Project:
Pentax 645 300 mm ED f/4 lens

Contents:

1. Overview
2. Internal filter holder
3. Install the lens on the 300 mm rig and setup USB-focus for reverse
4. Temperature compensating and tilted focus plane
5. Autofocus with APT and N.I.N.A.
6. Move the equipment to the observatory
7. A second try at the observatory
8. A third try and investigating the FTDI cables
9. Light leakage
10. Optical analyze
11. Fix of tilted sensor
12. Control of aperture and deformed stars
13. Update of Ekos auto focus driver
14. Transport box
15. Temperature and focus
16. To be continued

Related projects:

1. HEQ5 as portable mount
2. Pentax 645 300 mm ED IF f/4 lens
3. KStars / EKOS and Raspberry Pi4

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

14: Transport box

This lens will be a part of my easy transportable astroequipment. The lens system is a bit fragile and need to be protected. I need some sort of box to put it in. I can built something in wood for it, but first I will take a look if there something out in the stores that I can use. When I google on transport boxes I found the outer dimension but not the inner dimensions. Took my car and drove to different stores and take a closer look.

This is the lens and camera system that must fit in the box. A rectangular box of the dimension: 410 mm L x 250 mm Width x 180 mm Height is the minimum demand. Low weight is of course a demand but not a weak construction.

Driving around to a lot of different stores but either they were too small or too big. At last I found a part of a box system on an outlet.

The box I bought has the outer dimension: 520 L x 300 W x 220 H mm and inner dimension: 490 x 260 190 mm. Perfect, it don't waste with the space in the car's luggage room. And it's very sturdy too. The red handle at the edges is for to connect it to other boxes. But the other equipment, the mount and battery need a much bigger box and will never fit together with this box.

Testing with the lens / camera system, great, couldn't be better. There are some extra space in different places where I can put other accessories. A power system when I not need the battery, cables or something else.

When looking at it, there are actually more space than I thought. Can there be space enough to even have the battery in the box ?

It's the beam I put there to increase the stiffness of the bracket for the guide system, it miss 1 cm in height also. I will take a closer look at it when I make version 2 of the bracket. It will be very handy If I can have even the battery in this small box. I must also add some shock-absorbing material around the devices. If I skip the guide lens and move over to an off-axis system there will be room for the battery.

Included with the box were two these walls that can be placed in the box to divide the space in separate rooms.

But there are only at two slots where they fit, if I want to use it I can mounted it with screws closer to the end. The extra room I can have for the Pad. There are a lot of options how to use the box.

The camera / lens system weighs 4.7 kg, included with the box it weighs 7.4 kg. The box added 50% more weight and I who spent so much time of reducing the weight of the camera / lens system.

If I place the wall where it's supposed to be placed I get problem with the guide lens, the main Pentax lens get space enough if I make a low profile lid.

With a hole in the wall I can let the guide lens protrude through this.

Making a hole in the wall.

I need also to cut the edge to have space enough around the Pentax lens.

Looks good, I got a lot of space for the accessories I have to bring out, earlier I had a separate box for this.