Update; Celestron tracking mount

Bronze bearings, chromoly axle shaft, and is that a stepper motor? Now we're getting somewhere...

Shelter!

Very busy, but here's the answer to a previous question: Henry Shires Tarptent Sublite. 19.5oz, plus another 5oz in poles (I don't do trekking poles). Packs down to 14x4" roll and apparently is pretty good even in heavy weather.

I also had a chance to throw most of the other stuff in the bag and get an idea of the weight involved. I'm not sure if I weighed things incorrectly at some point, forgot stuff, or what but everything I thought was on my list plus an extra lens came out to 16.2lbs. Which would be very, very nice.

Improving the Celestron CG2 tracking mount

When you take something apart and put it back together a few times you start to question just why the designer did some of the things they did. There are probably good reasons (some of which would be out of the designer’s control, like price, production formats, assembly costs, etc). However when you’re not so limited by these things…some of the results really stand out. No hate on the designer, they did make a tracking mount that wasn't all bad for wonderfully cheap.

So allow me to present the problem:

If you have a looksie at this diagram you’ll see that because the main barrel of the tracking mount is cast the tolerances on certain sections are not very good. Even if they were it would still be difficult to get exactly what is needed using soft aluminum.

Rotation in direction A there is the enemy of tracking (well there are other things too, of course, but this is the one I’m poking at). The way the original mount is designed this play is controlled either by tension in direction B, or the tolerances between the axle shaft and the walls of the cast tube it resides in. Since there are no bearings B cannot be very good, and because this is cast A cannot be very good.

What really strikes me about this is that they cast this long tube, which if they had made use of could have helped this issue a great deal. My solution will add a little more weight back in to the fixture but I think it’s worth the sacrifice:

Longer shaft means play has less effect, and tighter tolerances are made by using pre-made bronze sleeve bearings on either end. As much as I’d love to put in precision tapered needle bearings? This is not the place for that. In total it will cost me $7 to change these parts out, and I will need to do a small amount of machine work. Parts are on order…

Double rainbow

All the way across the sky. For rizzle. It was an intense morning.

More weight savings- the old fashioned way...

Replacing gear with lighter gear is both expensive and doesn't work for everything. Especially when there is no equivalent that was ever intended to be light and packable. This is where it's nice to have a CNC machine and a lathe on hand:

I attacked my poor star tracker again; this time with the above tools. I cut sections out, lathed down the worm gear center, shaved whole sections off, and even hollowed out the heavy elevation studs. Total I managed to cut another 155 grams out of the assembly, or 0.34lbs. There will be more coming out when I change out the tracking assembly for one of my own design, but for now this is no longer the heaviest thing in my pack. That might be more of a mental win than anything. Actually it now weighs less than my sleeping bag. Oh, and it looks much cooler too:

(tracking motor not attached in this particular photo, but accounted for in weight)

Off Topic: Sleep Data

Random, off topic post for a Friday; I got some results back from a sleep study and I thought I would share. Or at least share the data; I'm not sure what the data means yet.

• A normal sleep cycle (REM -> slow wave -> REM) averages about 90 minutes. My sleep cycles are more than double that.
• The majority of my REM time happens after the alarm. While it's not unusual to have some REM time in those early moments...long term waking dreams is kind of a strange thing.
• REM did not transition to waking state before the gear was turned off. Which sort of makes me wonder how long after "wake-up" I'm still in a waking dream state.
• Actual sleep time is way below average. Much of this has to do with very long time to fall asleep.
• Proportions are pretty far off too: very little deep sleep proportional to the statistical mean.

And there you go....

Total we clipped a bit less than half a pound out of the rail. Not amazing, but definitely noticeable. Also...it looks really cool.

Do unto others..

Last night was about working on one of the other people's camera hardware. He purchased an aluminum linear rail system that he wants to modify to be a portable rig. Unfortunately it was made to be extremely heavy; presumably to give it some dampening power. Wonderful on a set, but a huge pain for what we have in mind.

We've started shaving some weight out of it using the CNC:

The rail is 5/16" thick for the center support. Really, really overkill, but he wants to be careful to reduce the stiffness as little as possible. My solution is to cut grid out of the areas between bolt holes. How far he wants to take it from there I'm not sure, but it's a good start:

We finished two of the sections last night, plan is to do the other two tonight. Always pleased to have the CNC fire up and do everything it's supposed to. That's one of those projects that keeps coming back to me and letting us do things we would not have considered before.

first shot at saving some weight...

It seems strange to me that my tools section is more than my survival section. I'm starting there.

Tools, 1856 grams:

• Gerber Multitool, 170 grams
• Modified Gerber FAST pocket knife, 87 grams
• Fenix E21 flashlight, 139 grams
• 100 Feet of ParaCord, 180 grams
• Mission Workshop Rambler backpack, 1280 grams

I've had that same multitool for about 15 years; it's not heavy, but it's not light either. Plus most of what I need out of it is the pliers, and a little flexability in case something doesn't go well in the field. It actually has another knife that I don't use because, well, it isn't very good and the FAST is very good.

So Item 1: Leatherman Style PS-8. Clocking in at just 45 grams.

Second item, the FAST knife. I'm keeping this, but I might shave a little more weight out of it. Will come back to that.

Third item: flashlight. Fenix for Fenix, this is the LD01 at 28 grams including battery:

Fourth Item, paracord: I can't see myself needing more than 50 feet. Cut that weight in half.

And last, and most painfully, I love my Mission Workshop backpack. It's a fantastic bag. I can't say enough about it, except that for the volume it weighs too much. That makes it the perfect bag for everything except this. Sadly I think it will have to stay home.
GoLite Peak, 625 grams without the hip straps (which drive me crazy on every bag I've ever had with them).

Total savings? 981 grams, or 2.1lbs. I wish I could have that kind percent savings across the board, but something tells me this is the easy one...

Food and Shelter

I'm struggling with choices. Conventional tent? Bivvy? Hammock? All three can provide rain shelter. The bivvy would be the most portable, and provide the most warmth. The hammock needs least consideration for ground area. The tent...well a tent is just a normal all around good idea and is least likely to have condensation issues. The hammock is also the heaviest.

It would seem that I am at an impasse. I see a spreadsheet in my future.

Foods are a little easier, and let me touch on that as a preparation item: more people drop out of distance races due to stomach issues than do from injury. That's frightening. The key? Pick out your foods well before your event, and get used to eating/drinking them, and get used to doing it at the level of activity you intend to partake in.

The only real issue is that I'm a meat and fresh fruits and vegetable kind of guy. These are not good trail foods, and the dehydrated versions of them are pretty far from the real thing. Over the next month I need to decide exactly what is best and make that a regular part of my diet, as well as pick up my endurance type things again. I was up to some regular long runs and bike rides before, but I've been slacking terribly at that for the last couple of months. Time to get back on it...