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Author Topic: appropriate gear for friction wheel  (Read 3305 times)

tony

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appropriate gear for friction wheel
« on: December 19, 2016, 13:34:05 »

Hi Tom
i want to build a new mount from scratch. I want to use friction wheel. The big one is 260 mm and the small one
is 12 mm. Perhaps same size on both axles. The gear ratio 260/12 becomes   21,6666:1.
Whats is the best further downshift do you think?
i have a gearbox that provides 400:1, is it to much?

How fast (rev/minut) can a Nema 17 without breaking?
My telescope weighs about 28 kg (62 pound)
Tony
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TCWORLD

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Re: appropriate gear for friction wheel
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2016, 17:24:46 »

Hi Tony,

You are looking for in the region of 500:1 to 1000:1 for the best speed vs torque performance.

The setup I have is an EQ5 (144:1) with a 2.666:1 pulley giving 384:1 which is on the low end, but works well.

The Skywatcher DA kit motors have a 120:1 ratio which when coupled with a 144:1 EQ5 gives 17280:1 total which is very high. Gives brilliant torque, but max speed is around 40x the sidereal rate before the motors can't physically spin any faster.

With a 400:1 gearbox and your 21.666:1 friction gear you end up with about 8400:1 which is quite large. Depending on how fast your motors can spin that may give you decent performance - a Nema 17 motor will probably have far better top speed than the crappy motors in the DA kit. It's certainly worth a try. The other advantage of the higher gear ratio is that microstepping doesn't need to be used which will give the motor a bit more oomph - you can go with 4:1 or 8:1 microstepping instead of 32:1.

You could try and see if you can modify the gearbox down a bit - say to 100:1 or so, or stick with 400:1 and see how it goes.
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Tom Carpenter (AstroEQ)

tony

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Re: appropriate gear for friction wheel
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2016, 19:35:50 »

Hi Tom,

Thank you for the reply. It will be easy to switch gear box in the construction as I planned it. I will try 400:1 at first, and if I feel that the go to function is too slow I will change the gear box. I have several at home to choose from.

I can send you a sketch of the construction later.

Tony
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tony

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Re: appropriate gear for friction wheel
« Reply #3 on: December 20, 2016, 07:16:39 »


This is my obseratorium today. A 12" GSO whith a 6" guideteleskop. It is a home made mount fixed to the ground. I take some photos with it with the help of PHD2.
But i want to change RA and DEC axles to have more stability against the wind.
GOTO is also on my wish list. I think AstroEQ can arrange it...

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