looking for info on using a telescope tripod for automatic tracking
Hi everyone. I found a Meade telescope trpod with the az/el gears on it and a worm drive for each. There are no motors on it but I think that could be fixed with a call to Meade parts. What I'm looking for is a solution to drive the motors with instruction from one of the sat tracking programs out there. Any help would be great.
The tripod is a medium duty model and has a top mount that is perfect for an Arrow yagi set.
I made a short video of it. Tell me what you think and what can be done.
Thanks!
Ronny
K4RJJ
Hi Ronny,
the motors for this kind of telescope drive are mostly synchronous motors for AZ and DC motors for EL. The synchronous motor runs at a fixed frequency to compensate earth's rotation. This is all not compatible with antenna rotor control interfaces. You need some kind of angular encoder or you need stepper motors. Also telesope drives are slow, much slower than what you need for satellite tracking. The AZ drive on a telescope only needs to perform one rotation per day. It may have a faster correction mode but don't expect much from such a cheap thing.
You will probably need to design something from scratch in order to interface with the popular programs.
Cheers Edgar
Am 08.12.2011 11:18, schrieb k4rjj@comcast.net:
Hi everyone. I found a Meade telescope trpod with the az/el gears on it and a worm drive for each. There are no motors on it but I think that could be fixed with a call to Meade parts. What I'm looking for is a solution to drive the motors with instruction from one of the sat tracking programs out there. Any help would be great.
The tripod is a medium duty model and has a top mount that is perfect for an Arrow yagi set.
I made a short video of it. Tell me what you think and what can be done.
Thanks!
Ronny
K4RJJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_BcS6HjxTU
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
I'm developing an app to read SatPC32 DDE output and in turn drive an iOptron MiniTower Az/El telescope mount. Most of it works - just fiddling with the algorithm to avoid cable wrap as the mount has no turn limit. Mount info here:
http://www.ioptron.com/index.cfm?select=productdetails&phid=ceb1319d-f40...
Contact me direct for more info.
Dave - N7LKL
On 12/8/2011 2:18 AM, k4rjj@comcast.net wrote:
Hi everyone. I found a Meade telescope trpod with the az/el gears on it and a worm drive for each. There are no motors on it but I think that could be fixed with a call to Meade parts. What I'm looking for is a solution to drive the motors with instruction from one of the sat tracking programs out there. Any help would be great.
The tripod is a medium duty model and has a top mount that is perfect for an Arrow yagi set.
I made a short video of it. Tell me what you think and what can be done.
Thanks!
Ronny
K4RJJ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_BcS6HjxTU
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
participants (3)
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Dave Straube -
DF2MZ -
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