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Yuxuan:Rouz Astro:Yuxuan:The EFA without their focuser is a $1200 Gerber Thermometer. No thanks. 🙂Rouz Astro: *Both the 2.75" and 3.5" I had had exposed wires and motors. I agree, quite an eyesore! I'm an Optec Dealer and can get parts needed, let me know if you need adapters. Also designing and manufacturing custom parts: https://rouzastro.com/product/custom-design-and-cnc-manufacture/ Rouz |
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Just a quick update, I tried to heat the mirrors using the Pegasus only with RH reading, and the preliminary results aren't encouraging. In its auto setting, it does not allow the heaters to supply different amount of current to primary and secondary mirrors. I tried playing with different amount of aggressiveness, but it either causes huge amount of heat plumes, or couldn't prevent dew formation overnight. I probably will need to get the Delta T. Any feedbacks on similar experiences are appreciated. |
11.02
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| Yeah I think the UPB works well on things like refractor straps or heated dew shields. Mirrors with these heating pads, I can't see working well. |
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Yuxuan: *Same here, it will supply the same power to both. In most cases the secondary needs near constant modulation. The primary much less. Its an open loop system and blind so you don't know how much about the temps. The DeltaT is better than the Pegasus for me. Rouz |
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And this is the reason why I have kept EFA, DELTA-T, DHM and UPB. I have found no other reasonable and working approach. This is a real shame  |
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I just use the DeltaT to heat the mirrors. Don't have the EFA any longer so no DHM. UBP ONLY for powering other gear not the DeltaT. |
5.61
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Rouz Astro: Pretty much exactly my choices. I was concerned about powering the Delta T except direct with it's own power supply so did that. The good news is that the L-350 has lots of room to run nice flexible silicone power cables. |
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I've made these carbon fiber composite brackets for the Pegasus and Gemini to be bolted to the CDK backplates.   |
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Hi Rouz, smart solution. 👍 CS Rüdiger |
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Ruediger: Thanks Rudi, A few people have asked for these so I'm making them now and its on my site along with a bunch of other CDK accessories: https://rouzastro.com/product-category/cdk-accessories/ CS Rouz |
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| They look good, Rouz! In your experience, how does the extra strength of the carbon fiber composite stack up against more common materials like PLA and PETG? I’ve made similar brackets for my UPB and PBA and use PETG. So far it holds out very well, but I may not have used it long enough yet. |
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Willem Jan Drijfhout: Hello Willem Jan, I also use the carbon fiber PLA and I can say it is much more torsion resistent. Also it has a less thermal expansion and can sustain higher temperatures. Standard PLA started to get soft in the summer heat and lost its shape. Also printing was easier than PLA. On the negative side: You need a spezial nozzle which is hardened because Carbon PLA is abrasive and is less flexible. I switched completely to it and use PLA only for prototyping since it is cheap. CS Rüdiger |
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Willem Jan Drijfhout: Thats right, PLA gets soft with heat. CF is much stiffer but engineering grade materials require high temp machines and hardened nozzles. Some of them are tougher to work with as they need enclosures and filament dryers. Wrapping is an issue as well. CS Rouz |
11.41
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I really appreciate this thread. I'm building out a CDK12 right now and I was aghast at the necessity for and operation of both the EFA and the Delta-T. Just awful. I'll be giving up the ability to measure the actual mirror temperature, but I've decided to control the fans and dew heaters with the Pegasus UPB v3. This allows me to eliminate two controller boxes and 6 cables riding on my OTA. It should slightly reduce my power consumption. It allows me to control the fans in NINA based on ambient temp. And it lets me use the Pegasus auto-dew function (which I may wind up overriding in NINA over time as I see how this works). I can completely avoid installing or using any Planewave software, which looks like it was written in 1996. And best of all, I never have to worry about that Cat5-to RS232-to RS232-to USB-to USB Rube Goldberg contraption of a cable on the EFA. |
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11.02
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The UPB likely will be insufficient for powering the heaters. There's a post further up on this page where this was tested and discovered that it either provides too much or too little heat to work correctly. Bill |
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11.41
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Bill Long - Dark Matters Astrophotography: Thanks for alerting me to that, Bill. I think, however, I may have more tools available to me than were in place a year ago. With the advent of the "When" trigger in NINA's advanced sequencer (via the Sequencer Powerups plugin), I can regulate the power separately for each dew heater as humidity changes throughout the night. It might take me a while to figure it out, and I may never get there--so I'm going to go ahead and take the box containing the Delta-T and EFA out to Deep Sky West when I go next week. If need be, Peter can put them on for me and I'll be no worse off than I was. But I think this may wind up being a workable solution. At least, I hope so. I'll be sure to let everyone here know if this works. |
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| @Timothy, I agree with Bill that the UPB will likely not be sufficient. Something to consider is if you can get PlaneWave to wire your CDK12.5 with the Series 5 Controller, which should allow you to control both fans and heater from a single unit instead of a Delta T and an EFA Kit, and is about $1000 instead of almost double. I nearly had this done for my CDK14, but it would have complicated the logistics around getting my remote system setup and I chose not to. I recommend talking to PW about this. |
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Prior in this thread, John Hayes mentioned a custom controller that he built on the Arduino platform that could act as an intelligent sensor box that has control of the physical output to the heater system. He sent me one of these boxes to use in New Mexico and it's probably the best Dew Control system I've used. If the sensors diverge too far, or fail, it'll fail open to the PW delta T config and allow that to control as is desired. When it's in a known good state, it will prevent excess heating entirely by ignoring the wishes of the PW software unless it calculates the Temperature Dew Point (TDP) to confirm that dew is imminent. This isn't to suggest everyone pile on John for boxes, rather a custom solution isn't that far fetched. It's a very effective and intelligent interceptor box, that makes a decision on whether or not to allow the heaters to be on or not. He explained it much better than me, of course. I would look into that as a solution before I would even bother trusting the Pegasus box. That's pretty good for refractors and optical systems where too much heating or maybe a little under heating probably doesn't make a huge difference. On systems like these, it's immensely important to get right. |
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Ani Shastry: I just spoke with Tolga about it this morning. He doesn't think they would do it. And even if they would, it would mean shipping it back to them and waiting weeks or months for it to return. I'm supposed to leave a week from Friday to take this rig out to Deep Sky West. So I'm in a similar place you were in. I do, however, take what you and Bill are saying very seriously. So I'll go ahead and prepare the EFA and Delta-T with good cable management so that Peter (our tech at DSW) could put them in place in a few minutes. I'll have to see how that affects balance, but they're not heavy, so they shouldn't require much in the way of rebalancing. |
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Timothy Martin:Ani Shastry: You definitely can run the fans from the Powerbox. I have them on the variable voltage port on mine, and I run that at 6v at all times. That's basically half speed, and seems to be the sweet spot for where I am located in Animas. The Delta T, you shouldn't power from the Powerbox. Rouz and others had their Delta T box fail when powered from the Powerbox. I run it directly into my Digital Loggers IP power switch instead and haven't had a problem at all. USB of course, is completely safe on the Powerbox and that's how my Delta T connects. |
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5.61
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Rouz Astro: I actually plan to print something similar since I just bought a UPB V3 which has more ports and will allow me to use one unit in place of the two I now have for my CDK 14 and refractor (soon to be replaced with an Epsilon). I plan to use PAHT-CF (Carbon fiber High Temp Nylon) since I have an X1 Carbon that will handle that. The material (at least the Bambu version) is apparently not bad to work with, comparatively. Still waiting for it to arrive so stay tuned. |
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Bill Long - Dark Matters Astrophotography: Yes, I ran across some posts about that when I was setting up my 14. I also run a separate 12VDC supply just for the Delta T. I have also found that the USB connection for the Delta T is less than robust in terms of connection. Instead, I ran the old "telephone" style cable with a serial converter plug direct to a old-school serial port connection on the PC motherboard (I am running a purpose built desktop - no piggybacked NUC for me, thank you). It has been bulletproof, has never once failed to connect and you don't have to worry about Windows deciding to play silly buggers with your port assignments. |
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Bill McLaughlin:Bill Long - Dark Matters Astrophotography: I run the USB from the Powerbox through the mount (AP1100) and into an Intel i7 NUC (actual NUC, not a colloquial one) that has been bulletproof for me, and runs on my cabinet and not on the OTA. The NUC has worked so well in the New Mexico desert that I'm deploying one to Chile on Monday to run the new to me CDK20/L500 system I'm bringing online soon. It all runs beautifully on Windows 11 Pro. Bill |
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5.61
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On the fans/delta T issue, I have to agree that for such a great scope and generally great company, they really screwed up the way they control heat and fans. It is almost like one company designed the optics and mechanics and some much less capable company did the heater/fans. It is something that is in desperate need of a total rethink. I use a Nightcrawler on my 14 and have the Delta T. The site is quite humid (not too far from the coast in Ca). That means often great seeing but also lots of humidity and humidity roof closure is common in the winter (especially THIS winter  ). I have had no issues with humidity and the mirrors. If there is any chance the roof will open I have the system set to enable the delta T, even if I am not imaging. For fans, I just run them full on when imaging - direct from the UPB. Looking at the mirrors after a year, they do not appear any worse dirt wise than those on my iDK at home where I can cover them.I still wish they would fix the brain dead system they came up with! |
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Bill Long - Dark Matters Astrophotography: Yes, I may do that as well once I get the new power box installed where I have plenty of ports! |
