3D Printing:
Adapter for 90 degree polar scope

Contents:

1. Setup Cura for slicing STL files
2. 3D print the adapter
3. New viewer adapter design of my own
4. To be continued

Note:
I take no responsibility or liability for what are written here, you use the information at your own risk!

3, New viewer adapter design of my own:

The adapter I used earlier was good but with some issues. It wasn't stable and wiggled around. Can I make a better one with my own design ? Here I give it a chance. Normally I don't use my polar scope much. But when out on the field I need some way to align the mount coarse to the polar star. Better than just aiming by the eye. Then I really have use of a good working polar scope. My field mount, a HEQ5, is very low, no chance to look into the polar scope without an angled viewer. My wide field setup: 300 mm & HEQ5 equipment.

90 degree viewer:

This is the 90 degree viewer I have. It's a standard viewer for cameras and with it follows adapters to fit different brands of cameras. Without these adapters it has the Canon flange.

It's advanced with a 1x / 2x magnifier.

This is the flange that I have to design my adapter to fit. The slits are narrow and not so easy to 3d-print.

3D CAD design:

To get a more stable adapter I designed it as a single piece device. To the right, the ring that grips around the polar scope and locked with a screw. The open slit between is where I focus the polar telescope. To the left, the slit where I attach the 90 degree viewer.

Update, version 1_5:
Bigger center hole, moved optical center 0.5 mm.

The 3D-printed adapter:

This design has a lot of parts hanging in the air. It can't be 3D-printed without added support. All these supports must be removed afterwards.

After clean up from the support material and threaded for the M3 lock screw. But first the holes must be drilled, the threaded part 2.4 mm and the other with 3.2 mm.

The slit where the diagonal prism attach, in version 1_5 it's moved 0.5 mm to the left. It depends a bit to what 90 degree diagonal you have and the calibration of your 3D-printer how well it fit.

The adapter attached to the diagonal:

It fitted direct without any corrections that I normally have to do.

The adapter and the viewer align at center of optical axis almost perfect. The inner diameter is 30 mm. The center hole is increased by 2 mm in version 1_5. If you print it in non black material as I have done, paint the center black to avoid glare.

Mounted on the polar scope:

It fit on the polar scope perfect and it's very stable. Even if it's not protruding out very much it's not possible to put on the cover.

Side view, in the slit at the left side the focuser for the polar scope can be seen, it's easy to rotate it.

Very satisfied with this design, a totally different stability compare to the earlier one I used. It should fit most of the SkyWatcher's polar scopes. Tested on EQ6 pro, HEQ5, the Star Adventurer polar scope has a smaller diameter (28.7 mm) off the finder scope someone told me, you have to put some thin plastic film in between, a tape maybe. After I have tested it out in the field and if it working okay I will put the STL files here for download if you find it interesting.

Old version 1_4
Latest version 1_5 can be downloaded as a STL file from 3D page.