SatNOGS rotator v3.1- rotary encoders?

crosswalkersam · February 1, 2022, 8:14am

Hi Steve,
I think that the ERROR is a result of the rotor reporting a orientation of -360° Azimuth due to the destroyed endstop.
I will try to bend the endstops down a bit, so that it can be pushed from both sides. Does the rotor react to the endstops during normal operation? Or are they only acknowledged during homing?

Sam

vk4smc · February 1, 2022, 9:17am

Hi Sam,
99 percent sure end stops only acknowledged during homing.
Steve

crosswalkersam · February 1, 2022, 5:14pm

Okay. I will replace the endstop and bend it slightly when I have time next week. I will do another calibration. Thanks!

Sam

crosswalkersam · February 3, 2022, 3:40pm

Okay, I just fixed it.
I bend the arm and the limit switch slightly down and used some electrical tape to stop it from going up again.
Theoretically that shoud’ve fixed it, but I went ahead and set the maximum Azimuth to 340° degrees in gpredict. Just to be sure.

The gear ratio was not 1:54 for me, but more like 1:53,4. I changed that in the Arduino program.
Now everything works and I just got this HRPT image from NOAA 18:

Thanks again for all of your help!

vk4smc · February 4, 2022, 9:20pm

Very good to see it all working.
Well done.
Top image for first go.
Steve

ifeel8especial · July 7, 2025, 5:21pm

Hello, I don’t know if this is relevant to this thread but how does one connect the end-stops to the controller pcb?

alpha_adhito · July 10, 2025, 2:54am

Hi, can you describe what setup that you use (i.e SatNOGS Rotator Controller PCB or CNC Shield V3)

You can read the wiki here if you haven’t:

SatNOGS Rotator Controller Endstop

Or in my case I’m using X+ and Y+ for CNC Shield V3

ifeel8especial · July 10, 2025, 5:23am

thanks! i am using SatNOGS Rotator Controller PCB

alpha_adhito · July 10, 2025, 7:53am

There’s two type of switches that I know than can be used for end stop switch: optical/magnetic and mechanical.

For optical/magnetic, there’s 3 wire: Ground, Positive (5V), and Signal that you need to wire those respectively. Signal should be wired to SW1 and SW2 if you are using SatNOGS PCB (X+ and Y+ on CNC Shield V3 that I use, but I think it should be the same).

Mechanical switch does not need 5V, so ground and signal only (if there’s 3 pins on the switch, connect to ground/Common and normally open/NO).

SatNOGS rotator should do a homing routine every time you powered it on.

Tips on troubleshooting from my experience:

If your rotator only moved a second then stopped without the switch touching the end stop, you might can change the program code end stop from HIGH to LOW or vice versa.
If your end stop switch was pressing or passing the end stop without stopping, the Azimuth and Altitude switch (SW1 and SW2) might be reversed.

Again, most of the troubleshooting can be found on the wiki. Hope this helps