Pan and tilt antenna mount?

Jay Kickliter

Anyone have experience suggestions for pan/tilt mounts? Particularly, I need a mount that can handle ~12 patch antenna with a couple other lighter items.

This looks interesting, and cheap, but the mount is a little too small for my purposes:

cgi.ebay.com.sg/Pan-Tilt-Mount-for-PTZ-Camera-Stepper-Motor-Driven_W0QQitemZ220357412854QQihZ012QQcategoryZ48839QQcmdZViewItem

Everything else I could find on the web where really expensive commercial units. I imagine that these things aren't too hard to build, but I just don't have access to the right machining tools.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

Jay,

Search Google for alt-azimuth telescope mounts. They're a lot less than expensive than, say, ham radio azimuth/elevation rotators. Just make sure, if you buy one, that the slew rate will be fast enough to track your target.

-Phil

Philldapill

Strange you mentioned that Phil... I was talking to my dad about his Telescope yesterday, and he explained to me what alt-azimuth is... Never heard it before then, and now I see again the next day...

As for the mount, I've got a TON of NEMA 23 motors left over from a big buy I did. Would these work for your application, Nick?

Tim-M

Jay,

Take a look at what ServoCity has to offer for pan and tilt gear here:

http://www.servocity.com/html/pan_tilt_roll___accessories.html

Most of this is standard hobby servo or standard hobby servo signal driven so interface with Parallax based control is easy. Let us know if this fills the bill.

Tim

rjo_

Jay,

That was a really nice link... thanks.

If Parallax would offer something like this... I'd buy it[noparse]:)[/noparse]

Rich

Jay Kickliter

Thanks for the info about alt-azimuth mounts. I'd never head of them.

Servo city also looks like a good resource, if not for an antenna mount.

jjanes

Tim-M said...
Jay,

Take a look at what ServoCity has to offer for pan and tilt gear here:

http://www.servocity.com/html/pan_tilt_roll___accessories.html

Most of this is standard hobby servo or standard hobby servo signal driven so interface with Parallax based control is easy. Let us know if this fills the bill.

Tim

Servocity is one hell of a website!

Thanks.

jj

CannibalRobotics

I've built some using worm gear drives that use encoders for speed and potentiometers as position sensors.
They have a very smooth action and can track motion pretty well. Servos and stepper driven systems can be choppy in the movement depending on the gearing of the stepper and/or the resolution of the servo.

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