I decided to order an aluminum mirror cell from University Optics instead so that the mirror could be supported at 9 different points. I pointed it at distant trees and had no problem bringing the image into focus with all of my eyepieces. I have no idea how much mail this idea will generate, so I can't While round tubing is sturdy, square tubing is easier to work with. So, am curious to see what others have designed and built and proud to show off here on the homage to Crayford thread. my thoughts naturally gravitated toward a boxy focuser to go with it. I first tried my 32mm plossl eyepiece. I had some carboy caps that make good knobs. Make the hole diameter fairly snug, too. Use mild soap and distilled . Un-real!!! I used my router to "mill" a flat area for better contact with the focus adjustment rod. 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. And bolt to scope As I read the book I decided that I should build a 12.5 inch truss tube scope. Not sure if it is available in the USA. They suggested a construction supply place on the other side of the city that I had not called yet. Helical is one of the option i am considering. To interface with the computer, I have used the Artemis Focuser module from Steve, Arthur and Co. Crayford-style design with four bearings and one driveshaft. 100A81BF-2145-44D5-BC76-66DBF43BAD58.jpeg. 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. I had talked with their owner about mirrors and mirror cells once, and I was very impressed by his knowledge of telescope building. My concern turned to alarm when my wife told me that Discovery had charged the balance due on all items to my account a few weeks earlier. How to make diy focuser pvc - YouTube The hole is made slightly larger than the shaft, this is normal. 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. : "http://www. Using heavy grit sandpaper I brought back the surface of the keeper enough for the side bearings to fit inside the felt pads. That's pretty much the focuser. To make the hole for the focuser, I used the focuser tube to mark a circle in the shroud. Brandon Lawler is a hobbyist telescope Maker and an active member of the Central Texas Astronomical Society. The next day, I centered the rocker on the rocker bottom (which had been cut using the same method as the side bearing circles), drawing perpendicular lines through the center of the rocker bottom to use as a guide, and tracing the position on the rocker bottom. Measure the diameter of the exposed shaft. Trim off any unused fabric along the base. - Bill. 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. As the authors describe the benefits of a truss design, it is hard to dispute their arguments. Edited by howardcano, 24 May 2020 - 09:29 PM. There was the expense, for one, but also the Because mirror flexure can distort an image, supporting the mirror properly involves building a flotation cell. The plate has slotted screw holes for tensioning the 6mm belt. I am working on a diy focuser design for my 6" F/8 telescope and asking suggestions for simple focuser. I found out pretty quickly that building my own telescope would only be a bargain if I made my own mirror and mechanical parts. After a dry fit of the rocker to make sure that the tube box with side bearings would fit well, I glued the rocker sides to the rocker front, holding them in place with small nails and clamping overnight. Gift the gift of Make: Magazine this holiday season! This one is based on the DRV8825 driver chip and a NEMA-17 stepper motor. Also no obvious diffraction spikes in the m31 photo. I called in the order and explained that I would be using a mirror two inches thick. Quick demo of my motorized focuser, and I will create a detailed tutorial if enough people are interested. try { 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. Thicker walls also required thicker side bearings so that the outside of the bearings would line up with the outside of the rocker sides. The holes in the main bracket the match the holes in the plate are oversize to allow for this alignment. They eyepiece height ended up being about 5'10" high at zenith. NEMA-17 Stepper Motor - see below, there are two options. 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. (I didn't have the primary mirror yet). Finally, I glued a strip of Ebony Star laminante to the curves edge of each side bearing using contact cement, using a flush edge bit on a router to bring the edge of the laminate even with the edge of the wood after the cement had set. The mirror itself must also be able to tilt in three dimensions in order to aim its light at the secondary mirror (a process called collimation). I did not glue the bearings to the tube box in case I needed to adjust the position later. If not, you may need to design and print your own bracket(s), gears, and so on. Perfect for astrophotography or during high power planetary observation. 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! But, especially on cold evenings, the focus may go out in the middle of the night. If you mess up, you can turn the hole into a slot, but avoid A couple setscrews and you're up & running with an off the shelf solution. Made of plywood, the rocker box supports the mirror box on 1 teflon pads, allowing it to rotate vertically. I sanded all parts of the telescope with 220 grit sandpaper followed by 400 grit, making a very smooth surface to apply the stain. I built mine entirely from CNC-cut plywood, and fastened it together with 2 bolts. Connect the Arduino USB cable and upload some test sketches. I brought a saw with me so that I cut it in half to fit in my minivan. The side bearings are each made from 2 identical semicircles of 5/8 inch plywood glued together to make a thickness of 1 inches. Newton, and others including James Gregory and Laurent Cassegrain, believed that a reflecting telescope would not be affected by the chromatic aberration that affected . Nice one. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches) Lighter than the existing focuser. 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 My DIY Motorized Telescope Focuser - YouTube Edited by sunrag, 28 May 2020 - 10:44 PM. 8 years ago Perfect for visual observations with very heavy mirrors. They use a simple plywood mirror cell, stating that for an 8 inch mirror this cell will be adequate. Building Your Second Homemade Telescope - Part 1 - HubPages focusers for that project. I decided that my best option was to scale up their 8 inch design for a 12.5 inch scope and sacrifice the portability and easier storage of a truss scope for something that I felt confident in building myself. 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. var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-1008534-4"); This resulted in a gear that wasn't true and "wobbled" a bit. The plastic will ride on teflon pads, creating just enough traction for the telescope to avoid sliding on its own while not making it too difficult to point at things in the sky. When I looked at the costs, I seriously considered buying an Orion telescope instead of building my own. These have slop as you change direction, you can't do fine adjustments, they weigh a ton, and can flex alarmingly over time. stronger, but would give me a coarser focus action because of their Pioneered by John Dobson in the 1960s, the instrument combines a Newtonian reflector telescope with a unique two-axis movable base. When the skies were dark enough for observing I found that the scope moves easily into position and holds that position well. on Introduction. (A badly tilted focuser may subtly alter the illumination pattern of the focal plane to a degree that would be impossible to perceive visually but that's about it.) But by this time I had thought about building my own scope for several weeks, and getting one off the shelf seemed pretty boring by comparison! My DIY Motorized Telescope Focuser - YouTube 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 gave them a call and they said they had one on the shelf14 inches in diameter and 12 feet long! 11 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. Tom's Homemade Telescope Page - DIY Craford Focuser - Google 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. Bill, Impressive work and great idea about LSDF focuser. At their suggestion, I also ordered a 2.6 inch secondary mirror. So, as they say, "back to the drawing board". My homemade motorized telescope focuser for Celestron C8. Easy DIY motorized battery free telescope focuser - YouTube case you need more focuser travel than you thought. I ordered the focuser, received an immediate email confirming the order, and it arrived two days later. Thank you for your pages. You can see that my Moonlite focuser was slightly larger than the sides of the tube. The only thing on the list that was a bit difficult to find was baltic birch plywood, which had to be special ordered from the lumber yard. I redrilled the holes for the mirror cell and got ready to wrap it. Once I decided to build a scope myself I had to decide on the aperture of the scope. The Crayford Focuser and DIY Focuser for Homemade Telescope Tips If you've got a 1.25 inch focuser, You can also use it for an objective. knob, and a drill press to make sure the hole for the knitting needle scope, I only put knobs on the outsides. And for those who like to work with 3D printers, both the single speed and dual-speed versions could easily be printed. They have many items for ATMers and I had frequently visited their website when planning my scope. This combination has the best resolution (steps/revolution), so I didn't see any reason to build anything else. Funny how the bigger they are the better for dobs. This design could be adapted to practically any telescope or focuser, so I've kept my outline on the project brief. you could probably space the bearings 3/4" apart instead of 1" and mount A week after they said they would send the secondary and other parts, I called to ask if things had been sent. I am using scrap upvc pipe material. A bit of a monster! Did you make this project? 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. The day I received the refund, I ordered a mirror cell from University Optics. I'm' glad I did, because I didn't like the first color that I had chosen. The dimensions of the Tube Box Sides are based on the outer diameter of my tube14 3/16. The motor is much lighter than the geared motor. (actually, it ended up a smidge more than 2 inches). Dobsonians come in all shapes and sizes, from small 4-8 builds all the way up to massive 24-36 creations. The original Crayford Focuser is on display there. 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. Dozens of projects in every issue covering electronics, craft, fabrication, and more, Learn tips and skill-building tutorials from experts in the maker community. For about $3 we can buy a tank valve kit that has a threaded 2" i.d. Part numbers 351-4574 and 336-422. Realizing that it could not be the University Optics cell already, I thought, Noit couldn't be but, in fact, it was. All Orion 1.25" and 2" telescope focusers are engineered to provide smooth drawtube action to ensure you hit the exact focus point . It's the same in form, but has a perfect, true 13.35mm hole. My other telescope is a Celestron NexStar C6E. 11 years ago Your choice here will be recorded for all Make.co Websites. Make an account on JLCPCB.com, upload the Gerber zip file, that's it! The lumber yard also gave me a lower price than I expected. I got a different stain, tested it, and went back to work. 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. 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. 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 If you found some good surplus lenses, you will have made a stunningly good objective for your scope. forces the knitting needle against the drawtube and the drawtube against Homage to Homemade Crayford Focusers - Cloudy Nights I decided to keep this tube for now and if I run into problems with it, I can replace it later. While a sling or whiffletree provide the best edge support, a two-point edge support is much easier to construct. Once your telescope is assembled, drape black woven velveteen around the truss assembly, clipping it with safety pins. 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. Primary telescope mirror aftermarket, homemade, or custom-made. So I was looking for a cheap, light-but-sturdy design for a 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. 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. 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. 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 you don't need to paint it (or worry about paint flaking off it). 11 years ago DO NOT drill out the holes in the board! The drawings are only approximately to scale. Membership connects and supports the people and projects that shape our future and supports the learning 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 had chosen a boxy, rigid design for the binocular scope, so These are mounted 120 degrees apart and use 4 inexpensive bearings to support the tube. Above youll find an interactive 3D rendering of the Sketchup file I used to design and cut all of the parts for my telescope. DIY focuser design - ATM, Optics and DIY Forum - Cloudy Nights Tom's Homemade Telescope Page - Issac Newton Scope - Google The telescopes size is classified by the size of its mirror. on Introduction, Very nice build nikon20. Fairly easy to build and could be adapted to suit any SCT focuser. There are a number of technical reasons why these photographs could not have come from this Optical Tube Assembly. Your astrophotographer friend may have included his own images from his setup. tube and nut that fits the outside threads. This allows for a small clearance between the outside of the tube and the inside of the tube box (14 3/8). This is because my router bit was inch and the arc would be cut by the outside edge of the bit (where the circle had been cut by the inside edge.) I had the thought that as long as I was going to build it I should build it as big as I could afford. 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. I paid the 50% deposit and dreamed of DSOs. The glue should keep the nylon from fraying. 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. To do this, the mirror cell needs to be supported by 3 large bolts, at least 2 of which are adjustable. Your design is simple and nice. That way you won't be dropping your drawtube and 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. When I ordered the cell, I paid through paypal, which immediately deducts money from my checking account. Someone is pulling someone's leg here. Motion is very smooth. As I understand, you are using it for a refractor. 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. Download and unzip. I drilled the holes in the center of the ground board and rocker bottom using a 9/16 bit, thinking that I needed the extra 1/16 so that the spacer could move. . Maker-written books designed to inform and delight! You will look through these as you rotate the wheel. Able to shift heavy loads of kit ie over 1000g. 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. Orion Telescope Focusers | Buy Direct and Save! Some of these are essential for the basic functionalities of our websites. Place the focuser, draw the position of the screws with a pencil and remove the focuser. And you can tell it's not a mosaic because the stars at the corners show coma/field curvature artifacts. I particularly like that the design can be integrated directly into the focuser board to make a very, very simple UTA. 10 years ago On the bottom of the Bottom board is a ring of Ebony Star laminate that glides over the three teflon pads located directly above the feet on the ground board. Just drill holes in both ends and mount the lenses. Yet I was also becoming infected with aperture fever. Get hands-on with kits, books, and more from the Maker Shed, Skill builder, project tutorials, and more. The email bounced back to me. One of the companies I had considered as a supplier for the primary mirror was Anttler's Optical. Well, it sort of looks like a focuser.. See pictures below. off the bearings. This can be shimmed out with paper wrapped around the and an eyepiece. 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. Rather than use a sheet of plastic Kydex to finish the tube, as recommended in K/B, I ordered a sheet of birch veneer. I told them I was on my way. Sew the seam, and sew an elastic cord into the top to secure it to the secondary cage. 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. I applied contact cement to the first inch of the veneer and the mating inch of the tube. 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. my 12.5" trackball, but I didn't I also have an extended photographic build diary of this telescope posted on Imgur. As I mentioned on my binocular His project is very well documented. My newtonian telescope, like most others, came fitted with a nasty rack and pinion focuser. Please feel free to email me at the address on the right. exactly 2" with adhesive labels placed one at a time inside the tube Fire up focusmax, and shoot some images! 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. 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. DIY Remote Telescope Focuser - YouTube Obviously an open truss telescope. eyepiece on the ground (or worse, on your primary mirror!) You currently have javascript disabled.
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