| Project by Dan Katz | posted 12-06-2014 02:24 AM | 5887 views | 1 time favorited | 4 comments |  |
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Hi Everyone,
It’s been a while since I’ve shown any of my work. Been pretty busy. Like a lot of you out there, woodworking started as a hobby and then turned into a full time job. A while back I decided to get into Astronomy ‘as a hobby’
I bought a ZHUMELL Dobsonian 12” telescope and built an observation deck outside my shop.
You know how woodworkers are, we like to solve problems. I was having difficulty steering my telescope so I began to experiment with the idea of a slow motion control for the DOBSONIAN. After several proto-types I came up with
what I am now marketing as ZLOMOTION. You can check it out at zlomotion.com
Merry Christmas Everyone!
-- VillageCarver,Chattanooga
4 comments so far
BTimmons
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2303 posts in 3497 days
#1 posted 12-06-2014 05:29 PM
Interesting. So does it use hydraulic pistons to slow the altitude/azimuth movement?
-- Brian Timmons - http://www.BigTWoodworks.com
Dan Katz
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96 posts in 3651 days
#2 posted 12-07-2014 10:03 AM
Hi Brian,
The base tension knob is loosened and the belt tension is all that is needed,
and can be adjusted via the aluminum plate. The Altitude device works by gravity.
The telescope is adjusted to be top heavy and the bearings that are on the scope are loosened.
If you haven’t been to the website, >zlomotion.com, go there and checkout the YouTube videos.
Thanks for your interest. Do you have a scope?
Dan
-- VillageCarver,Chattanooga
BTimmons
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2303 posts in 3497 days
#3 posted 12-08-2014 08:10 PM
I have a 10” Dob on a homemade mount. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.
-- Brian Timmons - http://www.BigTWoodworks.com
Woodknack
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13550 posts in 3392 days
#4 posted 12-10-2014 06:37 AM
Nice work on that scope. You can’t see anything where I live now but years back in the country had a simple 6” refractor. It was fun but even with a 6” I couldn’t track well enough by hand. The moon was impressive though.
-- Rick M, http://thewoodknack.blogspot.com/
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