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Lets make a long
story short. Over a decade ago I designed and built several tracking
mounts for my SLR and DSLR cameras to follow the stars. Unlike
any others, they were all computer controlled and produced shots
that were not only unique, but recieved world wide attention
- Even from NASA. Over the years the home brew optical shaft
encoder I made from a hand cut piece of plexiglass and black
electrical tape for sectors wore out and fell apart. Recently
I had to use this unique instrument to capture meteors and comets.
Total fail. The encoder was gone. I spent about an hour drawing
this new one in Solid Works and a day later was installing it
in the mount. It now works BETTER THAN IT EVER DID. If your interested,
here is a write up on its design.
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The
encoder wheel consists of 24 open and 24 black sectors. The holes
in the disk are to fit the existing hardware. Rendered with Solidworks
Visualize. |
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The
old plexiglass disk on the left in my hand, the new one drawn
on the screen in Solid Works. You can see the missing black sectors
on the old disk. Obviously it did not track well... |
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Installed on the
tracking mount on the lower left. I made it the exact dimensions
of the old plexiglass disk.
Here is a shot taken with the new encoder
wheel.
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