I built an Equatorial Mount for astronomy, with two HarmonicDrive gearboxes
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- I built a portable, lightweight, yet mighty equatorial mount with two HarmonicDrive gearboxes. The EQ mount weighs about 16lbs and can support 25lbs without counterweights, or 70+lbs with counterweights.
Update: I finally finished cleaning up my design files and released all of them (part design, solidworks drawings, BoMs, PCB boards and so on) here: github.com/ala...
BGMs:
Podington Bear - Bated Breath
Gotye - State Of The Art
Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still
Time to Pretend - Lazer Boomerang
![[Limbus Company - Teaser] Season5 - Oblivion](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8anKuEeZLeI/mqdefault.jpg)
Update: I finally finished cleaning up my design files and released all of them (part design, solidworks drawings, BoMs, PCB boards and so on) here: github.com/alanzjl/AlkaidMount
About the cost: I got mine HarmonicDrive CSF-17 pair for ~400 usd used from eBay. Aluminum sheets were cheap - about $60 in total. Screws ~40. I used the university machine shop so it’s free. Electronics about 100 in total (but I got enough components to make me about 10 boards:). Motor & planetary gearboxes ~100. So the total cost was about $700, very nice deal compared to a commercial RainBow HD mount that’s $3k+. I had a beginner EQ mount (HEQ-5 pro) which I got for $1.6k (during Covid) and I 100% prefer my own mount.
Thanks for info; please let me know the motor model, if you can.
That is amazing. I've long thought how a custom made mount would be much cheaper than buying one, you confirm that idea.
Can I order one? :-D
Did you keep track of how many man hours you put into building it?
Hows the tracking, and very impressive
Mounts have gotten so ridiculously expensive, it makes sense that people with equipment like yours would start making their own.
Correct. But after using one of those expensive mounts for about 3 years, your resell value is probably higher than a diy one. The increased pricings lately will also give a higher return when you sell it. Also think about the brake safety and other features that might help you to prevent costly damage to your scope
@robin That’s a funny argument. It’s like the inverse of the “just think of all the taxes you’ll save” by taking a job with less pay. Of course it won’t be worth as much-it didn’t cost as much and doesn’t come with a pedegree. Such is the nature of diy.
@@brandonhicks7549 i bet investing in a known brand will cost you less compared to building something yourself. Prices of branded items will probably outperform inflation. Chances are that you will sell your branded astro gear after some years of use and receive more than you paid for. Like real estate. Sometimes going cheap costs more than a good but more expensive purchase.
I completely agree, in the country where I live there are no manufacturers so you have to import, the government charges a 60% fee on top of the value of the imported product and also on the cost of shipping, making it almost impossible to buy an EQ5 for example. I recently became interested in producing a handmade one and I'm researching the subject, I've seen that it's possible to produce one buying local material and importing some parts like stepper motors, pulleys, bearings as well as electronic components making it much more advantageous to manufacture it myself.
@@Robin-Visserastrophotographer try not to have buyers remorse challenge: impossible
I'm utterly blown away by your project, and your generosity in releasing the files/design.
Thanks for your kind service to the community. I hope your new mount performs well for you for years to come :)
This is incredible work mate, I'm so impressed!!
I *deeply* appreciate this build, made almost entirely out of plate stock.
A thing of beauty.
The 3d printed covers are a nice touch. From the thumbnail, I didn't notice they weren't also aluminum!
If I might ask, what filament is that?
(I saw the brief note that it was provided/sponsored)
Dude from your skill level to the edit and soundtrack is epic, keep it up.
Excellent work and congratulations on building such a fabulous mount. Thanks for sharing and I watched it with a smile on my face and in awe of your talent.
As did I.
Simply incredible. I have always wanted to go this route and DIY a mount to be alongside my CEM40, but unfortunately I have limited access to proper machining tools. If you do choose to release plans, it would be incredibly helpful as there are not many resources on doing something like this. The closest project I can think of is the OpenAstroTech designs, and those have a relatively small load capacity compared to your design due to them being mostly 3D printed. I look forward to seeing your other projects!
WOW! I love the craftmanship going in to this build! This is what drives the amateur astronomy segment forward!
Keep videos like these coming!
/Daniel
I couldn't even imaging undertaking this, extremely impressive.
Great music selection.
Wow! Thank you for sharing! Every bit of the video was awesome, the editing, music, your machinist/engineering skills and photography! Thank you!
That is fantasic work JZ. My father has a lathe and milling machine but whether we could make this or not I am unsure, I would absolutely love to though it looks amazing. Thank you for sharing your work and clear skies to you
I do not questioning that he did it him self, but that that garage looks a lot like a well equipped workshop.
As an engineer, programmer and network security professional... I was like WTFFFF? What is up with this set of skills?!? And then I saw MIT and it all made sense LOL. Awesome work man!
Wow! Awesome job mate!
I also had HEQ-5 pro once and it sure had plenty of issues.
An astronomic thanks for releasing it all to the public.
Sub )
Exactly the mount I need….
…just need the machines
and the material
and the skills
and the time
and the plan….
Meeeh.
Great work anyway! :)
First - absolutely amazing work! Second - love the Jean-Michel Jarre music!
It's about time we start seeing some open source hardware :) You sir are a saint.
very nice design, amazing mechanical lab, never saw a underwater cnc before
Very Impressive, you have great engineering skills and a nice workshop and equipment!
Good work fella. What an outstanding piece of engineering! 🙂
Excellent work, not listened to Magnetic Fields for years so enjoyed that too.
This is so gratifying to watch and listen to. Thanks for sharing this video with us.
If I could, I would. My brothers are into machining, I may challenge them to make a mount someday. It's not me though, I enjoy helping bringing people into the hobby before they craft things like this. Well done!
Just curious, but why are there apparent diffraction spikes on the Andromeda galaxy photo? They seem irregularly placed and shouldn't exist on images taken with refractors, no? Nice build for sure, though I would have used the platen when sanding those edges.
This is super cool, I had an idea to try and do something similar a while ago but never actually tried to execute it. You definitely did a much better job of it than I could have anyway lol. It's great to see something like this work out. awesome work
the amount of "know-how" in this video is incredible
I think this is magnificent, beautiful and inspiring. Subscribed. thanks for posting! :D
The work was Rad and the Build was cathartic to watch… Although, The noise/sounds starting at 1:25 through 4:45 were painful..At best😶…. had to turn the sound completely off during that entire part. It really Was truly a Bad pick, astonishingly even....Aside from that Distraction(to be kind) the Rest was Excellent🤙🏻.. Thanks for files..The ol, DIY Cnc will have to do…
Super Rad!..
bot at all this fancy, I built my EQ3 mount's driver, but with ST4, multiple speeds, backlash etc, around an ESP32, keeping the factory motors on my ancient mount.
When I saw the Voron I was like "Of course it is!!!" out loud. 🤣
In the Sol system a life form evolved with a motor cortical and appendage system capable of the finest dexterity and a prefrontal lobe with exquisite planning capabilities and most importantly with phenomena they labeled as imagination and curiosity with the insatiable desire to build, explore and contemplate the universe from which they arose.
Absolutely incredible work .. wow I'm speachless
This is a super cool build and a smooth video. Bravo!
Absolutely incredible work! I envy the talent of people such as yourself.
I feel I would love to buy this in Kit form and build it myself. great job.
Gearbox in stepper motor has large backlash and low teeth quality - this will kill all benefits of harmonic gear (almost zero backlash and smooth periodic) and converts this mount to HEQ5 or worse, with jumps in guiding error graphs in PHD2... ZWO AM5 has MXL belt-pulley gear between stepper motor and harmonic reducer. Second design flaw I see - very weak ALT polar adjustment.
On image you showed of andromeda Galaxy using William optics refractor scope, why does it have defraction spikes?
Super inspiring man. Great engineering.
Nice work! That's one sexy mount!
Wow, amazing stuff man.
Can I ask did you consider using direct drive motors or are there more technical challenges associated with those?
I want to be able to build my own mount one day instead of paying thousands of $$ too, thanks for inspiration.
Comme tout le monde, ont ne peut être que admiratif devant le travail accompli. De la conception jusqu'à la finalité sous les étoiles. Et pour un coût défiant toute concurrence...
Et merci pour la musique, surtout Jean Michel Jarre 👍
Clear sky🌌
Excellent work! You have earned my subscription!
well I found my next DIY project
Great work! I love the DIY!
Absolutely awesome result!
Wow.. what a superb built.. It would be wonderful if you could share the design and details of the PCB and parts ! I would certainly want to build it !
lovely design. I wish I had the actuators to make an EQ mount for my whole dobsonian, but it's quite big and heavy and would probably sag at odd angles. An EQ platform is typical for dobsonian users, but they don't track for very long.
Very nicely done!! Great design. Can I get one?
Great work on this man. And I have to say, that’s a big Johnson. Never seen one that big.
Johnson is the cnc?
@@glauberprado8752 The Johnson bandsaw at 2:55 - What a beast!
Incredibly well done man😮!!
Wow! Great video and building this new Harmonic Drive mount.. I liked.. I am new in your RUclips canal. One questions the Harmonic Drive Motor are Swiss made or from China? I can imagine, when are Swiss made are too much expensive but better with Swiss made encoders as from China, are not so great and full quality the same that the company RST-Raimbow used for she mount. Your mount are one new concept and great. I hope you can more building. Greetings from Switzerland.
Damn thats Amazing !!!!!!! Probs to you, wish i could buy one
One day, I hope to be a quarter as good at building things! Currently a 3d printer person with aspirations of building a CNC (printnc). Inspiring work!!!
How you program this mount and which software or tool do you use please make a separate video on this
It's an amazing project. but I tried to use your files in Fusion and was not possible to open them. There is another place to download it?
+1 for Equinoxe!
Can WXK-17-100 be used as a replacement for harmonic drive? With changes in details, of course.
Astro DIY on another level!
You have amazing machining and electronic building skills and the mount looks awesome. For lightweight telescopes I have read that the harmonic drives work quite well, though for larger scopes I could see some problems. Nice photos with the WO refractor, but why did you add in fake diffraction spikes to a photo taken with an unobstructed refractor? Taking photos without diffraction spikes is one of the benefits of a refractor optic!
Really wonderful. I want to know how you will design and build an eq platform for dobsonian telescopes. Sure it will be amazing and state of the art constructed.
With the right tools, u can build everything
With the music and everything I had to subscribe
Edit: Can you please let us know what one harmonic drive costs roughly?
Perfect, using Equinox on your video. Guessing you play guitar. Incredible build and site, photography.
Maybe a little over-designed, but I love it! What the heck is with the music though...
Any idea on what the payload capacity would be, sorry if it was mentioned somewhere I didn't see it
It's in the description "
I built a portable, lightweight, yet mighty equatorial mount with two HarmonicDrive gearboxes. The EQ mount weighs about 16lbs and can support 25lbs without counterweights, or 70+lbs with counterweights. "
OnStep is amazing!
The equipment and expertise in this video cost at least 100 times more than any low-end harmonic drive equatorial mount on the market.
Very impressive. How did the programming go? it looks like the controller is all custom - not OnStep, SiTech, or Pi based. So it looks proprietary?
Well, he is still using a Teensy 4.0 which is supported by OnStep, so maybe just a custom PCB?
OnStep makes sense, instead if reinventing from scratch.
Great project! Are you able to sell this in kit form that has all the components like pcb, individual electronic components that I can solder, metal parts machined and ready for assembly? I am willing to pay for the kit that I can assemble - let me know - Thanks!
Thanks a lot for your support! Unfortunately I don’t think this is commercially feasible. The two HarmonicDrive gearboxes are very expensive if buying new. I got them used, but it could be hard to find the exact same model for other people. I’ll open source the project soon (doing some final cleanup) for inspiration
@@craftedbyjz I look forward to the open source project. I understand the cost aspects of the harmonic drive + gear boxes. But there’s this fun of making it myself - that’s my motivation. Even if the project is open sourced, the only components that I can’t manage on my own are the metal work because I have no experience of that type of work, not to mention unavailability of the tools.
@@craftedbyjz where can we signup to get notification when it goes open source? I'm keen to make one myself now :)
@@craftedbyjz I have been working on getting the skills for a project like this. Thank you for filling-in many of the gaps (reduction gearing, etc). I long to start work on this, but still lack some of the CAD to machining skills where I get high precision.
I would be more than willing to pay for any CAD you have simply to reverse engineer and learn from. Thank you so much for posting this. I'm inspired for another year in this endeavor. :)
how could a refraction telescope cast diffraction spikes!?
Gee, when you cutting and printing parts, assembling boards, why not do 10 sets? Why not 20? :)
Combining machining youtube and astronomy 😍
For some reason I thought this was about the things they have at bars that buck you off
Wow you came already so far...
Would be cool to see if you can do a peltier cooling mod for your d5300 and film it?=
I want one!
Dude, what was that lifting pier you sneaked in? Also homemade or a product?
A genius!! How did you get the software and compatibility for the drives to talk with the handbox! what handbox did you use? amazing and congratulations!!
If I had enough money to buy all the machinery, I would be able to buy a high quality prebuilt equatorial mount.
Are you planning on selling this? I would be so interested
I wonder if this is how Scott Losmandy started…
have check the PE and whatr is the quality guiding?
The harmonic Drives are very cool but I'm not so sure about the gearboxed stepper motors because when I was searching for something similar the ones I found had too much backlash
I think you will minimize backlash with appropriate drivers...
what mount driver did you use ? Ascom ?
👍Nice job and professional technique
When engineer is also astrophotographer....
diy, providing you have access to all of the machinery.
I wish I had access to all that, but I would probably hurt myself
Nice! What was that mini PC you strapped to the bottom? I'd love to see your detailed setup
Great work! But please help me to understand why anyone would voluntarily use flat head screws...
wish you showed the guiding graph/accuracy
Hi, I really love your project. Actually so much I started to build one myself. :-D I just have just one question: How do you figure out that your setup can withstand 70+ pounds? The datasheet of the harmonic drives says the allowable moment load is 64Nm. And I only got the CSF14-80s.... (got them for a "bargain").
Thanks in advance.
Given most Amateurs now are consumers, not "makers", I don't see this being replicated except commercially.
I am thinking about making a goto telescope by myself
ciao, comunque piu che farti i miei complimenti non posso fare . Bravo, davvero bravo.
Nice one! Thanks for sharing, 🎉
Simply genious. I hate to ask but how much would this cost or where is your shop located good sir?
That is incredible!!!
Nice build. Whats the max RMS guiding error this cool mount gave ? May be you should mass produce and sell some to us
That's such a cool build - what tracking rms do you get with what mount loading (exc counterweights)?