The Past is History:
  On a mountaintop once, Mr. John Dobson pointed out to our tiny clutch of observers... "EXACTLY!... If you aren't going to look through it - why did you take it out in the first place?"
  Well of course he understood the importance to telescope owners that these people will not use their telescopes freely if it takes too much time to actually observe something with it.  Everyone is so darn busy today.  This is the spirit of his Dobsonian design - its the whole point!  Plop it down somewhere and observe something - and do it RIGHT NOW!  If it will require star alignments or polar orientation or levelling, a large separate platform or any extra objects to carry, or any such sort of GPS knowledge or clock entry or extra work - the user will balk at the chore and use the telescope much less often.
  In 1989 we developed the first drive for a Dobsonian mount that met the convenience goals John envisioned with his simple telescope mounting.  Make it so darn simple for a user to add, make it follow anything Right Now!  And make it so humanly intelligent that absolutely zero knowledge was required to track objects in the sky with it.  Dave Masters understood - but he was primarily interested in the extreme high mag tracking of details on the Lunar surface - and he was just cutting his teeth on his new homemade Dob telescope, learning that there were large differences between astronomical Newtonians and the thousands of eyeglass lenses he had ground and polished for his father in the laboratory.  But then - Daves' passion and degree was in electronics - he had already developed major components for the radio-telemetry tire pressure warning electronics on the Corvette automobile.
  Lunar rates as well as solar rates, planets, comets, asteroids (and the King Rate) were all different from the nominal sky rate - the LST meaning Local Sidreal Time - the rate that stellar objects have for a speed across the sky or about 1/365th of a day difference from clock time.  But what about the Dobs?  Since Dobs do not rotate like the equatorial mounts, then Dobs have to follow curved trajectories even to track any of the simplest of objects - lots of curves - so many curved paths it would seem like quantum mechanics were required.
  Enter the Dob-Driver, simply attached to the telescope once and left there.  Total weight to the telescope 6 LBS.  Without any more than a telescope user and their telescope, this device will track Any Motion the sky has to offer.  Without initialization of any sort.  Without installing or attaching parts to observe and without carrying any platform or any other items at all.  No levelling, no star align, no polar axis, no North orientation, no time entry, no Latitude, no Longitude, no GPS, no PC, no other equipment, no wait for system booting, no startup required of ANY KIND.  Just observe - Right Now!
  And we do mean Any Motion.  Ever take an image of a comet?  An asteroid?  Planets?  You do realize these objects move across the sky in relation to the stars don't you?  Do you also realize that no drive speed selection or platform on planet Earth will follow those since amateur drives - even the EQ drives - only have at most 4 rates on one axis only?  Dob-Driver will track them on-target every time.  In an astronomical image, tracking a comet for instance with a Dob-Driver will show streaks for each star.  That is because the Dob-Driver is tracking the OBJECT - and the object is moving against the background of stars in two axes at once.  No drive unit for amateur telescopes has this ability to select fine rates at any angle of travel and with CURVED trajectories in ALL FOUR QUADRANTS!  ... except Dob-Driver of course.  It takes 48 bits says Dave... 280 TRILLION velocity-vectors selected by the Dob-Driver automatically and invisible to the telescope operator... who just wants to observe... Right Now!

Since the early days we have gone fully digital.  Even the 2 drive motors themselves are digital elements in this architecture. - self encoded they yield a resolution of 720,000 counts, about 351 times the resolution of a standard DSC encoder device, and that's for just the most basic Dob-Driver system.  There is not a telescope mount made in the world today that does what the Dob-Driver II from Tech2000 does.  And no mount can claim all of the capability at one time with the flexibility that a Dob-Driver II can.  Just tack it onto your own Dob (DDR2-SYS) or equatorial (DDR2-ATM) and you will understand.  Any manufacture for any telescope mount as well as all homebuilt mounts can directly accept a 6 LB Dob-Driver kit with no modification to the structure.  Quite simple.  A user does not need to be adept at any science at all to do this - thats what the CPU and the ROM inside the hand control are for.  You do need to know how a screwdriver works to install it though!
  There are no separate encoders to buy or install, there is no extra part to use in the occular or on the telescope finder - remember - no initialization - its just you and your hand control doing all this.
  All Tech2000 products carry a full 30-day moneyback guarantee without question so the purchaser will not feel uneasy in the purchase.  We assure you that you will succeed - because we have 18 years now of experience with thousands of customers who are happy that they did do it and succeeded.

Dob-Driver II Pendant control, with CCD autoguider interface installed, and BuddyBox remote cord configuration.

~ PRIMARY FEATURES ~

• Computer control hand pendant contains all functions, displays, buttons and jacks, and power handling drivers.  Move it around to any position with the supplied Velcro pads.  Cord extracts up to 8 ft. (longer on special request).


• Important!  You handle, move, setup, and store your scope in the same way you do without a drive unit!  Keep your unlimited freedom of movement in the sky - via manual or electric slew.  Independent clutches on each axis are part of the drive units.  There is no 'erecting' - no bulky platform to store, transport, or align and NO extra things to carry.  Its now part of your scope, unobtrusive, as if the factory installed it!


• Azimuth drive fits any floor thickness and scopes with backwalls (like Obsession, Starmaster, Starsplitter, etc).  Fine knurled stainless steel traction wheel protrudes down onto the ground board surface, acting like a giant gear!  Can also mount in front wall, side, etc.  Bearing suspension system is included.


• 11" altitude pulley mounts aside any existing bearing, web/hoop/semicircle/etc.  You leave this on the tube assembly of your scope since it is not larger than the tube or truss or mirror box diameter.  Micro-tooth glass drive belt (360LB break strength) is captivated in drive unit... just pull up and pop on!


• If you are using an encoder unit, Dob-Driver II sports full mechanical compatibility with setting circle encoder products from all manufacturers - and you can mount the altitude drive on either side or same side as those.


•   Motors are self-encoded astro-winding units custom designed by Tech2000 for fine microstepping and superior slew.


• 12vdc (not supplied with kits) easily runs all weekend from a small rechargeable cell placed in your mount!  Only 330ma w/ both axes tracking, 500ma when slewing.  And this lightweight unit will run your 6" homemade - or a 250 LB monster!  (even heavier to 500LB+ with special HD kit).


• Easy to install in a few hours with simple hand tools on any mount - guaranteed.  Complete step-by-step instructions with templates and scope performance tips are included.


• High quality components, stainless steel hardware, rugged and long lasting.  We have units fielded continuously that are over 10 years old!  And ran in temperatures from 0-F to 120F without a hiccup on the same old mounts that are still producing published images today.  The price/performance of such quality is not available today except from Tech2000.


• Compare the low cost, and compare the flexibility of the features described in the website or our catalog.  No one mounting or other device you could purchase has the standalone tracking ability of Tech2000 and their Dob-Driver product.  Check-out the user comments and installation reviews and see for yourself.

~ ROBOSCOPE ACCESSORY ~

  What if the owner does want to 'goto' objects automatically?  Well we must do that too without 'forcing' or requiring it... make it totally optional at the whim of the user... and it also should be the least effort to use, slew at speeds up to 7 deg/sec on the Dob mounts, and automatically track the object when it gets there.  In the same spirit of the Dobsonian mount, goto should not need any accurate time, no time at all, no GPS no lat and no lon, who cares where Polaris is - or North or South for that matter - ask people in Australia to sight Polaris!  All that mathematical junk depends on a dead-level mounting too.  These are of no interest to those who want to examine the Heavens - Right Now!  A simple 2-star align on any bright stars should do... any known object at all in fact.  The Dob-Driver should be smart enough to triangulate the GPS and correct local time at the users meridian and to make it even simpler - the user should not have to 'cock' the telescope up and down to perform the initializing 'level-me' step required by the digital setting circle products (DSC) for a bearing reference.  It should be dynamic as a floating spacecraft is without needing any of them to accomplish its' mission.  When running it should take direct catalog numbers from the user for the (ENTIRE!) NGC catalog as well as Messier and IC and numerous other popular catalogs and permit the user to have unlimited catalogs of their own personal construct.
  Well perhaps its not so surprising - Dave had it ready in 1994 and since then we enjoy awesome goto & track performance on even the crudest wood telescope mounts.  NASA employees noticed this in 1995, contracts were issued from the Kennedy Space Center, and since then several large specialized mountings are using the Dob-Driver II Roboscope link advantages for up to 500 foot-pound drives.  As is usual from customers across a decade back we hardly ever hear any questions asking for assistance after we ship.  Just remarks come in like "Darn - these things are accurate - how do you do this at that price - and why don't I need a hunk of massive precision steel mounting to do it!"  Proprietary information of course,  Tech2000.