Eyepiece/equipment/powertank/powerpack cabinet

Hi,
After searching the web to find a better way of carrying around a battery and other bits'n pieces for the scope, I stumbled on this.
www.scopereviews.com/dobmod.html
I have to say I thought this guy was mad !! but after sitting down over a hot cup of tea and thought about it a little, his cabinet seemed the way to go because it catered for the scopes battery and carries all the eyepieces/filters/adapters and every other piece of equipment I could think of.

I was transporting a small table, 2 eyepiece cases and a wooden box for the battery, all a complete pain to drag around, the table had to be light weight so it was flimsy, and where does the second case go?? and how do I protect the battery without making it all very heavy.
So after about 30 mins of searching the web I finally found the cabinet he used, its made by Stanley, so I order it, it was 130e delivered to my front door which I think isn't bad considering the size of it, I had it in 3 days. Here is a pic.


Its galvanised steel, its not heavy and has rear wheels and a towing handle so is very easily movable.
Its made up of 3 separate parts stacked and clamped together so it is easy to get into the car.


It 2 middle shelves are pull out and the top lid opens like a toolbox lid, which is what it is. I left the top shelve half in to show the 2 shelves.


I use the top box for the biggie/expensive eyepieces, the shelves are for the filters and normal eyepieces and anything else I think I might need.

So, I loaded the battery into the bottom section which tips out on a hinge, I want to be able to monitor the battery as I go through the night so I got a voltmeter and an ammeter in ebay, the muppet I bought them from didnt supply any wiring instructions nor was responding to my questions so after abit of experimenting and smoke! :shock: I got them working, I thought I had blown the voltmeter, but thankfully it seems to have taken my experimentation well. I put in a switch and a 12v cig lighter socket. I went for this type of covered switch so there is no chance of cutting the scopes power by accident.

Power off


Power on


I put alot of insulating tape around the meters to keep moisture/dew out, the displays are not nearly as bright as they look in these pics, In the above pic is shows 12.57v and 00.0 amps.

Here is the battery compartment

Tangled/messy wiring drives me nuts so I tried keeping things here pretty neat, with minimum disruption needed if I need to remove the battery, I insulated the sides and underneath the battery so it will not get too cold in these long nights as cold reduces its effectiveness. Any showing metallic surface of the cabinet is covered with black insulating tape here to help prevent a short incase a wire works its way loose.

So, that's pretty much it, I'd highly recommend going down this route if you want a convenient way of transporting a big battery and alot of equipment. The one major advantage of this is that you are not fumbling with crocodile clamps with the battery on site, so there is no way of getting the polarity wrong, I've seen first hand what reversing polarity on a scope does not my scope thankfully....

Comments, suggestion are welcome !

Cool stuff

:shock:
Jeeks!
Dave!
You never showed me what went into making the
battery compartment!
Thats too cool for school.

My SECOND battery is now no good.
I guess I spent 250 on both?!

I should have just paid you to build me that whole thing!!!

Lads,
all I can say is I've seen this set up first hand and
it's defiantly the way to go.

Nice one Dave - way too sexy

Might go down a similar route when I get my new scope. Is there a battery charger built in? or do you just clamp it up to the charger when you get home?

Hey nice job Dave,you gota love that temperature regulated coffee cup

Is there a battery charger built in? or do you just clamp it up to the charger when you get home?

Nope, I didnt want to be carrying it around, it only adds weight, and besides it probabily wouldn't fit in there anyway. The charger pumps out 10 amps so I'll be attaching it to the battery directly when charging.

you gota love that temperature regulated coffee cup

Big time!!