44 replies to this topic

[kiwiguy]

Thought I might add my experience. I had a helper, and have trouble seeing how one person could do it. As far as what to put it on, I had a 12 x 12 concrete slab poured for it and it arrived right at 6 weeks after I paid for it, which I was told it would be.  No instructions and the ones I found to download left a lot to be desired, along with being just drawings.  Assembly was quite frustrating for me due to the fact I had to really fight, pull, and push to a great extent on every dome hole.The ones where you had 3 holes to get the nut through were the hardest of course. Using a small screwdriver (to pry) helped me get the bolts into the holes. I also had to drill in order to enlarge holes for the wheel bolts. When it comes to hardware, I was short several big NB washers, regular washers and a few lock nuts. But I also ended up having lots of hardware left over.. Total construction time was right at 12 hours (and I had a structural engineer helping). Overall, assembly was a huge pain but I am pleased with the finsihed product. I was either going to go with a Sirus observatory or the Nexdome and for the money, I don't know of any other dome out there I would have gone with and would recommend buying this dome to some one. If anyone had a trouble free 3 hour assembly (as seen on YouTube) I'd like to hear abou it!

Can you post a picture of the Nexdome on the 12x12 pad?  I'm trying to decided if a 10x10 pad would be sufficient for a Nexdome with 1 bay, or if I need to go bigger.

 

Thanks!

[leeasle]

My two bay Nexdome would have fit, just barely on a 10 foot by 10 foot deck, to be on the safe side, I built it just slightly larger by adding two 6 inch "outrigger" boards. Total width was 10 feet, 11 inches, with my two bays, maybe 3 inches total to spare (on a 10 foot width). Front to back length was 10 feet, 3 inches, with about 32 inches to spare on just measuring the dome. Short answer it should fit, but not a lot of spare room outside. Had the dome all buttoned up for Imelda. I'm 3+ hours inland from the coast, was a non-event here with barely any rain or wind.

 

Lynn

 

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Edited by leeasle, 20 September 2019 - 05:31 PM.

[TheRyanRanch]

Lunatiki, sounds like NexDome hasn’t improved their quality control as for fitment and parts picking.

Not sure if you signed up on the NexDome forum site, there are some good threads about assembly, operation, accessories etc. I personally dislike the Facebook format, find it difficult to follow a topic and the privacy failures, but if you’re comfortable you can get lots of help there.

I’ve been waiting over a year for the new firmware so I can marry my dome rotation kit to a yet to be purchased shutter kit. I’ve got mount to dome pointing very close but sometimes it’s dead on and the next slew is off by half a diameter for my 11” Edge on a CGEM Mount.

Good luck and clear sky’s.
Steven

Hi Steven, I have a Nexdome and the rotation kit and the motorized shutter, I have been pretty much in frustration mode with everything, Babak has been pretty good about getting back to me on faulty parts, but this really shouldn't be happening at all, so far its been a battery for the shutter, it died, he replaced. Then the charger for the shutter died, now I went to rotate the dome and Nada ! so I climbed up the ladder to manually rotate the Dome and I get nothing but a delayed "click" when I try and use the manual rocker switch. I paid a great deal of money for all of this stuff, and I hope I wasn't asking to much for it to at least work !!!!!

anyways major frustration has set in and I didn't know if you went through on getting your Dome setup for Automation... I don't think I'm going to see very many stars going this route ;(

[guyroch]

Hi Steven, I have a Nexdome and the rotation kit and the motorized shutter, I have been pretty much in frustration mode with everything, Babak has been pretty good about getting back to me on faulty parts, but this really shouldn't be happening at all, so far its been a battery for the shutter, it died, he replaced. Then the charger for the shutter died, now I went to rotate the dome and Nada ! so I climbed up the ladder to manually rotate the Dome and I get nothing but a delayed "click" when I try and use the manual rocker switch. I paid a great deal of money for all of this stuff, and I hope I wasn't asking to much for it to at least work !!!!!

anyways major frustration has set in and I didn't know if you went through on getting your Dome setup for Automation... I don't think I'm going to see very many stars going this route ;(

Did you update to the latest firmware released in August 2019.

 

Even the rocket switch is controlled be the firmware. I've installed the new firmware only yesterday and it seems to work fine.

 

Guylain

[guyroch]

Lunatiki, sounds like NexDome hasn’t improved their quality control as for fitment and parts picking.

Not sure if you signed up on the NexDome forum site, there are some good threads about assembly, operation, accessories etc. I personally dislike the Facebook format, find it difficult to follow a topic and the privacy failures, but if you’re comfortable you can get lots of help there.

I’ve been waiting over a year for the new firmware so I can marry my dome rotation kit to a yet to be purchased shutter kit. I’ve got mount to dome pointing very close but sometimes it’s dead on and the next slew is off by half a diameter for my 11” Edge on a CGEM Mount.

Good luck and clear sky’s.
Steven

I don't like the FB format either... in fact I have deactivated my FB account earlier this year.  I'm 7 months FB sober now, can't find FB anonymous meetings close by, lol.

 

The new firmware was released in August 2019, have you tried it?

 

Guylain

[lov2krz]

Hi Steven, I have a Nexdome and the rotation kit and the motorized shutter, I have been pretty much in frustration mode with everything, Babak has been pretty good about getting back to me on faulty parts, but this really shouldn't be happening at all, so far its been a battery for the shutter, it died, he replaced. Then the charger for the shutter died, now I went to rotate the dome and Nada ! so I climbed up the ladder to manually rotate the Dome and I get nothing but a delayed "click" when I try and use the manual rocker switch. I paid a great deal of money for all of this stuff, and I hope I wasn't asking to much for it to at least work !!!!!

anyways major frustration has set in and I didn't know if you went through on getting your Dome setup for Automation... I don't think I'm going to see very many stars going this route ;(

I haven't downloaded the version 3 firmware yet myself.  I've been operating the rotation kit on the original version and I can get the dome to track most of the time.  Tracking with the rotation kit isn't fast enough for using my StarSense, so I disconnect the gear and manually rotate the dome to obtain alignment.  I'm also  going to convert my spacial measurements to mm to hopefully get better dome to mount alignment.

 

I haven't purchased the shutter kit because I'm not electronics savvy and won't get involved in the trouble shooting that's been going on for the past 18 months.  I have heard the new firmware is working well but I need to hear that from users not Babak.

 

Let me know what your results are with the new firmware and then I can make a decision to move forward with the shutter kit.

 

Thanks,

Steven

 

 

Edited by lov2krz, 28 October 2019 - 07:13 PM.

[AlexTardif]

I'm in Frustration Town right now with the software installation... the instructions leave much to be desired and I can't even get past the initial installation steps: so far I've successfully:

• installed Arduino and my PC is recognizing the controller when connected via USB

that's about it.

 

Next I downloaded the 3.0.1 NexdomeControlSystem.exe but installation fails 1/3 of the way through.  Any suggestions?

 

 

[guyroch]

I'm in Frustration Town right now with the software installation... the instructions leave much to be desired and I can't even get past the initial installation steps: so far I've successfully:

• installed Arduino and my PC is recognizing the controller when connected via USB

that's about it.

 

Next I downloaded the 3.0.1 NexdomeControlSystem.exe but installation fails 1/3 of the way through.  Any suggestions?

I had no issues running the new installer.

 

Do you get an error message?

 

I would suggest to reboot your PC and try again with admin privileges as a first step.

 

Guylain

[AlexTardif]

I had no issues running the new installer.

 

Do you get an error message?

 

I would suggest to reboot your PC and try again with admin privileges as a first step.

 

Guylain

 

Thanks, Guylain - I've done exactly that, but received an error message.  Tim Long from the FB group responded to my post there too and I will be opening a GitHub issue to track report the issue.  He mentioned it might something with my "culture setting" but I've no idea what that means as I'm not a Win user.  I'll update this post with a resolution if/when one presents itself.  Here's the error I'm getting:

 

[guyroch]

Hi Alex,

 

Culture is the term we used in software development to define language and regional settings.  From the error you posted "0x800713ec - Asia" I think Tim is on the right track.  It's looks like a bug in the installer as the installer should install the software regardless of the culture.

 

In the mean time, try setting your culture (also called regional settings) to English-US and see if this makes a difference with the installer.

 

Mine is set to Canada but just set it up for US in your case.

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Edited by guyroch, 12 November 2019 - 11:11 AM.

[scott4comp]

I'm in Frustration Town right now with the software installation... the instructions leave much to be desired and I can't even get past the initial installation steps: so far I've successfully:

• installed Arduino and my PC is recognizing the controller when connected via USB

that's about it.

 

Next I downloaded the 3.0.1 NexdomeControlSystem.exe but installation fails 1/3 of the way through.  Any suggestions?

This can also be caused by a Windows system sorely in need of Updating, and/or .Net 4.6 ( or greater) needs to be installed.

 

What OS are you running and what version ?

 

regards,

jscott

Edited by scott4comp, 12 November 2019 - 01:41 PM.

[AlexTardif]

Hi Alex,

 

Culture is the term we used in software development to define language and regional settings.  From the error you posted "0x800713ec - Asia" I think Tim is on the right track.  It's looks like a bug in the installer as the installer should install the software regardless of the culture.

 

In the mean time, try setting your culture (also called regional settings) to English-US and see if this makes a difference with the installer.

 

Mine is set to Canada but just set it up for US in your case.

GR - thank you for taking the time to walk me through these... I've played with the settings to the extent that my version of the OS allows it (slightly different screens) but no dice.  Still failing.  I've opened a ticked on GitHub with Tim Long.

[AlexTardif]

This can also be caused by a Windows system sorely in need of Updating, and/or .Net 4.6 ( or greater) needs to be installed.

 

What OS are you running and what version ?

 

regards,

jscott

Scott - you might be onto something here, but I hope my version of Windows is not the culprit...

• I'm using a dedicated PrimaLuce Lab PC (my only Windows machine, so tells you how much I know about Win  )
• Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Build 10240) - what I've just researched is that it's a "special" edition of Win10, designed to go 2-3 years (!!!) between regular updates, as opposed to the usual semi-annual updates.  More frequent (monthly?) security updates install normally.  I'm up to date on everything else installed, I believe.
• My .Net Framework is 4.6.01590

[scott4comp]

 

Scott - you might be onto something here, but I hope my version of Windows is not the culprit...

• I'm using a dedicated PrimaLuce Lab PC (my only Windows machine, so tells you how much I know about Win  )
• Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Build 10240) - what I've just researched is that it's a "special" edition of Win10, designed to go 2-3 years (!!!) between regular updates, as opposed to the usual semi-annual updates.  More frequent (monthly?) security updates install normally.  I'm up to date on everything else installed, I believe.
• My .Net Framework is 4.6.01590

 

Version 1507 is considered the original RTM release of Windows 10, and is also known as "Build 10240". Version 1507 is also the current Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) build. I think you should seriously consider Updating.

 

regards,

jscott

[AlexTardif]

Version 1507 is considered the original RTM release of Windows 10, and is also known as "Build 10240". Version 1507 is also the current Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) build. I think you should seriously consider Updating.

 

regards,

jscott

Well, I'm all for whatever needs to be done, but I'm finding that upgrading LTSB/LTSC is not as simple as one would think, so I've reached out to PrimaLuce to see what they're loading on their latest Eagle PC units and also to see how I go about upgrading.  What would I upgrade to?  I did some reading and seems like there was a 2016 release that was disastrous and was pulled. And then there was another release just recently in May of 2019, but how would one go about upgrading to that?

 

The thing is... everything else I have attached (cameras, Eagle controller, temp sensor, focuser, etc.) and all the astro software seems to work without any issues, so i'm a bit hesitant to open up that can of worms.  For now I'll see what the NexDome developer thinks of it and go from there - after all, since it's the one and only issue I've ever had, maybe it's the NexDome software bug that can be easily rectified?

[AlexTardif]

For anyone who might be following this thread, here's the ticket that's being tracked via GitHub.

 

In short, .NET 4.7.2 appears to be the culprit and is preventing from the rest of the installation of the NexDome controller software.

 

However, 4.7.2 can't be installed on Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Build 10240, version 1507). As per https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/install/on-windows-10 the latest .NET that is supported on Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Build 10240, version 1507) is .NET 4.6.2 which is what I have installed currently.

 

I'm awaiting response form Tim Long, but open to anyone else's thoughts on this in the meantime

[scott4comp]

Well, I'm all for whatever needs to be done, but I'm finding that upgrading LTSB/LTSC is not as simple as one would think, so I've reached out to PrimaLuce to see what they're loading on their latest Eagle PC units and also to see how I go about upgrading.  What would I upgrade to?  I did some reading and seems like there was a 2016 release that was disastrous and was pulled. And then there was another release just recently in May of 2019, but how would one go about upgrading to that?

 

The thing is... everything else I have attached (cameras, Eagle controller, temp sensor, focuser, etc.) and all the astro software seems to work without any issues, so i'm a bit hesitant to open up that can of worms.  For now I'll see what the NexDome developer thinks of it and go from there - after all, since it's the one and only issue I've ever had, maybe it's the NexDome software bug that can be easily rectified?

I understand your dilemma better now - did not realize you had so many other products installed. Certainly if the offending product can be isolated, fixing that makes sense. 

 

On a side note, I have had success "Upgrading" Enterprise installations by installing "10 Pro". It is a destructive install, however.

 

Good luck !

jscott

[AlexTardif]

Ha!  I actually think that I have a total bare-bones systems: the PC is 100% dedicated to astro photography, and there's literally nothing loaded other than the "standard" astro applications and drivers to control the hardware.  The reason PrimaLuce loads Win 10 LTSB/LTSC is because by design, this OS supports 10yr lifecycles with no regular updates other than security stuff.  In theory this is exactly what we want for our astro computers, right?  No Windows update nightmares to constantly mess with PHD2, SGP, camera and focuser drivers, etc.

 

What's happening here, I think, is that the NexDome installer is built to a specific .NET platform release, which is higher than what my Win 10 can support.  I'll provide another update once Tim Long chimes in.  Fingers crossed that the installer is not so .NET version-dependent, otherwise I'll hit a stalemate with possible required Win upgrade.

 

p.s. sorry to higjack this threat with what's turning into an isolated issue.  I'll update if/when I have a resolution.

[John Fitzgerald]

I hate to see domes or sheds installed on flat decks or slabs larger than the dome. Water always accumulates on the portion sticking out, then runs under the bottom into the dome. Domes should always be installed on a raised floor or slab no larger than the bottom skirt of the dome building, with the bottom skirt or siding hanging over the outside of the floor that extends inside the dome.

[scott4comp]

Ha!  I actually think that I have a total bare-bones systems: the PC is 100% dedicated to astro photography, and there's literally nothing loaded other than the "standard" astro applications and drivers to control the hardware.  The reason PrimaLuce loads Win 10 LTSB/LTSC is because by design, this OS supports 10yr lifecycles with no regular updates other than security stuff.  In theory this is exactly what we want for our astro computers, right?  No Windows update nightmares to constantly mess with PHD2, SGP, camera and focuser drivers, etc.

 

What's happening here, I think, is that the NexDome installer is built to a specific .NET platform release, which is higher than what my Win 10 can support.  I'll provide another update once Tim Long chimes in.  Fingers crossed that the installer is not so .NET version-dependent, otherwise I'll hit a stalemate with possible required Win upgrade.

 

p.s. sorry to higjack this threat with what's turning into an isolated issue.  I'll update if/when I have a resolution.

I would bet good money your custom system could handle an Updated OS just fine. Windows has, imo, always done well with hardware drive support. LTSB Windows is a chimera - as usual, the first couple of Win 10 releases had serious security flaws. But if the box isnt connecting to the Internet, security isnt that big a deal and Updates arent critical. I still run Win 7 Pro boxes - they are very stable. But I dont let them go online.

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head: applications evolve, the coding environment they are based on also evolves, because they figure everyone is staying Updated, right ?

 

Clear Skies !

jscott