beren
05-12-2004, 02:16 AM
Had the opportunity tonite to install the Petterson clutch kit on the LX200 . This mod improves the holding ability of the standard declination lock , its a major weak point in the design of the scope which i first found out when i used it for the first time . In full lock you can still move the tube in standard mode and just doesnt feel secure unless you have counter weights which i did get to improve the situation .
The Petterson kit comes with complete instuctions , a cork gasket , a little bag of lithium grease and a allen key to take off the fork arm cover. The basic procedure after taking the cover is removing 2 gears and cleaning the factory grease and cleaning grease off the worm and worm gear . Had a little trouble removing the gear plus theres a fair amount of grease that makes things messy . After cleaning all that up the grease that comes with the kit needs to be applied then the cork gasket is inserted in between the reinstalled gears . After all that and the cover put back on the operation is finished .
Ok so does it work ? Sure does , even with all the counterweights down the back the tube hardly moves with the lock not engaged , moving it by hand nearly equals the same tension the original set up had . Engage the lock slightly and the tube is totally immovable well as much as i dared to push. One thing im worried about does this mean having counterweights become unneccessary or you still need them to ease pressure on the drives . If so its hard to judge the balance because the tube doesnt move practically out all with what i tested it with .
Well it looks like i will have peace of mind at last , should have done it earlier . :)
The Petterson kit comes with complete instuctions , a cork gasket , a little bag of lithium grease and a allen key to take off the fork arm cover. The basic procedure after taking the cover is removing 2 gears and cleaning the factory grease and cleaning grease off the worm and worm gear . Had a little trouble removing the gear plus theres a fair amount of grease that makes things messy . After cleaning all that up the grease that comes with the kit needs to be applied then the cork gasket is inserted in between the reinstalled gears . After all that and the cover put back on the operation is finished .
Ok so does it work ? Sure does , even with all the counterweights down the back the tube hardly moves with the lock not engaged , moving it by hand nearly equals the same tension the original set up had . Engage the lock slightly and the tube is totally immovable well as much as i dared to push. One thing im worried about does this mean having counterweights become unneccessary or you still need them to ease pressure on the drives . If so its hard to judge the balance because the tube doesnt move practically out all with what i tested it with .
Well it looks like i will have peace of mind at last , should have done it earlier . :)