Recent content by GeorgeC47

I have not used the Picaxe Editor for a few years. Previously I have run it on Vista and XP with no problem. I installed version 6 on a Windows 7 PC and could not get it to recognise any COM ports. The computer did not appear to even have any COM ports. After hours of searching and trying...

That Murata box of tricks looks ideal! About £10 but that is not a problem. Hippy, my circuit is straight out of the Picaxe manual, except 5V instead of 12V.

My circuit for the dual stepper motor driver for a telescope is complete and works like a treat. The only problem is, the LM7805 regulator gets viciously hot in less than a minute. I want to power the circuit from a portable source and had a 12V battery in mind. The circuit and motors run off...

Can setint monitor two pins (in1 and in2) and generate an interrupt if either input goes high? The manual says that an OR can be done, but I cannot find any more information.

pauseus works great. Using pauseus 4234 I get one rotation in 1050.9 seconds which is only out by 9 seconds over 24 hours. My timing method is to blue tack a sharpened matchstick to the shaft and time it as it passes a line on a piece of paper, cunningly supported by neodymium magnets and a 10p...

I am embarking on another project which is a dual stepper motor controller for a telescope mount. The board has been wired up, and I tested it using 4 LEDs to simulate the 4 stepper coils. The simple test program is as from Manual 3: steps: toggle 4 pause 200 toggle 5...

Thanks eclectic. I am embarking on another astronomy project. I bought a 1970 vintage telescope on a substantially engineered mount. The mount has worm drives but no motors. If I have problems with the code I will certainly be seeking advice here!

I see that this is now replaced with the Picaxe18M. Will an 18M work if put in a circuit designed for an 18X? Can I load an 18X program into an 18M? George

This arrived in the post today. It took 5 minutes to hook this up I added 15cm of wire for the antenna. The device has 4 channels - I have used two. One click on the remote button and the LED comes on. Another click and it goes off. The range so far tested is about 15 metres. Any further...

I have a signal that switches between 0V to 3V. I connected this to a Darlington driver (ULN2803) connected to a 5V relay hoping that the Darlington would activate the relay. Unfortunately the voltage across the relay coils is only 3.46 V which is not enough to trigger it. I have found a...

I started constructing the new circuit for my astronomy dome rotator. After the Picaxe and Darlington chip were on the veroboard I added a buzzer and tested the circuit. Performance was erratic to say the least. I checked my soldering a dozen times but could find no fault. Eventually I found a...

I have cannibalised a toy radio control car to get at the electronics so that I can make a radio link for a project I am working on. I am motorising my telescope observatory so that the dome can be rotated remotely. Only one of the motor outputs will be used for the time being. When the...

For my observatory dome rotator I have a car wiper motor and a Syren motor driver. http://www.active-robots.com/products/motorcon/syren10-details.shtml I intend to use an analogue input to the motor driver. The suggested way is to use a pwm output as in the diagram below. Is this the best way...

I have done some tests with a Sharp IR proximity sensor http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/resources/GP2D12IRSENSOR/GP2Y0A21YK.pdf and intend to use it to monitor the distance between my telescope and the dome opening. Connected to a 4.5V supply the readout voltage is 0.02V when pointing out of...

The interval timer is finished. The use of an LCD makes it so much more user friendly. The length of the exposures can be selected and then each frame has a seconds timer to let you know how far it has got. The left hand button does most of the controlling at the moment. The right hand button...