| 1 min
| 27 words
Looks like the belts and pulleys I got fit! Now to design the gearbox and 3D print it so my telescope can move very small amounts accurately
| 2 min
| 239 words
Oops. NOW my Sliced PiFinder is done.
The original PiFinder uses a $50 USB GPS module. To avoid spending $50, I wrote some code to fake a GPS. Eventually the dev brickbots switched PiFinders to a $10 solderable GPS module that uses UART instead of USB, and $10 felt reasonable, so I bought one and soldered it in. I thought I was done and that all I had to do was edit the software to remove my fake GPS code and use the regular GPS code!
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| 2 min
| 265 words
I’m building the Sliced PiFinder, a device to help my telescope find things! Previously, I tried using a cheaper IMU but gave up and bought a $30 fancy chip.
Originally I didn’t want to buy a $50 GPS USB stick but the PiFinder creator found a $10 solderable GPS unit for a v2, so I bought one and soldered it in.
After soldering in the GPS chip, dubiously electrical taping it in place, dropping it and cracking my 3D printed parts, printing new parts, using a soldering iron to remove heat inserts out of the old parts so I can place them into the new parts, printing the case, discovering the case wasn’t designed for my battery and blocks access to the on/off switch and USB ports, melting holes in case with soldering iron, putting on a cover plate over the screen and LEDs… I finally put it on my telescope!
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| 10 min
| 2107 words
I’m building a PiFinder! It uses a camera to take pictures of the sky, connected to a raspberry pi which uses a database of stars to tell you where in the sky your telescope is pointing. But a PiFinder is $550 new. A stock pifinder uses the newest and most expensive options for pis and cameras, and when I looked at the parts list, I thought: I can build something similar for a fifth of the price!
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| 4 min
| 649 words
The sky is too big. I went out telescoping looking for M13 and there were too many stars and it’s too big and I don’t know where I’m aimed. When you’re so zoomed in, there’s so many stars you don’t know where you are or where to look.
Enter the pifinder! I’m going to make one.
I went to my local makerspace, known for having too many donated bits and bobs they actively try to get rid of (what a wonderful problem to have).
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| 1 min
| 62 words
This is the 1985 “electronotes builder’s guide and preferred circuits collection” and Bernie Hutchins is advising first time synth makers go buy chemicals at radioshack to etch copper and use a paintbrush to trace out wires manually. It’s so weirdly analog and hands-on compared to the way circuit boards are made today I’m used to, “pay someone else online to do it”