Focuser Project

[Anonymous]

Hi,

For a little while not I've been toying with the idea of making a focuser for my telescopes (Guide & Mainscope) using two stepper motors and also a keypad and computer control.

Well would you believe it just as I was about to get messy with the soldering iron to complete my guide cam (well I hope it will work), I popped into Maplin and found on the shelf a Velleman USB digital and analogue control board with 8 digital controls and two analogue controls with all the buttons needed to allow me to control stepper motors etc through the use of dedicated stepper IC's.  

If this was not exciting enough it also is USB2 compatible, and has Compiled DLL's and code example for loads of development languages.

All I have to do now is put it in a box with a power supply and then build the required Stepper daughter board for the motors with the required IC for control.

All this for £24, and the stepper are about £11 each + a few components box etc should mean I will have dual (yes dual) computer controlled focusers for approx £52 all, including the software and buttons etc.

This will only work in a computer-controlled environment I think (although it looks like if I give it some voltage it will work anyway with some PIC work).

Excellent eh!

Chris