Dome Control Hardware

There are a number of commercial systems on the market to control the dome (opening and closing the two-door shutters, and slaving the dome to the telescope so that they are both pointing in the same direction.) However they are rather expensive for the piddling amount of electronics and driver software involved. I was just about to reach out and 'touch' a friend to see if he could weave his magic (and soldering iron) to come up with his own control system, when I stumbled across the LesveDome group, run by Pierre de Ponthiere, who had developed dome control hardware based on a generic off-the-shelf USB controller board. The USB board is used to control a number of power relays for activating the dome shutter and azimuth motors, and to take inputs from a number of sensors and limit-switches. The ASCOM compliant driver software is still under active development by Pierre but is fully stable in its present incarnation. It's also dirt cheap!

There is a registration fee of €30 for the driver software (after 60 days free trial) and the USB controller board can be picked up either ready assembled or in kit form for around €56 including shipping. Being a consummate fiddler, I plumbed for the kit, which looks like this:


The kit is a doddle to assemble for anyone who can wield a soldering iron safely without putting out one of their own eyes or accidently setting fire to the cat, and requires no knowledge of electronics. After sorting out all the components and checking that nothing was missing, thirty minutes saw the unpopulated circuit board transformed from this:

...into this:

The kit comes with a CD of interface software for general use and for testing the completed board. I bought the USB Interface Board Kit from Ramsey Electronics in the USA using PayPal and had it in my hands less than a week later. Excellent service!

The next step is to knock up a small circuit board with the power relays and other ancillary gubbins - more on that later.