Wish it had more details: Rate(s) of rotation, load capacities -- including windloading, etc.
Also rather wish it didn't rely on wifi/android, but that's mostly because I don't use anything android based, and don't run any wifi on the home network anymore.
All in all though, it's still a pretty nice looking little az-el rotator. With different control software, it might also be a useful little addition to give your static security camera a bit of extra capability without breaking the bank.
Thanks for the feedback! It's still under development so more specs will be released later on.
"Unfortunately" the entire design is based around ESP8266 to make it cheap and easy for people to modify so wifi is the current option but if there's interest for other alternatives, anything is possible.
Since the rotator uses simple HTTP GET queries for the azimuth and elevation, it should be possible to make it compatible with other ethernet enabled positioning software.
Regarding other software / platforms, HTTP GET seems easy enough to work with.
My issue with wifi is really just a matter of too-many-networks and interference making it a bad solution for me.
But I understand the appeal of the ESP8266 (and the rest of that family of chips) and don't blame you one bit. IIRC it has a serial port on a couple of pins, so that's another comm option.
In any case, I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck!
They did a lot of the "rails to trails" stuff around here as well, but the underlying deal is that it's all technically land-banked and the railroads can claim it back at basically any time as long as it gets put to active use.
You still have to rebuild the infrastructure from scratch. So yes, we can piss off all the new users by reclaiming the right of ways (technically). But there's still a huge cost in recreating what was torn up to make it useful for a different purpose. My own opinion is that between the "piss off new users" and "cost of rebuilding", these right of ways will stay "rails to trails" forever. Which, again, isn't a bad thing.
I grew up with the "Save a Connie"[1] plane and organization in my back yard, so to speak -- we lived about 6 miles from the KC downtown airport. I remember dad taking me down to the airport to sit on the river levee and watch the it arrive when they ferried it to KC. After that, I think I attended every public event they hosted between the plane's arrival and the change to the Airline History Museum.
I think I still have a bunch of their airshow flyers and other give-aways squirreled away in the basement somewhere.
Many universities these days have students scattered around the world in various distance education programs, or have students/staff/faculty at various other locations doing research in collaboration with other labs, facilities, etc.
Then there are their research partners, which again may be scattered around the world, etc.
So, no not customers in the traditional sense, but they depend on University services, and many of them are paying for the privilege.
A few years ago, I placed an order from a small company on the east coast, to be shipped via USPS parcel post (ie, the cheapest and slowest option possible, though the company does pay the extra for tracking). In a rush, I fat-fingered the zip code. To compound the error, after submitting the order, their shipping software helpfully "fixed" the bad zip code by adjusting the city and state to match.
The next day, when they sent the shipping confirmation and tracking email, I saw the error. Of course, contacting them was too late; they did ask that I give the post office time to sort it out but were happy to send another one if it was time critical. I opted to wait as the initial mistake was mine, not theirs.
The package arrived a day later than expected, having gone to the small town in the wrong state, been kicked back as "no such address", sent to some big USPS facility in Chicago where they apparently figured out where it should go, manually crossed out the bad city/state/zip and wrote a correct one in and then came straight to me via the local post office, skipping the nearby sorting center that most packages go through.
I don't know how they pulled that one off, especially in a pre-christmas shipping glut, and without the package ever having had the correct address on it until someone working for the postal service figured it out and fixed it. Having a unique name probably helps, as does having a fairly unique street address, but I'm still impressed it didn't just get tossed into the dead-letter pile.
Living in the middle of the country, the post office's abilities are almost magic. Need to send a letter anywhere in the US? Two or three days, for a few cents (no idea what it costs now, I bought a few rolls of "forever" stamps at 40 cents apiece). Need to ship a package? USPS is often cheaper than UPS ground, nearly always cheaper than FedEx ground, and faster than either of them at still only two or three days. Same goes for receiving mail or packages.
Quality of service of all three, I recognize, varies with location and people involved. Around here though, it is damn hard to beat the post office.
This reminds me of a similar experience I had recently, except with a different outcome. A friend of mine in Chicago mailed a package to me in Minnesota, but the post office accidentally entered his address instead of my address on the shipping label (with my name).
So the package had my correct address handwritten on it, with the printed shipping label bearing his address as both the return address and the delivery address.
Should have been easy enough to figure out, but it was delayed for almost three weeks while they figured out what to do with it.
Just proves your point about QoS really varying depending on the people/locations involved.
Because Boris is UK-Trump? (said only semi-seriously, I don't follow UK politics close enough to know for sure how good the comparison is)
I suspect it's a matter of the "special relationship" the US and UK have had for decades; Trump doesn't want to be seen as the one throwing our UK friends under the bus, especially with the promises he made during the lead-up to and implementation of Brexit.
Drivers Ed was an optional summer course in my district, and did include an on-road component. Not required at all (although the insurance company gave a discount for completing it).
HS graduation requirements vary (in some cases, much more than you would think) between districts. Usually, each town/city has its own district -- in rural areas a district may span many towns, in more urban areas, you may have more than one district in a single city. There are state guidelines, but we also have 50 different states. Federal guidelines are pretty sparse, and often only enforced by accepting funding -- don't take their money and you don't have to play by their rules.
I suspect that there is no blanket statement about the US public school system that will hold true nationwide (except, perhaps "it could be better" or "it makes no sense").
The reaction to not having a license is probably simply due to 60+ years of "The American Dream" for a kid was having their own car and the freedom^tm that came with it, and the simple fact that in the majority of the country, public transportation is crap, and our cities are not designed around walking. So a car, and license, is pretty much a requirement.
Also rather wish it didn't rely on wifi/android, but that's mostly because I don't use anything android based, and don't run any wifi on the home network anymore.
All in all though, it's still a pretty nice looking little az-el rotator. With different control software, it might also be a useful little addition to give your static security camera a bit of extra capability without breaking the bank.