Telescope dolly, DIY

Ive thought about bolting casters onto a pallet in my driveway and using that as a platform lol

John Hayes:
Every one of the dollies shown here share a potentially fatal flaw.  None of them appear to have a jack screw for lifting to dolly off of the wheels for imaging.  Imaging on a wheeled dolly will almost certainly limit the quality of the results.  Another potential problem is the use of wood, which isn’t mechanically very rigid.  Wood can work for a small light scope but just don’t touch anything while the scope is running.  Remember that at 1”, everything (even metal) is made of rubber!  That means that you should use the most rigid materials possible.  

You can see the roll out platform that I built for my 20” scope here:

https://www.astrobin.com/dlko5b/N/

I was concerned that this setup might ring as well, but it turned out to work really well.  The entire rig weighed around 700 lbs but it took two fingers to roll it out and it provided sub-arcsecond stability.  It was also extremely easy to polar align.  I didn’t realized it when I designed it but the arrangement of the jack-screws provided near orthogonal polar alignment capability in altitude and azimuth.  Using a PoleMaster, I could have PA done in about 5 minutes and a 70 point full sky model done 10 minutes later.

John

I have some of these machine tool casters https://www.amazon.com/Homhoo-Adjustable-Anti-Vibration-Workbench-Equipment/dp/B0B62J1ZRV/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2KGC0PKXG03NX&keywords=3"+level+casters&qid=1691275728&sprefix=3+level+caster%2Caps%2C181&sr=8-3  which I think will suffice for a rig that weighs maybe 150lbs tops.

A little late to the party but here is my so called Dolly.

Monty Chandler:
I use these piano mover casters.  Just roll my rigs out of the garage about 50' to my driveway.  Removing the casters and placing the legs in their exact position on the driveway makes polar alignment very easy with the polemaster.  This way I never disassemble my rigs.  Cheers

https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-5245/Dollies/Leg-Dolly-2-Casters?pricode=WB1828&gadtype=pla&id=H-5245&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA-bmsBhAGEiwAoaQNmtg_AUukbfA8Qqkl9c-o7Larow9dx-HeZvNNgBWuejVG4H4rizi7phoCggIQAvD_BwE

Hey Monty,

Those would work great however, my driveway is all rock, no concrete. Hence the much larger rubber wheels on the wagon, it rolls over the rocks much easier. 

Good choice though for those that have concrete to roll on. My old house had a concrete driveway and that would have been great for the casters. 

Thanks for sharing,
Clear Skies,

DJ

@Roy Hagen Excellent idea Roy.. 

Love the ingenuity and making it work as needed. 

Good job.

DJ

Great thread!

I've owned one of the old JMI carts and a Scopebuggy. The JMI was pretty good, but the Scopebuggy was not so great for me. Both could be wobbly. The Scopebuggy dumped my C11 twice. I caught it once, and the other I didn't. 

My C11 is away for repair at Celestron, and I don't plan to use it again until I can get a good mobile platform for getting it in and out the backdoor. 

Love that pier cart @Roy Hagen!

I built this one.  I learned to weld to make it.   All of the parts are listed in the post.  It has been a real back saver.  You can make it to fit you own dimensions.



https://astrob.in/a98azj/B/

I went a different way.  The problem I have is to come out the back door I need to traverse both a step, and two doors.  Come out the front (say the garage) where there is room and I have to make my way over quite rough ground with a dolly.  So....

I take the OTA and counterweights off (the latter more because I worry about their bouncing around damaging the mount than weight).  I move the mount and tripod with a handtruck customized to be wide enough to reach two legs, and narrow enough to go through the doors, with wheelbarrow tires that are really large to handle rough ground: 



The black pillows cushion it when I tip it back, the strap (visble going between the RA axis supports) is just a big piece of velcro to help tip everything back.  Notice the spikes.

When in place, I have a second handtrick with egg crates.  The top one holds all the counterweights (I put a wooden bottom in to re-inforce since it may carry over 100 pounds for some OTA's), the middle has two power supplies, the bottom is empty and just to save me bending over.  This also has big tires but those are stock tires, not modified. 

I carry the OTA's out by hand, I do not trust them bouncing around.  Finally (next image).... 



The spikes on the tripod go into pavers that remain in the ground, where I drilled holes that are NOT large enough for them to go all the way down.  This means they are held by the circumference of the spike not the tip, and self center in the paver.  By doing this (and not moving the mounts alt/az) I end up polar aligned withing about 2-5 arc minutes provided it is the same OTA as last time (if I change OTA just the weight difference plus mounting hardware difference may put me half a degree or so off). 

Landing this close to polar aligned saves a lot of time, since I am just tweaking it not starting degrees off and potentially having to actually rotate the tripod (though the AP mount has a really large Az range so that's rare). 



Carrying out a C11 to place on it is my worst part, not because it is the heaviest (my SVX152T is about the same), but because it is really awkward to hold and place in the saddle.  But all the rest -- the mount, counterweights, tripods, etc. are just a matter of rolling and putting in place.  It's not as nice perhaps as a dolly that I could roll the whole way, but I image in SW Florida, so half the year that grass is a muddy mess, I'm not sure how well a fully assembled (and thus VERY heavy) setup would roll on any reasonable sized tires.  I'd almost certainly need a powered one to keep from getting stuck in the mud or wearing myself out.

Think "Monster Truck" dolly.  Not exactly my idea of imaging.   

But this works.  I can be set up or torn down in 20 minutes easily (+/- taking flats). 

Linwood

A little late to the party but here is my so called Dolly.

@Djennings  I like your idea... A few questions though... Do not you get movement from the cart when there a windy breeze is going through? Also is the black color leg the one to give stability to your setup? Can you please provide some photos to know more about it?

If it’s transporting your telescope around then this company is superb, and can litterally build anything you want within reason, as they do bespoke designs too, 
https://www.astrotufftruk.com