Frustrating but exciting at same time waiting for a new toy.
Sounds interestng will be good to see how this pans out.

Hi,
I am currently in the process of a small obsy build, and want to use two similar electronic actuators on my roof, to the ones you use, so am looking for ideas for a simple way to operate them remotely, just a simple open and close system, open to full extent and close to the fully closed position....don’t really want to go down the route of having limit switches in the system, if I can help it....
I use a raspberry PI4..
Thanks in advance for any advice...

This is my driver github.com/Trigger-broom-289/odroid-indi-roof which I use to control the actuator.

Thanks
so will it work without limit switches, and just open and close fully..? Or are they needed....??
also what about wiring them up..??

I need to update my GitHub repo with the wiring info, I'll do it at the week-end if I have time and will let you know.

That's really cool! I know you will not rest until you get the best of this new equipment (and what equipment, a Tak and a cem, wow!).

I (re)started astrophotography in 2015 in the same situation the person to whom you just sold your equipment was. And that was awesome too.

We'll start counting until you get a working remote setup No flames allowed in the box!

-Eric

My current observatory works fine, I just had zero time for it recently.
The meteostation also works, as in the hardware, it's just the software which is not python3 happy... and keeps crashing.

I wanted to build box version 3 but decided to keep version 2 as it works well and the current design is spot on.
The CEM25p, I've been doing quite some testing (torture...) with it in my room, and I must say I do like this mount a lot.

Such a fast telescope isn't for the faint hearted, especially remote... but I picked the Takahashi over the SharpStar 15028HNT due to the excellent quality of the Tak. I've read too many bad stuff about the SharpStar and didn't want to spend that much on a scope in needs of collimation every time you slew it about... lol
From what I read about the Tak collimation, you spend time doing it once, you drive a thousand miles with it on the back seat of your car, and you use it...


I was also about to get a new camera as my Atik 314 has never been a match for my Megrez72 anyway.

That's great. Wolfgang told us that focusing his Tak was quite tricky too, as it had to be done on the exterior ring of stars.

On my side I chose to upgrade my camera before upgrading the mount (a heq5). Well, now I am trying the belt mod to improve the limiting factor that is guiding. I always try to make the most out of the equipment, just because, but here I hope I am not losing too much time compared to buying a new model...

-Eric

The belt mod is a must for the HEQ5, and you may have seen that I did change all the bearings and done a complete take down and rebuild of the mount. I did buy the HEQ5 mount second hand many years ago, like the vast majority of my curent equipment, up to know...

And for anyone attempting remote observatories, if it's in your backyard then it's all fine, however when it's several 100's of miles away with almost 0 remote hands... be ready to be challenged...

And as I said, recently I had 0 time for my telescope, but this has now changed hence I'm back

Reducing the electronics footprint... at the moment I use an external 8 relays board (I only need 4 relays) which is GPIO controlled, and 2x external boards to be able to switch off the USB power.
This time, I got myself a PiRelayV2 and it works wonder on the Odroid C4, which means one less box to worry about and now that I can take care of the power from the C4 that's another two boards less.

 

I recently dropped one of my old 32-bit atoms to install a Lattepanda of the first version. It has a Leonardo integrated, which controls the power supply relays. I actively use 5 relays on a row of 8 for now (2 cameras, mount, heater and flat panel), 2 are supplying non-controlled power to the two sbcs and one is free. I plan to code a supply watchdog in the Leonardo, but this goes slowly because the obs is just outside in my backyard What I want to do in the next months is to automate pulling the roll-away shed like a dome parking. Brittany weather can't be trusted that much.

-Eric

pimp the Odroid C4... with an m.sata hat (geekworm)... and a 480Gb drive.