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TeenAstro is a Telescope controller for Equatorial and Altazimuth mounts (incluing Dobson). It is a tribute to the FS2 system from Michael Koch.
TeenAstro is an open source, open hardware do-it-yourself DIY project, forked from OnStep, the first mature controller based on Arduino hardware. The fork aims to focus on one hardware setup, to be easier to build, instead of the large versatility of OnStep who can be scary when have to choose between all the versions available.
The primary goal of this flavour of TeenAstro hardware is to get the smallest board possible, and by extension the smallest case.
This is achieved by onboarding some modular parts, such as stepper drivers or power supply, in a almost fully SMD board. But that comes with tradeoffs, the main one being the lack of ability to change parts if something goes wrong.
It started in the Great Spring 2020 containment, and the first prototype resulted in an all-in-one functional product, with 2-axis drivers, in an 80x40mm board. But a few things were left out during development, like "fit into a box" ...
The Great Fall 2020 containment yielded the second prototype, and too many followed ...
As a side project started with a joke ("Can it fit into a tic-tac box ?"), the SuperRedux flavor followed a different way from the first draw, with stacking boards upto the Teensy board, and goes to a even smaller product. It works, but was a nightmare to built.
At 2022 spring, the final version of v3.0 is ready to build
All the features of TeenAstro regular boards are present in the v3.0 version
- Compatible with TeenAstro software
- ASCOM and INDI USB driver
- MicroMod Teensy (from Sparkfun) to reduce footprint
- TMC2660 motor driver
- up to 25V power voltage
- up to 3A stepper motor
- Polarity inversion protection
- focuser no longer require second Teensy
- on-board GPS
- on-board WiFi module (in SHC)
Some improvements were made from the publicly released version 2.4, based on the 2.5 work (teensy 4.0)
- Teensy 4.0 new board, more powerfull CPU, but in 3.3V only, and with a different pins mapping
- on-board stepper drivers
- smaller board, which make possible direct integration into the mount enclosure
All necessary files are available in this repo, so you can build your own easily. Don't forget to take a look into the project homepage The software is available from TeenAstro repo
The boards were designed to be assembled by JLCpcb, a Chinese specialist in prototypes (the gerbers files follows their specs and the list of components is selected from their catalog).
A additional part list from Farnell is provided. Some parts are specific, but there most are common components which can be bought from any seller
Further instructions can be found into the dedicated sub-folders
Questions and discussion should be on the mailing list (also accessible via the web) at the TeenAstro Group.
GPL v3
lordzurp based on great work of Charles Lemaire and Howard Dutton (and a lot of contributors)