
Views: 272
Next comes the motor drive with tons of shims. -
Views: 262
It may not last very long but it works for the moment. -
Views: 257
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A real, physical Dobson driver. Found 1 problem. There's no way to get an even sandpaper coat on the shaft. -
Views: 241
Any seam is going to rip open when it moves. Any overlap is going to make it uneven. -
Views: 234
U can get sandpaper cylinders, but how do U fix the cylinder to the shaft?
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Views: 273
There R people in this world who rip off the transistors from commercial gadgets. -
Views: 249
The Devil in 1600mm -
Views: 237
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The Dobson drive sticks out too far. -
Views: 225
Another Dobson drive uses sandpaper. It needs a lot less pressure to engage & there should be enough weight from the altitude mechanism to press it down without pulling the lazy susan up.
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Views: 304
The Dobson drive system continues being sketched. Repeated sketches R how U solve hard mechanical problems. -
Views: 232
Well, never got spatial resolution out of stacking, only chromatic resolution. No surprises when stacking 36 images from this lens, because it doesn't have the spatial resolution. -
Views: 263
We did get good chromatic resolution by stacking hundreds of nebula images in the old days. That area is now fully developed & too bright to shoot in anymore.
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Views: 275
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For the first time ever, U get a peak at the buck converter driver, the same chip from the Castle BEC for 1/2 the price. -
Views: 226
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The assembly U need to power a camera from a balancing tap. -
Views: 229
Really tiny resistor controls the output. -
Views: 244
Some ideas for the Dobson motors.
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Views: 290
Your 1st picture of the sun. Nothing but sensor dirt. -
Views: 220
Fortunately, SOHO agrees there's nothing to see. -
Views: 224
To photograph the sun, U need an off axis aperture & a floppy disk. The Goog says floppy disks don't block enough IR light. -
Views: 222
But by our age, there's nothing to see anyway. -
Views: 246
You're not going to get much out of a free cover band, but the 1600mm is a bit sharper at nearby objects. -
Views: 221
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There was a good shot of Maguire as Jailhouse Rock blared. -
Views: 209
Voltage converter to program a PIC. PICs R very hard to program because of the high voltages required. The voltage has varied from 9V to 14V depending on model number.
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Views: 247
Bearings in the evening. -
Views: 209
Bearings in the morning. -
Views: 255
Bearings in the afternoon. -
Views: 219
The altitude bearings R unbalanced & binding, but the idea is to drive it purely with servos. Still working on that part. -
Views: 248
The lazy susan works despite being full of sawdust. -
Views: 238
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800mm 1/500 ISO 400 -
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800mm 1/500 ISO 400 -
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800mm 1/500 ISO 400 -
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1600mm unscaled unsharp mask -
Views: 226
1600mm 1/250 ISO 400 unsharp mask -
Views: 213
1600mm 1/250 ISO 400 unsharp mask -
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1600mm 1/250 ISO 400 unsharp mask -
Views: 228
1600mm unscaled unsharp mask