Thats a great solution there Glenn with double backup including the neighbour. I suggest leaving a pint in the shed so your neighbour might remove and replace your dust caps also :)
These videos are great and very informative - taking notes as I’ll start building my own shed observatory with rolling roof in a couple of weeks, keep up the great work!
Thanks Paul. I have definitely saved a lot of money. Would rather spend my money on a scope or camera. I also love the projects to be fair. I think someone who paid £1000’s for theirs must have watched my video as I got a dislike 🤣😂
Nice one Glenn! Cool backup solution in the event of computer/Arduino crashes etc. Will look into this for my Obs. You will need to add sensors to monitor the state of the roof (open/closed). I have two sets of magnetic sensors for the roof and then park sensors for the mounts. Because I have two scopes in operation, my setup is a bit more complicated because I need to make sure both scopes are safely parked before closing. It’s a fun project. Look forward to seeing your updates.
Thank you. I will add sensors but because I can also remote in to the live feed camera from anywhere I can visually monitor the scope and roof before moving anything. The only thing at the moment that automatically moves is the scope parks at the end of a sequence. I am sure in the end I will have cloud/rain sensors and all sorts.
Thanks for the inspiration - I will be doing almost the exact same setup for now (I have a digital dome works that will be connected to it eventually) - great work! How do you handle the momentary contact with the wifi relay device or does the motor controller not care if the contacts are kept closed the full motion of open or full motion of closed? Normally I would think this would just be a momentary contact but I imagine the relay is on the whole time until you press the close button. Just curious - keep us the great work!!
hi and thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. I no longer use this as I now run the roof through NINA and use an Arduino uno with a relay shield to control the motor. the motor only switches to move to open or close after the relay has cycled through its switch. There ws always about a 1 sec delay after relay switched before the roof moved. Nothing special had to be set or changed, it just worked out the box.
@@Astrobloke Thanks for the reply - I see that you use NINA and I will actually be using Digital Dome Works (was given to me by a good friend that didn't want to use it with his dome). I will have to modify slightly to use with the gate motor control and other interlocks, but for now I will keep it simple to get things up and running. Thanks!
Hi Dale and thank you. I use the switch feature to control my pegasus powerbox. I do now have it fully automated and can remote in even via my iphone. Roof controlled through NINA dome controls. Works great ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GGe5lyMhnUY.html
Glenn that’s great thanks for sharing. Can I ask what gate motor system you have? I am looking at automating the roof and worried about compatibility. Thanks a lot. (Chris. UK, Kent)
Thanks a lot. I have laid the base and set the bolts for the pier. That’s it so far. Just going to order the materials then build starts in a couple of weeks. Can’t wait. Aim is 100% automation as south uk clear sky is few and far between so need to make the most of the time. Thanks.
hi mate i have a question! how do you control you mount home position? do you have the mount parked at 90 from north while the lid is on them just move the scope manually to PA? i use the asiair and wondered how or if i can set a custom home position...thanks
unfortunately I have not used ASIAIR so not sure what features it has. In Eqmod I have a parked scope position which is both axis being horizontal so the roof clears any scopes. When I unpark the scope it goes to the home position and from there It will slew and platesolve to whichever targets I select.
@@stxe34 sorry I am not sure what you are asking here. If I power down it just stays parked and then after powering up I can then say unpark to home and it will go to home position. Because the mount is permanently fixed to a pier there is no PA needed as it never moves once it is set
You just connect one wire to the open switch and one to the close switch, the open/close controls are done by the motor you are just switching to one or the other
