Rowan Heq5 Pro belt mod

[benklerk]

Hi Guys

I been looking into the HEQ5 belt mod upgrade from Rowan to get better tracking and making it quieter. I know I will need the Pinion Extractor Tool.

Just asking for people who have done the upgrade, how much improvement is there?What your longest exposures you can do? I can currently get 10min as the longest I can get.

Also is there a place over here I can get them from or do I need to order it from overseas? If overseas did you get it from Rowan's website or from a shop?

Ben

[garymck]

Hi,
I did the Rowan belt mod to my HEQ5 (bought new last year). Results were that my pe was cut by more than half to now around 12 arc secs. My guiding figures are between .5 and ,9 arc secs rms depending on seeing.Don't recall what they were before - obviously bad enough that I wanted to do the mod:-) Much quieter than before. The mount now performs like a champ, and am extremely happy with it. I don't know the longest exposure I could take, but I do use up to 10 minutes at the moment.

I did find that belt tension was critical to getting good results, and I had to use more tension than Rowan seems to recommend.

I bought direct from Rowan.

You definitely need the pinion extractor, otherwise fitting is a piece of cake with excellent instructions.

Hope this helps
cheers
Gary

[jwoody]

I did the mod too and while I don't have before and after numbers I can get 30 minute exposures at a focal length of 420mm.
I must admit though even before the mod I could get really long exposures with my mount, must have got a really good one?

Jeremy

[jahnpahwa]

Another thread dig here.


Just did the belt mod here and am impressed by all of it. Its an hour job, the pinion extractor tool is good.



My mount had been guiding around 1.5 arc seconds, just always fighting to get the perfect settings in Phd2, and when using the guiding assistant i had extreme dec backlash, too much to guide in both directions, even after disassembling, regreasing and adjusting worm gears to zero slop and no binding. It was frustrating to say the least. I thought I'd try the belt mod before moving on to something bigger and better.

Glad i did. Guiding has been excellent, the calibration that i did first night works under good and not so good skies. I'm now ticking over subs with 0.6 - 0.75 arc second total rms and its no hassle. Its quieter too. A bigger mount can now wait, the system stays fairly portable, hopefully my stars and dark lanes are better defined than ever.
If you're thinking about it, i recommend it heartily.

[gdrabs]

Thanks for the feed back - I'm considering this mod some day too....

[RyanJones]

Hi Ben,

I second pretty much everything the others have said. Do it ! It’s well worth it. I bought mine direct from Rowan too.

[Sunfish]

+1 . Worth every dollar. I bought mine from a local Astro supplier who stock them. Very quick if they have them
https://www.siderealtrading.com.au/product/rowan-astronomy-heq5-pro-belt-drive-kit/