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Old 16-08-2020, 10:04 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Kilmore, Australia
Posts: 3,342
They can need a firm press rather than what you might call snug. Just slowly tighten it until you need to give the scope a reasonable bump to move the RA axis. The AZEQ6 clutch design is totally different to the EQ6 and they do seem to need a little more force to lock them properly.

What you do not want to do is overtighten them though, if you monster them too much you will compress the clutch disc over time (It is a felt disc) and it can cause the fixed and moving parts of the mount to foul on each other and drag, when that happens the movement of the mount will become unreliable (Particularly in RA) and the tighter you do up the clutches, the worse it gets. I fixed mine by making clutch shims out of aluminium sheet to pack the clutches out by half a mm and it has been fine ever since, but I had been using it for a number of years at the time.

The other trick is balancing the dec axis, rather than rotating the RA until the dec axis is horizontal (Counterweights level) go a little further until the counterweights are above the telescope, maybe 10 degrees past horizontal. Due to the different clutch design, the weight of the telescope and counterweight is on the clutches when the counterweights are down and the clutches can stick a little until you go counterweights high and use the weight of the scope and counterweights to separate them. The axis can look like it is balanced, but move it a bit more in RA so the counterweights are above the RA axis and it releases the clutches better and starts moving. Unfortunately there is no equivalent way to do it in RA, which I balance counterweights heavy by just enough that the axis moves when released so at least I know which way it is balanced.
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