Around Waynos house

[wayno]

I guess that was not all the photos, here it is right now.


Here is one of the 3 Datsun valve springs I use for collimation, see the white inside the spring.


This is what the white is, it goes around the collimation bolts to hold the spring in position, hold the bottom centered and the top also stays where it is supposed to be, otherwise the spring tries walking off the edge of the 1" tube it is resting/mounted on.

[wayno]

Well I was not happy, the primary mirror cell was too high, the pads holding the primary mirror were almost 7" from the base plywood and that was as low as I could get it, I think I mentioned I had an idea, well my idea is now reality.

I made another new mirror cell base frame without cross pieces and drilled all the holes with that jig I made for the other one, I then added extensions to the corners near the wiffle tree mounts, these extensions are for the top of the collimation springs, then I added upper spring connections to the frame, here is what it looks like.





Here is the other corner, what I would call the back, I did not clean up the welds, this one I am going to re-do or just grind off as I don't even need it.



Here it is with the side bearing pieces, I need to do a small modification to mount them as they will help make movements smoother.



Here you can see with the primary mirror installed the primary mirror face is below the top of the frame, normally the mirror is 3" or more above that frame.



Here is my clearance of the wiffle tree mount, it is almost hitting the plywood of the base.



Here is the primary mirror almost hitting the wingnut holding the top base assembly to the bottom base assembly.



Here is the leg on the bottom of the ground base assembly, it is way too tall, I will buy shorter legs.



Before I did this modification my primary mirror face would likely be close to 14" off the ground, it is now 7.25" off the ground, with shorter legs it will be under 7" off the ground, but I still have a lot to do before this is finished, I am considering putting my sandwich mirror in this setup and modifying my other 16" dob for this mirror doing the same thing, maybe I would not need to stand on a cement block to look thru the eyepiece when looking close to straight up.

[wayno]

I did a lot of stuff today, but most of it was clean up stuff I already made or I installed something already made.

Here is the side bearing strips I made, I installed them today, you can see I drilled them for screws, then I counter sunk the holes so the head of the screw head would be lower than the surface, I did this on the white stuff also that takes most the weight via the side bearings.




The white strip is the altitude bearing surface, the black strip keeps it centered.


You can see the close white Teflon piece with the white strip resting on it, farther away you can see the black strip resting against the white piece of Teflon keeping the upper assembly centered, it could fall off the tracks without all this stuff, but I can lift it right out if needed.


The white piece is the Teflon the black strip rubs against, it is textured so it works well with Teflon.


Here I cleaned up the spring tops and bases as I rough cut them in place, I pulled it apart and made it look like someone that knew what they were doing made them, it was the first time I ever did this type of cell, I also bought $40.00 worth of parts, the 3 knobs you can see were $7.50 each.






I also cut a 3rd of the legs off which was about a quarter inch, every amount counts when one is building it to be low.

Everything you see except the outsides and white strips is going to be painted flat black.

[wayno]

I was having issues on how to deal with the primary mirror clip to hold the primary mirror in its cell, so I made a change, I made all three extensions but thought I could get away with only using 2 of them, I was wrong, this is much better.









I also made my wiffle trees to support the primary mirror when tilted down which is most the time.

The cell today.



The cell with Primary mirror installed.



Close up of the wiffle tree.



The primary mirror clip both closed and open.





Everything needs to be painted flat black, but I may remove some side bearing material, so need to figure that out first, I also may change the collimation adjustment out for something taller which will require a complete change of how they work, I am making this shit up as I go.

I will also be starting on the upper tube assembly tomorrow, I need to make the rings first, I bought the plywood today.

[wayno]

I had a few hours of work today cleaning out gutters, so progress on this was limited, I made the UTA shell today, tomorrow I will try and make the truss tube anchors, I have 2 but need 4 of them, I made a jig for this, I suspect if I look long enough, I will find it which will make things easier, to make them I have to cut the blocks, then I need to drill the 2 holes at an angle, then I need to drill the mount holes, drill the clamp hole, install the blind nuts, then cut it in half, then drill the centering holes for each truss tube that will require the truss tubs to be drilled also.

Here are the photos of the UTA.











When I figure out the focuser that I do not have yet I will drill the holes for that, I also need a spider assembly, I believe I can make that myself, I did some testing on that a year ago but a set of spiders showed up in the telescope forum classifieds for cheap so I bought and used them last time.

[wayno]

I did some more today, I made the truss clamp blocks for the UTA, I used the jig I made over a year ago for the other 16" dob.











Once the truss clamps were installed I put it together with the too long truss poles that need to be cut to length, but I will do that after a focuser is installed where I can cut and test, cut and test like I did last time and I think that worked out alright.

Here is the truss clamp in action.



Here it is almost hitting the ceiling.



And here it is tilted resting on my short step ladder, earlier I had the primary mirror installed and it almost balanced, but it has no focuser and the truss tubes are likely around 20" too long, taking off 20" will likely change things for the better.



I forgot that I also need to make the spiders so I can install the secondary mirror, I cannot test anything without the secondary, might start on that tomorrow, the next week is supposed to be wet.

[wayno]

Well I made heavy duty spiders for now, had to because I am going to use an 88mm(3.5") secondary, I also made the secondary collimation accessories that make it possible to collimate the dob, everything you see was made from scratch except the nuts and bolts, but I did have to drill and tap 5+ holes.

[wayno]

I finished up the UTA and secondary housing today for the most part, need longer collimation knobs but if I make a new larger plate it will move the knobs away from the center shaft, I will be able to use what I made for the 14.5" if I choose to use that other base assembly I made to make that one lighter, but I have not used it since finishing the 16" F/4.42 dob, maybe I should try selling that one, it is so heavy.

The Moonlight focuser is also installed.







I need to install the secondary mirror and collimate the scope the way it is, but I cannot do it inside as the truss tubes are too tall, so I will have to do it outside, or at least I will not do it until I am ready to focus on the task as I do not want to make any mistakes, last time I made a mistake and cut the truss tubes too short, don't want to do that this time., I had to make a taller UTA last time, I do not have the materials to do that again.

[Taterhead]

I tell you I don’t know if you knew a lot about telescopes when you started all this but you’ve definitely learned a lot.

[wayno]

Thankyou Taterhead, yes I have learned a lot, over the last year and a half.

I made that secondary collimation plate with the knobs too close to the center, I made another plate today before dinner, this is what I had.



And this is what I have now.





You can see the knobs are way farther out from the center, it is easy to use them now, I also installed the secondary mirror in its housing, I cut the truss tubes to 56"(2" too long just in case) and I had to cut 2.5" more off them, but clouds moved in before I could test it, I did look at the Orion Nebula but I had to put the eyepiece inside the drawtube because the truss tubes were too long even after I removed all the focuser spacers, but it did come into focus, we shall see if 2.5" was enough, I do not think it was too much as I still have 1.75" of focuser travel to use, not sure if the weather is going to cooperate tomorrow night to do another test.

Right now it is a hassle to move around, I have not dealt with that aspect yet, I will likely put wheels on it also.

[wayno]

I sold the Mini today.

[DRIVEN]

Congrats! As nice as it was, I suspect you won't miss it much.

[wayno]

I likely will not miss it too much, tomorrow I will drive this one over.

[DRIVEN]

To sell or just for fun?

[wayno]

I put it up for a lot of money, got one offer of $10,000 delivered to Medford OR, I would have taken that offer at the swap meet, but the offer was after they left via text so I believe it was bullshit.

I had an appraiser tell me it was worth around $20,000, and he told me my U320 was worth triple that sight unseen from my description.

The NL320 truck was an attention getter, when I was around there was always someone looking at it, I have decided to drive the Roadster there tomorrow, I will put a high price in it, it was my first Datsun, I bought it October, 1995 and daily drove it for several years.

So I have trouble cutting square cuts with my cutting disc freehand(1" to 2"square, rectangles, or tubes), so today I seen a small metal cutting chop saw(6" cutting disc) for $10.00 and I bought it, while I still had it in my hand I found a Ridgid 12"+ for $25.00 that looked new, the guy selling it said it still had the original disc, they both worked when I tested them at home, there was another Makita 10" maybe that was almost as heavy as the Ridgid for $10.00 with a nice blade on it that I am positive was worth more that the asking price, I might buy it tomorrow, I bought a lot of small tools today, a Lazy Susan, 3 old school wire crimpers(the good ones), a box of "Butt Splicers", 4 respirator cartridges that I could not even find at a paint store, a nice test light, a huge wire hinge for my trailer drop gate for $5.00 and assorted ratchet wrenches that were no more than $2.00 each, there were not as many people there this year and the food vendors where a joke, what few there were, I could not find them Chicken Strips and fries I normally buy once a year at this Portland Swap Meet.

The weather has been alright so far, only light rain a couple times, certainly not hot, warm enough for me to take my coat off one time today.

[DRIVEN]

Sounds like you've been finding deals. Good luck with the Roadster today.

[wayno]

Today was not like any Sunday I have ever seen, half the people were gone, it was easy to get out every evening.

If anyone looked at my Roadster I was not there to see it, I spent $10.00 today, I mostly walked around with the vendor next to me and watched him buy stuff, he just looks for stuff he thinks he can sell next year and make a couple bucks, I told him he has issues and that I do now believe he has way more stuff than I do, I did not believe it until I spent a few hours with him.

[wayno]

I made some progress the last couple days, more thinking than doing, but the new dob is portable now, I made some multi-purpose fittings, here is a photo dump, if you have questions just ask.

[Taterhead]

I’m a dummy and you’ve probably explained it already but what makes this one different than the other big one you built? Is it just built differently or different mirrors for seeing farther or focusing better? Like I said, I’m sure you said before but I can’t remember. Either way, I enjoy seeing the ingenuity and practicality you come up with.

[wayno]

There is only one reason I built this, because I had an extra primary mirror that I bought just after I bought the sandwich primary mirror, I bought it because I thought if I did not like the sandwich mirror I would use this one, but I like the sandwich mirror a lot so there was no reason to let this one sit around gathering dust, I had an extra secondary mirror also.

I built this to try and make a low rider, meaning I wanted to be able to stand flat footed on the ground and look thru the eyepiece looking straight up(zenith), I succeeded, I actually have to lower my head to look thru the eyepiece, I will either use this one with my sandwich mirror or I will take my other one apart and do what I did to this one to get the eyepiece lower, I have not decided yet, then what will happen is I will likely sell the one with this very thick primary mirror that weighs more than double my sandwich mirror, it takes hours for this one to cool to ambient temperature.

I am improving my design as I can, and learning as I go, I am also trying to keep myself busy.