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USB controller for TG-SP II or any other mount?

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:20 am
by oldfield
To replace the hand paddle to control the mount, so that we can guide in fron of the PC, or even use GuideDog or something similar to do autoguiding?

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:36 pm
by dpanderson
Do you have any technical information (pinouts, schematics) for the hand paddle jack on this mount?

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 9:25 pm
by oldfield
a local folk has it on his website:

http://www.alanchuhk.com/Tak_TGSE.doc

wonder if that's enough?

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:16 pm
by dpanderson
oldfield,

Page 5 of this document is exactly what I need. I have a lot of other projects going on right now, so it may be months before I could even think of getting to this, but I will consider it. If nothing else, I think the handcontroller can be modified to add an ST-4 compatible guide port. However, there is no declination correction, and no easy way to add that. So, you will still need meticulous polar alignment.

Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:55 pm
by oldfield
since it's a small mount, single axis correction could be enough, let's see.

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 8:27 pm
by oldfield
dpanderson wrote:oldfield,

Page 5 of this document is exactly what I need. I have a lot of other projects going on right now, so it may be months before I could even think of getting to this, but I will consider it. If nothing else, I think the handcontroller can be modified to add an ST-4 compatible guide port. However, there is no declination correction, and no easy way to add that. So, you will still need meticulous polar alignment.
Last night I examine my TG-SP II closely and I found that the DEC slow motion control knob is attached to its shaft like that of a typical focuser, so I think it's very easy to replace it with a focusing motor.

If that's possible, dual axis autoguiding could be done rather easily. Given you said the RA part can be modified to control via USB, the DEC part can be driven like FCUSB?

Such product would be great for TG-SP II since it will become a high portable autoguiding platform!

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:36 am
by oldfield

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:39 pm
by dpanderson
See this document for a way to modify your handcontroller to add an ST-4 compatible autoguide port to it:
http://store.shoestringastronomy.com/do ... _HCMod.pdf

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:04 pm
by oldfield
dpanderson wrote:See this document for a way to modify your handcontroller to add an ST-4 compatible autoguide port to it:
http://store.shoestringastronomy.com/do ... _HCMod.pdf
thanks!

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 11:39 pm
by oldfield
dpanderson wrote:See this document for a way to modify your handcontroller to add an ST-4 compatible autoguide port to it:
http://store.shoestringastronomy.com/do ... _HCMod.pdf
I checked that standard TTL current is like 0.4mA but the coil of the relay you suggested requires 25mA... So the GPUSB adapter actually delivers more than 25mA?

Thanks.

Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:49 am
by dpanderson
Yes, it can deliver at least 40mA.