Astrophotography with Glenn Clouder - Cable Management Tips

[@JoesAstrophoto]

This is great Glenn. I actually had issues with snagging when trying to do cable management in the past so I kind of just left it, but your video has inspired me to give it another go.

[@Astrobloke]

If I am an inspiration to you Joe my life is complete 😜 👍

[@JoesAstrophoto]

@@Astrobloke Hahahaha

[@2badger2]

Great video! I've also bought some of the USB right angle metal connectors which helps reduce the cables from having to bending so much.

[@Astrobloke]

Thank you. Those right angle connectors sound like a great idea, will take a look. Thanks for letting me know.

[@ChrisRamsayA]

Great suggestions there. Been looking for that Alex tech sleeve for ages but didn't know the name of the product until now. Very helpful 👍🙂

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Chris. Double check it has the split as its easy to get the wrong one which hasn’t.

[@mikelockwood2104]

very clean.....says the man who is also VERY OCD when it comes to cable management. As I watched, you could have made a list of my own inventory. Good job on the video

[@Astrobloke]

Thank you Mike. It is definitely an improvement but I bet there are some who have it immaculate and mine still looks a mess to them. I can See me doing constant little tweaks and changes, got to have something to occupy me on cloudy spells

[@edjones3390]

That split sleeving looks great ! It's got to be easier than the 'closed' sleeving I currently use

[@Astrobloke]

I found by accident looking for the normal sleeving. Thanks for your comment

[@clairehunter7911]

Great video with some good ideas there. Thanks

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Claire

[@SimonsAstro]

Great tips there Glenn, I need a bit of cable management, got to go shopping now, cheers!

[@Astrobloke]

Its a job for the cloudy weather and worth doing

[@lukomatico]

Much neater in the end mate, great job! :)

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Luke. I’ve spotted a little cable management at play on your rig. We should start a new club ‘OCD Astro’ 🤔

[@qwertyu2387]

Well done. Here's another challenge for you. Having our equipment outdoors brings one more trouble. Soon as temperature drops down all our cables become lots of more stiff. Interestingly, all my dew heaters comes with nice silicone cables and they seem to remain ok regardless what temperature is. To summarise I'd say I'm yet to find out whether or not there are some silicone USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and power supply cables available. Nothing drives me more mad than stiff cable having direct negative impact on my tracking.

[@Astrobloke]

Hi Jerzy and thank you for your comment. Where do you live? I am in the south of the UK and so it very rarely gets cold enough for cables to be affected like that. Our main battles are with Humidity. My power cables and like you dew tape leads are all silicone and nice and flexible. I know you can get leads made to order and I am sure could be sleeved in silicone but every time I have researched this its been way too expensive. Like £30+ just for a short usb lead. I try and just make the lead lengths as short as possible but allow full range of mount movement.

[@qwertyu2387]

@@Astrobloke I'm from London. Not longer than three days ago there was lots of frost on our cars and grass. Temperature recorded was between +1 and -2 in Celsius. From my experience this doesn't need to go as far as negative temperature for cables to get stiff. I agree that weather in UK is little bit astronomy unfriendly and humidity is your biggest enemy. Some time ago I bought pegasus ultimate power box v2 with humidity sensor but due to various reasons I'm yet to find out whether or not this is going to work.

[@Astrobloke]

@@qwertyu2387 well I was born in Lambeth so know London well. Light pollution must be a challenge. Unless you can source the cables with silicone sleeving there isn’t much you can do. The nylon webbing I use would not stop the cables getting as cold as ambient temps.

[@LogansAstro]

Some nice useful tips there Glenn. Cheers

[@Astrobloke]

Great, I hope they are helpful, thank you for commenting its greatly appreciated

[@markbayfield6381]

Very good video with loads of great idea. Thanks

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks mark appreciate the comment

[@sajjadahmed46]

Very helpful video.. Think I'm gonna need to tidy up my rig after watching this

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Saijad. Its worth doing as well

[@davebillybish]

Well done with this project, I use an ASIAIR plus now and it helps quite a lot with the cable management problem shown here. ,It comes with an assortment of short and longer usb cables. It has x4 12v power sockets x2 usb 3 and x2 usb 2 sockets though everyone must know this by now as it is 3years since the video was released. I found the split sheathing can add extra weight and interferes more with the balancing. The routing of cables can be augmented by using simple ‘office table edge’ self-adhesive plastic cable clips. I have found too that shortening cables can lead to poorer quality connectors bought online as you said. Clear skies :-)

[@Astrobloke]

Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. I have since moved on as you rightly say. I have not used the ASIAIR but I have friends that do, its a good solution but I don’t like that you are tied to just ZWO products. I took the route of a Mini PC and Pegasus powerbox advance. I run NINA on a Mele 3mini PC and it works great and keeps everything nice and tidy. The split sheathing does add weight and I no longer use it, the game changer for me is using the velcro cable ties. Thanks again, clear skies

[@davebillybish]

Agreed that the Zwo Air solution is very ZWO centric and I didn't like the enforced conformity really at first, but they make some great cameras and the pricing isn't bad so I went that way and now enjoy straight forward astrophotography without too many snags cropping up. Nina is a superb capture management tool and if I was a younger man I probably would have gone the same route as you. Thanks for sharing your knowledge on your channel, what would we do with people like you ❤

[@OlliesSpace]

Looking good Glenn I had a go last week making my setup neater I found similar to your Velcro strips a roll at the DIY store I could cut to length really handy stuff. I'm gonna get some dc cables for my HiTec so I can use those two ports. 👍👍Great tips.

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Ollie. Yes those ports are very handy on the Hitec. I'll be looking for a smart rig next video then? Lol

[@OlliesSpace]

@@Astrobloke ha you might need to cut me some slack ....or is that cut off some slack 🤣

[@siegfriednoet]

Nicely done 👍👍

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Siegfried 👍

[@foothillswildlifecamera938]

Awesome to find your great channel, Glenn! I'm rather new to the hobby and certain "popular" astro-personalities on KZbin have turned into marketing machines. I appreciate your PRACTICAL and useful content. Your video about PPEC saved me heaps of time and trouble. This video on cable management is perfectly timed for me as I'm strategizing about ways to tame my spaghetti jungle. Appreciate the level of detail and ideas you've shared. So I'll be watching a lot! One minor note-- around 7:00 and forward the loudness of the music was heavily competing with your sage advice :). Might want to mix that lower next time. We definitely don't listen to the same type music, but variety of tastes makes the world more interesting, haha. Take care, keep up the great work.

[@Astrobloke]

Thank you for you kind comments. I started the channel as I really did want to help others with ideas and issues that we all face. Thank you for the sound point. It is sometimes really difficult to get the balance right and I swear youtube messes it up sometime during the upload. I will take that onboard though, thank you.

[@foothillswildlifecamera938]

@@Astrobloke You're doing a brilliant job. I certainly don't know how to mix video/audio, haha. Very excited for my SHORT cables that are on order! Should be considerably more tidy... thanks again. Ironically, I ordered the ZWO EAF right after they switched to the 5V and one less cable... lucky me on the timing.

[@clairehunter7911]

That looks a lot better. Thanks Astrobloke

[@Astrobloke]

Yes it looks much better, thank you

[@astromitch9764]

Great vid Glenn will keep this in mind 😜

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Mitch

[@avt_astro206]

Intresting Workflow, Looks Neat!!👍

[@Astrobloke]

Thank you

[@dereksmythe9042]

Great video Glenn, helpful as always. Not sure what kind of saddo puts a thumbs down.....really?

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Derek. Your support means a lot and I just ignore any negativity. 😂👍

[@abellio8559]

Great solution

[@Astrobloke]

Tank you

[@AstroPilotchannel]

Fantastic!!!

[@Astrobloke]

Thanks Trevor

[@arnsteindale5531]

Glenn, I see you using a skywatcher tripod along with the pier to the AZ-GTI. How did you fit the pier to the tripod? It doesn`t fit in the center of the tripod.

[@Astrobloke]

Hi Arnstein. I have put a link at the end. hope it works. I bought the tripod from Rothervalleyoptics.co.uk and its a sky watcher one without the pin for the north alignment. the pier won't fit to that type. I only had the AZ GTI head and read the tripod for that is not that sturdy. This one works well and just attaches to the central threaded rod that comes up through the centre plate. hope this helps www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-stainless-steel-tripod-with-38-thread.html

[@arnsteindale5531]

@@Astrobloke I have a tripod for the eqm 35 mount I was planned to use. And yes, it`s the pin for north alignment that fuck things up :) Thanx for the links and enjoy the new years eve :)

[@richardhendrick5835]

Had the same problem with this ZWO short USB2 cable...

[@Astrobloke]

Yes its not the most robust cable

[@ronbrooks4219]

Don’t forget, best practice in cable management is to isolate your power cable from your data cable to reduce interference and possible data corruption.

[@Astrobloke]

Good tip thank you

[@AB-ft2lb]

Hi Glenn, there's a few options of the split sheathing you linked. Did you use the 1/2", 1/4" or 1/8"?

[@Astrobloke]

Hi, I used the 1/4” as it was only to hold 2 cables per run but you’ll have to make a judgement depending on how many and thickness of cables you are sheathing

[@AB-ft2lb]

@@Astrobloke Cheers, mine is just to hold 2 cables also. Congratulations on your EQ8! Hope you are enjoying it

[@Astrobloke]

@@AB-ft2lb the 1/4” should be the right one. The mount is brilliant and working really well. I’ve made a video thats out later today at 6pm on it. Makes my AZGTI look tiny lol

[@AB-ft2lb]

@@Astrobloke Hahaha. Yeah, looking forward to watching it later. Are you keeping the EQ6-R?

[@Astrobloke]

@@AB-ft2lb oh yes. Thats going to be my garden and dark sky outing mount and the EQ8 permanently in the Obsey.

[@markwelsh9068]

Glenn, I'm totally confused about the guide camera cable being plugged into the main camera. ??? I thought the guide camera interfaced with the mount. I'm getting old man. I've bought a Mele and I just keep looking at it and my EQ5 and think "Can I set this whole thing up?" I go round in circles thinking of all the things I think I need and then keep watching videos and having (stupid) questions. Do you know of anyone who has done a complete, start to finish, set up (hardware and software) of an EQ5 mount with a DSLR (actual connections) and mount and PC and then focus on the software?

[@Astrobloke]

Hi Mark. More than happy to help you with stuff, email me [e-mail] That's easier as we can share images of stuff or even video or link up online. It is a very confusing hobby at times but I assure you it can all be sorted and understood. Just baby steps sometimes. You are correct in that the guide camera via the PC sends corrections to the mount but usb can be piggybacked of anything in the loop. Email me a list of what you have and we will get you set up. You don't want to go buying more than you need.

[@markwelsh9068]

@@Astrobloke Holy sh! Man. That's exceptionally kind of you. I will put together something on email tomorrow or Sunday. Would be great to get your input and get my 'mojo' going on this. There are quite a few issues I have, even re the location and my intentions, that you might have some ideas about. Cheers and appreciated.

[@Astrobloke]

@@markwelsh9068 my pleasure Mark. Happy to help. It is tough and confusing when you first start. A little guidance and just someone who can answer a few questions can get you a long way. I will look out for your email.

[@speedtripmantriumph7542]

Tidy lol

[@Astrobloke]

Cheers mate