My Exploradome observatory featured a DIY motor drive setup controlled through a software program called Lesvedome. It worked well and I want to do basically the same DIY solution with my new dome, except without the Lesvedome software itself, because it is a Windows only program. There are a couple of Linux-based software solutions that will do the job, it’s just a matter of testing them to see which I prefer. But first I need to build the hardware.
The first task is building the azimuth drive. I had components for a simple motor mount made at my local metal fabrication shop and I need to drill and assemble the base plates, and then install the motor. This is more or less the same style motor mount Ash uses, but it’s made specifically for the gear motor I plan to use. The hinge shown is a commercial grade door hinge, which is much higher quality than typical door hinges. I learned from my ExploraDome drive not to use a cheap hinge, because it will rattle incessantly when the dome is in motion.
Drilling and assembling the mount is done, and the motor is bolted on. The two hinged plates are spring loaded and all that’s left to do before running tests is mounting getting bolted onto the dome ring and installing a drive sprocket on the motor shaft. Once it’s manually rotating the dome I’ll need to build the gray coder for integrating it with the motor driver.
The motor drive is installed. I tested it using a 12-Volt 8-Amp gel cell battery. The drive is actually working better than I hoped. The gel cell doesn’t break a sweat powering the motor. The only noise is the hum of the motor and some noise from the sprocket teeth in the gear track, which is normal and completely acceptable. The gear track rotates smoothly.
I was worried about motor torque possibly slamming the teeth into the track at startup, but the slow speed due to the gear ratio, and the spring loading of the mount base allowing it to give a little, has eliminated any such worries and it’s not an issue at all.
The dome completes on full rotation in approximately 3.25 minutes. That’s a rate of 1-foot in a little over 4 seconds.
Page last updated 3/13/2025