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Monday, July 4, 2022

I Would Not Try to Build a Go-To Telescope Clock Drive

But a conventional sidereal clock drive does not seem so hard.  I believe it needs to turn once per sidereal day (23h 56m 4.091s and yes I had to look that up) or 1 revolution per 86,164 seconds.  You obviously do not start with a 3600 rpm motor and eight zillion gear reductions.  I found a .6 RPM 12 VDC motor on Amazon.  Now I just need to find a series of gears to do a 2393 reduction in speed.

4 comments:

  1. Once upon a time, the answer was a worm turning every four minutes, plus a 359 tooth worm gear. An AC clock drive motor was used. I have a couple of Byers worm drive sets new in the box around here somewhere.

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    1. This is an interesting possibility. I can probably find a 4 rpm motor. If you can email me about that Byers set clayton at claytoncramer.com

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    2. What you want is a 1/4 reduction off a 1 rpm motor; that is, the worm would turn once in four minutes. That times the 359 tooth worm gear yields 1436 minutes for a sidereal day, vs 1440 minutes for a solar day.

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  2. Gear las is an issue. Trust me.

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