DIY Equatorial Mount: Building a Star Tracker from Scratch with PCBs
2025-08-19
Starting with amateur astrophotography, the author progressed from a simple tracker to researching expensive equatorial mounts, ultimately deciding to build their own high-precision equatorial mount using PCB design and CNC machining. The article details the entire process, from learning PCB design and selecting harmonic gears and motors to writing OnStepX firmware and overcoming WiFi stability issues. The resulting mount, costing approximately €1700, achieves 1-2 arcsecond tracking accuracy, enabling stunning nebula and galaxy photographs. The author shares challenges and lessons learned, such as PCB design errors and debugging. This is a challenging yet rewarding DIY project showcasing maker spirit and technical prowess.
Hardware
equatorial mount