Maintenance on a Paramount MX

[cventer]

Hi All


In case you are interested I have put up a video of the process of replacing a worm block and adjusting the camstop from beginning to end on a parmount MX.


Might be usefull to anyone else who has to do this ever or is interested in whats inside one of these.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARKTL9XlSV4

Cheers
Chris

[brian nordstrom]

:) Thanks for that Chris , nice piece if engeneering . Now I know whats under the covers.
Brian.

[Mighty_oz]

Thanks :) Did u have to replace yours due to that bad PE ?
Best i've been able to get with this hot weather etc is about 9 unadjusted and 5'ish after applying pec :(
Watched the vid very well done

[cventer]

Yup

I was getting 9 or 10 peak to peak. Supposed to be less than 7 out of box without PEC.

So bisque brothers sent me another one to try. I suspect however its not this and possibly something else. I have no idea why just a hunch. Possibly RA motor. We will see as soon as I get a clear night.

[Mighty_oz]

Does your RA motor make a much louder noise than the Dec, as mine does.

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that. I'll watch that as I have to tighten up the cam on mine as heavy overbalancing causes it to slip badly which is a scary thing.

Greg.

[cventer]

Yup it sure does. My understanding is this is the feedback loop mechanism and controler keeping the motor moving at siderial rate and adjusting based on closed loop sensors.

Do you notice vibration as well from your RA motor ? When its tracking if you put both hands on the black RA cover can you feel a slight vibration ? I am told this is normal but want to verify with other owners.

Also one other question. When you trained your PEC which side of meridean did you pick a star on ? and did you tick the box saying data gathered on west ? A screenshot of your pec screen showign this check box would be helpful.

[Mighty_oz]

I've done both sides i think in an effort to get it down, the nights have not been kind atm, but what can u expect it's summer :) So i have not been to fussed as i think due to seeing etc it woun't be great ? I have saved the autoguider logs if u want to look at them ?
Just logged onto the telescope and redid the pec so u could see what i got, pretty sure they were West side.
Also had tracking on, no vibration from what i could feel, very slight on both axes (same), bit of vibration from both black worm boxes when resting hand on them.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks Chris, I will take a look at this in its entirety once I get home to a better internet connection. Seems I am not the only fix it man on the SB equipment.

[frolinmod]

If your error doubles after you compute a PEC curve and program it having checked that "Data was collected when telescope was pointing West", just uncheck the box and recompute the curve and reprogram the mount. I always reboot-normal my mount after programming PEC as well. If you told me the checkbox is backwards I would not be surprised. It was certainly backwards at one time and I did complain about it, but I do think they either ignored me or told me I was an idiot. You tell me which! :screwy:

[cventer]

If that is your curve before pec then all is good for you as that is showing uncorrected PE of 5 arc sec peak to peak. ie 4 pixels x 1.29

[Mighty_oz]

raw data pec shows 4.1 to 4.1, corrected 3.3 to 3.3 not good, waiting for better nights :) To top that off neither my DSI II pro or the QHY5 guiders work with this mount for me, they connect but don't work properly. I've tried a 258 t-point model asa well for protrack hoping i could take 10 min + unguided images. ROFL as iff ! it's better without protrack than with !
Anyways mustn't ramble on anothers posting :)

[frolinmod]

You're Mr. ME to his Mr. MX. Or he's Mini-Me and you're Dr. Evil. Take your pick. Speaking of which, I'm still very much looking forward to viewing your ME video if you'll please upload it to Youtube and post the link.

[TrevorW]

Two things would concern me after spending $10000 on a mount

a) you needed to do this
b) you've voided any warranty by doing this

just doesn't makes sense to me, that aside it's a good video

Cheers

[frolinmod]

He has absolutely NOT voided the warranty. The Software Bisque warranty does not work like that. Paramounts do not come with stickers that say "no user maintainable parts inside, removing this sticker voids the warranty." They're not mass produced consumer electronic items or what have you that are meant to be thrown away and repurchased if they fail. Software Bisque do not force users to return their mounts to the factory for minor problems that can easily be repaired in the field. Their service and support is highly practical and personable.

Software Bisque also makes mount parts available for purchase and provides instructions for swapping out said parts in the field. Check the Software Bisque online store and you'll find various and sundry ME parts that have been found to fail and require replacement over the years. I expect MX parts will be added to the store eventually.

[TrevorW]

Well thats interesting in fact I couldn't find anything about warranty on there site except this

"Software Bisque warrants to the customer that the Paramount MX will be free from defects in mechanical parts (for two years) and all electrical parts (for one year) from the date of delivery. Software Bisque's limited warranty covers only those defects which are the result of normal use, and do not apply to any improper or inadequate maintenance or modification or operation outside the product's specifications."

now usually warranties I've seen go into some more length than this maybe someone could tell me if this is it or is there more, because for as long as I've been alive if you tinker with a new product you void any warranty.

Just a thought and I'm not having a go at SB just curious:question::thanx:

[cventer]

Trevor

Software Bisque happily volunteered for me to send my mount back to them. I did not want to be without if for the time so they sent me the worm block and instructions on what to do. So definately no warranty issue. Also they way these mounts are made they are so well engineered and chunky that servicing them if needed seems like a very easy activity.

As far as fact I needed to do this. Well need is probably not the right word. You may have seen some of my recent images and they are VERY sharp. The sales pitch does however indicate an out of the box PE of less than 7 arc sec peak to peak. I want to make sure I get what I paid for. Mine is around 9 from data I have gathered so we will see if new worm sorts out the issue.

Looks like it might be clear tonight so I will find out soon enough. I have this suspicion though that its not going to lower the PE. Not sure why.

[Mighty_oz]

Hope is does sort out your PE , but u got to wonder about the Quality control here,as this should not have gone out the door, unless it's due to some other problem unrelated to the mount.

[DavidTrap]

It's the price you pay for being an early adopter of a new product - "bugs" in the system may not have been identified. At least they're standing by you.

I was initially concerned about buying a mount from OS which (at that time) didn't have an Australian distributor. Nonetheless, the RA and DEC motors can be swapped by the user - so if your RA motor fails, you could sub in the DEC motor and keep using the mount. The external computer and hand control could be easily sent back OS for service. So all the bits most likely to suffer problems can be easily detached by the user. From what I've seen in pictures, the Paramounts look like more stuff is "under the hood", but that shouldn't slow down the more confident, mechanically-minded astronomer for too long.

DT

[Hans Tucker]

Thinking the same thing..I was contemplating replacing the NJP with an MX but this thread has convinced me to stick with Takahashi...or maybe I will look at Astro-Physics.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks for the reminder Ernie. Been a bit busy and it had slipped my mind.

[cventer]

Ok Good news is the new worm block sorted out my PE.

Raw uncorrected PE is now 5.6 peak to peak. I am very happy with that and its a VERY smooth line that will be very easy to guide out.

Hans while its true it should not have slipped via QC the fact that within a few days of me sending data to Software Bisque they wrote instructions for me and shipped me a new block with no questions asked makes up for it.

Darn good service in my view.

These mounts being new are bound to have a few gremlins. Even so they have so many more features than NJP and Astrophysics equivalent that in my view its not even a comparison.

[cventer]

Marcus not sure but if the graph you posted below. (ie first picture) is RAW uncorrected PE then your mount is well within SPEC.

Looking at that graph the fitted curve stays within 2 pixels either side. The overal scale is 3.7 but you can see all your data is within first 2 lines of graph either side. Each line is 1 pixel. So your data is all within 4 pixels. At 1.29 arc sec per pixel x 4 pixels this puts your PE at 5.16

[cventer]

I just loaded the log file data in your post that you attached as well into pempro.

Its shows your RAW pe as +2.7 - 1.4 ie 4.1 peak to peak which is none too shabby.

[Mighty_oz]

Hey thanks for that :) But thinking on it, is't it supposed to be 7 peak to peak ie 3.5 to 3.5 making it 7 whereas mines 4.1 to 4.1 = 8.2 ? Now all i goto do is work out why i can't do more than a couple minutes unguided without squiggly lines with or without protrack on. Next couple nights maybe good so more testing.
Glad yours is sorted out now.

[frolinmod]

Marcus, the graph from TheSkyX that you posted clearly shows the maximums of the graph on each side to be +3 and -3 arc seconds respectively. Even if your mount's PE went full scale on each side, which it did not, its peak to peak would not exceed 6. Your mount's PE is just barely exceeding a peak to peak of 4. That's good. Now all you need to do is measure it again after programming the PEC to make sure your PE went down and didn't double instead.

[cventer]

No, Yours is +2.7 to -1.4 peak to peak. Ie 4.1 total PE. :D:D:D

Last night I tried PEC correction again and could not get it to have any impact. If I selected data on west it got worse by 2 - 3 arc sec but if I selected east it pretty much stayed the same.

I am thinking there is a software glitch with my version or combination of software.

[frolinmod]

Did you reboot your mount after programming the PEC?

[cventer]

No i did not reboot. Instructons did not say I had to.

I assume you mean from TCS to choose reboot ? I notice there are 2 reboot options. One normal and one for index.

what is this reboot for index ?

[gregbradley]

Chris,

An oddity I noticed about PEC was I did a PEC curve and it seemed similar to my PME's. I uploaded it and its supposed to save it. Next time I turned on mount the PEC part of the menu says no PE data. I click the get button and a different much more stepped and jagged curve uploads.

I wonder if this part of the software is bugged. Its not what it looks like on my PME.

Its worth asking. I'll redo my PEC curve and the upload and reread the manual on this point and see how it goes.

Greg.

[cventer]

Just finished an automated 150 point T-Point run

Results below. 11 arc sec accuracy. Yeah baby. I am pretty happy with that. See evidence attached.

Also did another PE / PEC run an PE was showing as +2.5 to - 2.5 ie 5 peak to peak. Did not try PEC again tonight

[Mighty_oz]

Can u do me a favour Chris and try Protrack and say a 10 min unguided photo at F5 with the FSQ ?

Just redid my PE as well about 4 peak to peak so i'm stacked as well.
Also if u use the right cable for ST4 u can guide well too :)
Here's a 20 min guided photo of M47 as a test, it's a largish image so u can see the nice round stars, hehe.
Thanks all for the help

[gregbradley]

That's impressive. Is this with the new worm SB sent you?

Greg.

[cventer]

Yes Greg, but I dont think the new worm has much to do with the pointing accuracy just the PE. Tightening the camera, rings, adaptors, dovetail to mount, cables, pier etc... are all the things that improve the pointing accuracy.

[frolinmod]

I had my mount tripod standing atop a moving blanket that I had spread out over a concrete patio. Bad idea. Just removing the blanket made my pointing twice as good.

[gregbradley]

True. I was also referring to the PE. So that is good that SB sorted that out and you have the low PE you wanted and paid for.

Greg.

[cventer]

Just an update

Finaly got PEC working tonight. Very stable clear night so spent time getting 6 worm cycles.

Used latest version of pempro to generate my curve,. Loaded it into the MX and my PE with PEC is now +.4 / - .5 .

Less the 1 arc sec peak to Peak :eyepop:
Looks like you can believe the hype!!!!!

[gregbradley]

Wow, Chris. That's great. But it took Pempro to do it eh? The Bisque PEC does not work?

I am wondering about mine as I have been using it the last few nights. I see some erratic PE coming into the guiding that should not be there given the level of PA (I think) I have.

Also the curve that is in the mount does not appear to be the same way I recorded originally. I wonder if it alters the recorded curve when uploaded and there is a bug in that process.

Also with my PMX/Sky X I have to tell it to get the curve instead of it being there when I click on Bisque TCS like with my PME. That seems bugged as well.

I'll get a copy of Pempro and use that.

By the way the polar alignment tool in Pempro is the best I have used in any software apart from the much longer process with t-point.

So if you wanted to get a very close PA before you did the T-Point magic then that is a good way to get it done.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Chris,

Per PEMPRO website PMX is supported but it says like the PME direct upload is not available to the mount.

Were you able to upload the PEMPRO PE curve into the PMX or do you have to load and play PEMPRO everytime you use the PMX and PEC?

I did a PEC on my PME using PEMPRO and it would not upload the curve even though it had a menu button to do that. I assumed at the time it was because I was using a trial version of PEMPRO and that the upload function was disabled as you really only have to do PEC once and the curve is valid for a long time.

Greg.

[cventer]

Greg,

There is no direct upload capability.

You use pempro to aquire the data after doing a mount calibration routine. It connects to skyx and ccdsoft, takes image. finds a star then aquires the data for as many worm cycles as you allow

It gathers data. Then you generate a PEC curve using highest order that keeps RMS from growing. i used quadtratic.

Once done there is a button that says"Create Paramount PEC file"

All this does is take the curve and copies it into memory and also notepad. Make sure you copy to notepad and save it in case you need it later.

You then go to bisque TCS in the skyX , clear current curve. Then click the paste button. It pastes the curve into tcs. You then choose save to mount and it updates the PEC table.

[gregbradley]

Thanks for that detailed reply - much appreciated.

Greg.