Home Made Radio Telescope

I think the trick with prototyping is to get a working lash-up going. Then refine it. It's surprising how long you can bumble along with something made from binder twine and ply wood.

There is a guy on UFOCasebook called Cliff who is into astronomy. I think he is just optical, but you never know.
 
I don't know if you have one of these, but I bought one and only by good fortune did I come across an article on it's problem.



Worth a watch.
 
Wow that's nasty, did you replace the power supply of add the earthed connector?
I have often wondered about the US AC mains. So often just two pins, active and neutral.
All aussie stuff is 3 pin Earthed and 240v
That's a nasty bite i can tell you, I have been bitten many times.
When I was a kid working on old B/W TVs I used to use my finger as a multi meter because I didn't have a real one. lol
Young and stupid.

Our 3 phase industrial stuff if 415V
Our low power mains always has 3x240v phases, 120 degrees apart.
Do the math on that any you get 415V


When I did my cabler's license, 70% of the final exam was on earthing an potential difference associated with it, and it had a requirement of 80% or over to pass. Super tricky with lots of weird situations.

Nifty little function generator, I only have one of these, an oldie but a goodie.
Not much use for my astronomy project but OK for amps and stuff.

Most importantly it looks cool on the workbench with lots of knobs ;)
People see it and think....geeze he must be clever lol
If only they knew :)

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I added an earth. This is one of the problems with Switch Mode PSU's. Linear is a lot quieter, but heavy.

As you probably know, in the UK we have the three pin plug/socket for the mains. Chunky but almost fool proof.
And a nominal 230 Volt single phase supply to most houses. Industry is three phase 415 Volt. My first 'real' job was as an apprentice at a company of industrial electricians.

The single phase supply posed a problem when I acquired a lathe from my last company. It was three phase.

So I cobbled together a 'local power station' using a 230 to 415 (Nominal) transformer, and then used capacitors to create a third phase. This runs a 'pony motor' that provides the power to the three phase system After that it works just like any other three phase system. It works well. I did need to juggle the capacitors a bit to get the phases more or less equal. Also to allow for the start and run cap requirement being different. The beauty of three phase motors is the ease of which you can reverse them. The trick is to make sure your contactor interlocks prevent you switching on both forward and reverse at the same time; that would be very nasty.
 
You all may find this interestin (it's long, 3 hour plus. Best get in some snacks) but quite good. Some nice radio telescopes included.

 
HAL said:
I added an earth. This is one of the problems with Switch Mode PSU's. Linear is a lot quieter, but heavy.

As you probably know, in the UK we have the three pin plug/socket for the mains. Chunky but almost fool proof.
And a nominal 230 Volt single phase supply to most houses. Industry is three phase 415 Volt. My first 'real' job was as an apprentice at a company of industrial electricians.

The single phase supply posed a problem when I acquired a lathe from my last company. It was three phase.

So I cobbled together a 'local power station' using a 230 to 415 (Nominal) transformer, and then used capacitors to create a third phase. This runs a 'pony motor' that provides the power to the three phase system After that it works just like any other three phase system. It works well. I did need to juggle the capacitors a bit to get the phases more or less equal. Also to allow for the start and run cap requirement being different. The beauty of three phase motors is the ease of which you can reverse them. The trick is to make sure your contactor interlocks prevent you switching on both forward and reverse at the same time; that would be very nasty.
Click to expand...
Bloody hell what a great solution, mini power station lol, Are your laws OK with that. I reckon here in OZ Powercore would have a convulsion. Going to have to do some googling though, you have my devious mind ticking.

Although we have all three phases passing houses here in OZ we only hook into one phase. Years ago I bought a few acres on the outskirts of town and it had smallish industrial style shed on it, 8m x 25 m x 2 story plus a bit.
I converted it into a home over a few years, Soon as I opened the fuse box I noticed that we had all three phases connected in.
Very Handy. But the Hilarious thing was, powercore must distribute the load across the 3 phases, geographically and load based I imagine. But whoever wired my shed up, put our mains on a different phase to every one else for miles around. So 99% of any power outs in the area didnt effect us as ours was not the under load phase.

We would have our lights and Musc going when the rest of the are were hunting for candles. I knew why, I pretended not to though to have fu with the neighbours.
 
HAL said:
You all may find this interestin (it's long, 3 hour plus. Best get in some snacks) but quite good. Some nice radio telescopes included.

Click to expand...

Not available in OZ hahaha, is to me, will click on the VPN tonight and become a local. See you at the Pub ;)
 
Some site won't let you on if they see you have a VPN. I think this may be one; not sure.

I occasionally use one to get onto some American sites.

The power station doesn't present any problem for he generating company. They see it as just a normal load. And it is only small, draws about 5 Amp max from the single phase. Plugs into a 13 Amp socket, just like my kettle.

I was considering driving a three phase motor from a spare Diesel engine and configuring it as a generator. Seems it isn't too hard to do. But I really don't have the usage to justify the effort. Could be useful as combined heat and power in winter though.
 
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