My NEQ6 woes update

[LewisM]

s some will recall, I had severe issues with my NEQ6 that was not holding in Dec - it was so severe that a star would drift off the autoguider screen within a minute.

I replaced the motor board - no difference. I ran checks on all my cables - no problems. I ran out of ideas, but then, when I had the motor board out again, I noticed something that SHOULD NOT have been there.

So, not getting an answer from Tasco as to whether pulling the motors myself voided warranty (it did NOT with my HEQ5, and Ron at Sirius assured me I could "fiddle"), I pulled both out. The RA was fine, but the Dec had what appeared to be acrylic lathe turnings, or even solidified big lumps of cyanoacrylate glue (superglue) on the Dec big cog, and also remnants of the same material around the base of the small motor cog - obviously, some foreign material left after assembly had finally shaken loose, and got itself munched by the Dec gears. There was still a crescent slice of this detritus stuck tot he face of the small cog's grease, and the grease had turned a black, smokey colour (the rest of the grease on this mount is yellow like vaseline).

So, I removed the detritus, regreased it all, remounted it (with minimal backlash as far as I could tell), tested it. All good, and quieter than before :)

Had my first opportunity to test it in action tonight, and it performed absolutely flawlessly - tracking was "round stars", and tracking near zenith was not an issue any longer. It handled being pointed lowish north with the weight out horizontal (tracking M1) flawlessly - M1 ended up being my only photo run - all of 2 subs - before the fast moving scud started here in SEQ.

Anyway, I am happy with the mount again at this stage, and have shelved the idea to replace it at this point in time.

[RobF]

Congrats on getting to the bottom of this Lewis. Heartbreaking when your new mount misbehaves. Hope you get lots of reliable fun use out of it now. Very capable mounts when tweaked and looked after.

[Tandum]

What ever that was it would not make dec run away as you previously described it did. If you have good polar alignment, dec doesn't need to move at all.

[ZeroID]

Being new have you informed the retailer of the issue and resolution ?
Might be worth letting them know.

[BPO]

Nice one. These Synta mounts are amazing value for money.

[LewisM]

Agreed Robin, it SHOULDN'T.

I will reject and start again any 3 star alignment with an alt/az error greater than 1° (as reported by the synscan post-alignment), so I know the alignments were ALWAYS sub-degree, and that should only introduce a SMALL amount of Dec tracking.

Previously, I had noticed that everything was fine until the guider calibration sequence was initiated - and I had Dec and RA guiding on. Then, running it's N,S,E and W calibration is when the "fun" would begin.

I have no real idea what was going on, but suffice to say that removing the crud from the Dec gears worked.

[issdaol]

Hi Lewis,

Glad you sorted your mount problem. I assume this is the new Alt/Az Variant??

It is amazing the poor quality control by some of these manufacturers then if there is an issue we have to troubleshoot ourselves and/or we are expected to pay return freight for items delivered faulty from the factory/supplier after spending thousands of dollars.

Cheers
Phil

[LewisM]

No Phil, it is an NEQ6 CGEM.

I do know that if this one was completely faulty that Tasco would pick up the tab to collect and return - well, afterI dropped it off at the vendor. The Tasco 5 year warranty on the SW mounts is 100% genuine, and they do everything. Can't complain. Whereas I have heard interesting stories of Andrew's grey-import 6 year warranty... won't elaborate without genuine knowledge on this one.

I had a mechanical failure on an HEQ5 upgrade kit once. Tasco replaced the defective item immediately without a single issue.

[issdaol]

That's Good support :-)

Some manufacturers push you to the point that you need to remind them about Australian Consumer Law's before they do the right thing.