Equatorial Platform for Dobsonian Telescope

thingiverse

Solidworks design of parts for the Equatorial platform I designed. This is similar to the Vertical North Segment (VNS) design, but the segments are curved back elliptically so they always contact the drive wheel in the same place. The southern bearing is very simple, but makes the platform longer than it would be with a more complex design. I'd eventually like to improve this part of the design. I believe I've included most of the .STL files except Motor_Bracket2 which got corrupted. The gcode for that is available in the folder with the rest of the gcode for people with The Prusa i3 MK3. Notice only one of the northern segments has tabs and the ski-jump stop. I simply mirror this one in the slicer. I use a ~6.4mm rod as the axle for the drive and idle wheels and the south bearing. Electronic hardware used: [Usongshine Nema 17 stepper motor with 1:100 gearbox from](https://www.amazon.com/Usongshine-Geared-Stepper-Motor-Ratio/dp/B07THK89G2) [Pololu Tic T834 Stepper Motor Controller](https://www.pololu.com/product/3132) [Arduino Nano with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WV59YTZ) The Arduino code is included. I connect using the Android app "LightBlue® — Bluetooth Low Energy" and pass numbers as strings to represent speed.