This is my first attempt at doing this setup. Antenna is controlled by a Parallax Servo Controller and Hi-Tec Servos commanded by the Orbitron Satellite Tracking program as well as some software glue to make it all talk to each other. The only note I had myself was that the servos and mount could be improved but it does track accurately and it does work. This finishes 2 years of off/on work. Props to www.youtube.com Comments welcome
Video Rating: 5 / 5
video is too dark, show close ups of the rotor and interface electronics
Nice. I have been thinking about as similar setup using an arduino and two servos. 🙂
@mikewm9v : You’re right. The electronics are a Parallax PSC USB version controlling a couple of Hi-Tec servos tossed into some plastic electrical wall boxes and mounted on a camera tripod. I just moved so all of it is in various boxes but the next version needs a stronger metal geared servos and replacement of the plastic electrical boxes with something more solid.
@mikewm9v : …..
Afterwards, I need to rethink how it attaches to the antenna. The stock Arrow Antenna has a tapped hole where the grip would be. I’m finding that if I mount it to the servo there, the servo cannot maintain enough torque to keep it at 0 elevation let alone at any other pitch. In the video, I tapped a couple holes at one of the rounded corners of the square stock just behind where the 70cm feed is located closer to the center of gravity.
@Dreamlgider : You probably could easily enough. The software I’m using is Orbitron which has a open sourceness about it. The driver is about 100 lines of Delphi code that only took me a couple years to get around and finishing 🙂 Only one bug in the code that I’ve found and that’s when it tracks from 359 to 001. Every now and then it will send the antenna AZ into Exorcist mode and start spinning even though the code is trapped. Something to figure out with the next version…