Digital Setting Circles
Click on the picture to see a larger version.
Here are the digital setting circles I built based on Dave Ek's project. It's a very easy to do yourself project that costs very little. The most expensive pieces are the two encoders. One piece of advice, make sure you get "10K" Ohm resisters and not "10" Ohm. I mistakenly installed 10 Ohm and spent a week chasing my tail before I discovered my mistake. Thanks Dave for your patience!!
| Here are most of the parts I purchased to use in this project. | 
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| This is the project box I purchased to house the interface. You can see the holes/squares I cut out for the buttons and RJ45 jacks. | 
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| Here you can see the assembled circuit board. I puchased the the circuit board pre-printed along with the pre-programmed PIC. I'm going to use some CAT-5 network cables to connect the encoders to the interface, thus the yellow RJ45 jacks. | 
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| Here you can see the nearly assembled interface box. |
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| Here is the fully assembled interface box. I need to make some proper labels for the RA and Dec RJ45 jacks, so I don't connect them up incorrectly... ;-) The round button on the top is the reset button. The square button on the bottom is for the power, the green LED comes on when power is applied. The DB9F can be seen on the side of the box, or the bottom of the picture. |
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| Here you can see both encoders mounted onto the mount of the telescope. I purchased some project boxes to house the encoders. I wanted to protect them from the weather and other possible damaging conditions. I was able to find some 3x2.5x1 boxes from Mouser Electronics, part number 563-CU742. The S2 encoders fit perfectly into the boxes. |
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| Here is a view of the RA encoder. The mounting bracket for both encoders was made from a strip of aluminum purchased at a local hardware store. |
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| Here is a view of the Dec encoder. The white pully wheels I purchased from a local hardware store, they are for closet doors. |
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| Here you can see the entire setup. I use velcro to hold the interface box onto the mount. |
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