Recent content by bryan.lynch

I am impressed! Linuxman, you really have made some headway on this project! I'm very impressed with what you have prototyped thus far. I like the idea of the coffee can top. Very similar to the optical method, but using magnetic flux instead of light. I have seen this used with hall-effect...

The main reason that I didn't go forward with the AMT solution is that I don't yet have a VBOX or GBOX to see if it would work. The reed switch was a solution that would be easy to test (with a test light, or DVM). Anole raised some concern with the weather resistance of that device, and I can...

Haven't made any progress yet Hey guys, unfortunately I have not made any progress on this project as of yet. I did receive the reed switch that I posted about in #8 of this thread, but it looks like it is going to require a pretty strong magnet to activate it. I did find a source of small...

Does anyone have a definitive answer on how many counts the GBOX will do from one end to the other? I'd hate to overdo it on the counts and outrun the limits of it.

I think I may have found another solution - incremental rotary encoders. I pulled the small nylon pinion gear from the end of the main shaft on the Birdview motor last night and found that the diameter of the shaft is roughly 1/4 inch. A company by the name of CUI makes a modular rotary encoder...

Alright, I ran the mount from one end to the other (about 160 degrees) and determined that the main shaft makes 52 revolutions. If I use the 60 pole magnet that will give me 3120 pulses from one end to the other. I think that will give me enough resolution to position accurately. That's about 20...

My gearbox is the 36:1 ratio, but I never could figure out why the original kit specified that it would only work with the 70:1.... The large worm gear is where the magnet wheel is, and that turns the same number of times from horizon to horizon regardless of how many turns the motor and...

I've attached a couple of pictures of the magnet wheel that I am talking about purchasing. It's silly how similar it looks to the one that was in your kit. I noticed in your instructions it said that it was a 24 pole magnet, so I think the 30 pole will in fact work. Thanks for sending the...

Linuxman, thanks for your reply. I do think that whatever I use will be put on the end of the worm gear where the old pinion is for the potentiometer based setup. I like the idea of the slots in the large gear, but I'm not sure it would turn fast enough (since it's geared down) to give enough...

I recently acquired a solid Birdview with the H-H mount and the huge pole that it mounts on. The motor has the old potentiometer sensor that does not work with anything other than the Birdview motor controller. I contacted Skyvision to see about purchasing the upgrade kit, but I was informed...