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Finally finished making a pitch lap for @BeasMeeply’s mirror! Yahoo! Now I can start polishing… as soon as I get some cerium oxide to polish with.
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Finally finished making a pitch lap for @BeasMeeply’s mirror! Yahoo! Now I can start polishing… as soon as I get some cerium oxide to polish with.
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I’ll print out a prototype and see if it holds everything the way I want it to.
Question I still need to answer: how do I stop the axles from fall out
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I don’t know how to design a sketch in one document (for say a stepper motor mount plate) then import it into a different document in a different location (for, say, mounting that stepper in a different place)
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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
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I have many projects in mind for telescope upgrades. Since the last list I’ve completed one and added one. Here’s what I want to do this year telescope wise:
#1: Sliced Pifinder (complete!) Complete! I built a Pifinder for 1/5 of the list price by using a different cheaper camera, secondhand older pi and battery pack, and printing and soldering parts myself. It’s been very helpful when it works, and let me take pictures of M33 even without seeing it!
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Poured some cement into my CNCed mold! Very fitting that my experimental telescope making technique involves a black hole
I noticed my mold had warped before putting cement on it - maybe from the polyurethane spray I used, or from waiting a month in between cncing and pouring? I put some weights on it because of the warping, walked away… And the next day I found my wood split down the middle of a boundary between planks.
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One of my telescope shenanigans is trying to make a meniscus mirror by slumping glass in a kiln. To do that, I need to make a precisely shaped form that can withstand kiln temperatures. I CNCed a wood mold, and next I need to put some furnace cement into that wooden mold so it becomes the right cement shape. I’ve never used furnace cement before. Wish me luck
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I found a design by d.revan to motorize a telescope using GT2 timing belts and it’s cool. He uses:
GT2 belts and pulleys instead of gears 608-2RS skateboard bearings to let the shafts spin (smart!) a giant mega printed gear attached to wood for the final gear stage 4:1, 4:1, then 15:1 gear stages …but I tried seeing how much the parts would be on AliExpress, and it was surprisingly hard to find gears with the right 8mm bore and wider than normal 10mm belt width.
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