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[Vincent]

Thank you for your answer.

I only had a 2 positions switch available, so formerly I did not wire the ST4 speed...
Anyway my handcontroller now works good, with ST4 and GOTO speed.

[Vincent]

I only noted one thing with standalone mode.

When I powerup in standalone mode (Handcontroler speed switch on "ST4 speed" position) then sideral tracking starts.

If I decide to slew at higher speed, I select "Goto speed" position, then sideral tracking stops waiting for NESW push buttons orders.

I have to select back "ST4 speed" position, in order sideral tracking starts again.

Is it expected behavior ?
I would find nice to get sideral tracking always on (ie independant of speed switch position) ?

Thank you

[TCWORLD]

Hi Vincent,

It's by design. The theory was if you are moving around at go-to speed you wouldn't want the mount to be tracking (maybe I'm wrong?). It also means that if you unplug the hand controller the motors will stop moving (go-to speed is set essentially by floating the speed pin).

With the 2x speed and ST4 speed selections the mount will continue tracking, so essentially you would use Go-To speed to reach a ballpark location, then 2x speed to move in to the target.

Kind Regards,
Tom.

[igorb]

I'm in a process of building a hand controller and I have two questions. At the beggining of this topics, it is said that 2k resistor should be soldered between pin1 and pin2 of the st4 port to switch the speed to 2x sidereal. But on the schematics it is 3.9k resistor. I guess it will work in both cases but I need confirmation just to be sure. I also want to know if its possible to predefine some other speed for that switch position instead 2x. I'm using wide field telescope on my mount so 2x sidereal is quite slow for centering the target.

And, btw, thank you once more for your efforts and this magnificent project.

[TCWORLD]

Hi,

For the resistors it is a bit of trial and error to make it reliable, that's part of why I haven't sold any of the hand controllers I had made.

The idea is that you get three speeds - Sidereal, 2x Sidereal, and Go-To. So you can use the go-to speed to get close and then the 2x speed to get nicely centred. The main reason that speed was chosen is it simplifies the code (I don't have to run the acceleration/deceleration routines for 2x speed). But I can look in to it (e.g. make it 4x speed or selectable) if it testing shows it to be useful - I haven't had a chance to get my scope out for over a year.

Kind Regards,
Tom

[igorb]

Ah, I see. But, for widefield viewing, if it is set at 4x or 8x speed, tracking is not even neccessary (while centering, that is). After centering the target you turn the switch back to its first position (sidereal tracking speed). So, what I intend to do now if  this doesn't work, is to set goto speed to 8x prior to obseving session and use switch position 3 for centering but then I loose faster goto speed for moving the mount to the new target. It is not a big deal as I still have both of my hands for that
But if it is complicated, please ignore this post, as, for me, the primary function of the AstroEQ is for imaging and for that it is, ofcourse, connected to the PC.

Best Regards and merry Christmas!
Igor.

[PhilCrompton]

Hello as part of my Astro-EQ6 conversion I wanted to re-use the old hand controller that came with the non-working, non-goto EQ6 that I started with. This was a relatively easy hack. I simply de-soldered and remove all the components except the 4 momentary switches and the slide switches from the original controller. I also un-soldered the curly cable which just happened to have a 6 contact RJ11 (also known as an RJ12) connector.

You can't see it in the picture but the 3K9 speed control resistor replaced the left-hand resistor under the ribbon cable you can see in the attached picture. I stripped back the outer insulation of the cable to expose the two unused wires and reconnected the individual wires as you can see the picture. I also added a blue and brown jumpers that you can see crossing the old IC location. The de-bounce capacitors were soldered directly to the back of the momentary switches.

The original 2x, 8x, 16x switch controls the speed. The other switch does nothing. Make sure you also remove the LED from the centre of the RA/DEC keys otherwise the high-speed slew doesn't work.

Phil

[barbwire78]

Hi, this is my version of hand controller:


Everything work fine

BR

[igorb]

Nice 

Where did you get those low profile momentary pushbuttons if I may ask? I'm working on hand controller too but cannot find suitable switches 

Igor

[jpwilliams.com]

Perhaps not exactly the same, but I bought 4 of these from eBay, £3.69 for 4

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122653316205

I've got them fitted in a project box RX2010 from this listing, the box is quite small, but there's just enough room to put them in a star (NESW) pattern 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121941168040

[igorb]

Thanks! 

Now what colour to choose 

[jurek0605]

Hello, I have astroeq for arduino mega2560, how to do speed control on it?

[grozmaistor]

Hello Tom,
I am going to make the basic hand controller.
I have at home many parts but lack a 3.9KOhm resistor. But I can make it 3.93KOhm. How crucial :-) will it be for the system to use a slightly stronger resistor, or I have to buy 3.9KOhm one.

Regards
Grozdan

[TCWORLD]

Hi,

3.93k should be fine. At a rough guess anything within ~10% should be ok. There's quite a lot of chip-to-chip variation in the internal pull-up resistors of the ATMega anyway, so you may find that the resistor value needs to be adjusted.

[grozmaistor]

This is my version of the hand controller with the 3 position switch. It works.