The replacement power supply and camera unit for Allsky2 (aka UWO10) arrived two weeks ago but has been delayed in installing for a variety of other projects already lined up for the weekends.
In any event, the power supply puts out +-12vdc, 12vdc for the camera and for the circulation fan, and 24 vdc for the heater. The housing is almost identical to the older one, except the dome on this unit was not secured with bolts through the flange, but rather just an adhesive… that failed out of the box.
That was fixed using a silicon caulking and left to cure for a day, disconnected and away from the camera.
There is a new airflow housing and the heaters are mounted on its inside, near the top. Hopefully an improved design that will combat dewing and condensation. Also inside were some packets of dessicant.
The camera itself looks like the same low light 640×480 video camera.
We installed it on the weekend. The new system came with a new mounting bracket as well and it did not line up with the existing wall mount. So that had to be moved and the new bracket leveled in three dimensions. The camera was installed, the video cable connected and then some trepidation about power cable connections and what exactly was +12vdc and what was -12vdc
In the end, the power was connected, no smoke issued, no loud bangs of capacitors blowing, just the gentle whirr of the circulation fan. A quick check of the computers showed a valid image. The camera was working! Yay!
The last item was to orient the camera so that the longer rectangular axis was east-west, better to reach farther west to cover the skies that the rest of the network was concentrated in. Once it clears up, a star calibration registration will need to be done before it can be declared operational again… and guess what? cloud for the foreseeable forecast!