Drive System

The telescope building drive system is now 20 years old, and though has never produced any serious problems we believe it is time to upgrade it to a new system as it will be increasing difficult to obtain proper spares if any failure might occur. A complete package has been identified that will replace the entire drive system including the four motors, amplifiers, servo control electronics and cabling, to modern off-the-shelf components. It will not be simple to do this swap and will require down time of the telescope, especially since the motors need changing but also to optimize the system.