`Home of TELEPIC DIGITAL SETTING CIRCLES FOR TELESCOPES!`

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TELEPIC (or TELESCOPIC) is a controller that functions as a digital setting circle for an equatorial telescope.
It uses a PIC 16F628A microcontroller chip and four other integrated circuits.

Here is the prototype:

Features:

12 character LED display of a telescopes position in RA and Dec
Uses commercial encoders or home brew Mouse encoders to Digitize position
Simultaneous display of encoders for RA and DEC axis
Save and restore values in EEPROM
16 Navigation stars
8 Save and recall set points for user defined objects on the fly
Real Time clock and siderial time counter
Stopwatch / lap timer mode - 16 time records in EEPROM
Serial data communications with your computer - MAX232 compatible

Credits:
Ideas from all over the net: Nigel Goodwin (RS232)
Ed ? (digital setting circles) etc, 2003

Hardware assignments

12 character LED port: display messages and coordinates using only 3 wires
by shifting (multiplexing) segment data and digit address to two 74HC595 chips;

2 Encoder inputs (4 wire) for RA and Dec encoders

RS232 Serial Receive and Transmit Port

LED lamp output for seconds indicator (1 sec ON, 1 sec OFF)

4 Pushbuttons for mode setting, increment, decrement and OK

Internal Real time clock in case you stay out too late

Siderial clock for RA conversion of hour angle encoder

Stand alone mode. Doesn't need to be connected to a PC.

Further information: see the file telescopic.txt

Download zip file telepic.zip

The zip file contains the assembly code, hex file for PIC programming, pcb schematic and board layout.
You will need a PIC programmer to program the PIC 16f628 controller.
You will also need KICAD to use the pcb and schematic files.

This material is free for personal use only. Please do not use this for mass production or commercial quantities.
Contact me first. I don't come cheap, but all offers will be taken seriously!

The Fine Print !
This HTML page and all contents, text, graphics etc, is the sole property of Anthony M. Hugo MIEAust CPeng, copyright 1997- 2007. Permission is hereby granted to copy this material for personal use or educational use if the teacher isn't looking. Commercial use by corporate entities, colourful sporting identities and all you rich folks requires specific permission from me. So there!