Let the Mods Begin, feedback criticism welcome

[Shawn]

First up before I build my wedge wedges, as seems to be the logical approach, and this forums wise guidance, Address the balance issue with a budget of ,zip, nada, nil, and allow adjustement for an extra 8deg of wedge. Went shpping with $20. bought a lengh of 10mm Bright mild steel, 1 5kg Barbell and 1 1kg barbell, from a fitness shop, another place you dont often see me in BTW. I only wanted half the barbells, but they insisted I had to by the whole things.;) . A lenght of threaded bar, from a hardware joint. I had $2.75 left, so a cup of coffee after this massive spendeing spree. built the 3D balance rails today. and severely burnt my nose finger with the welder. will hopefully build the weight sliders tommorrow. but here are a couple of pics of the rail. not bad for a bush mechanic, I thought, the weight of the rails has worked in my favour, almost balances out the 100mm without the weights on it.:) , probably have to pepper one of the 5kgs with holes...Aluminium billet for wedge wedges is on order.
Well what do you think, ???

[Dennis]

Ouch - hope your finger survives the ordeal. Great mod, and excellent control of costs!

Cheers

Dennis

[mick pinner]

heres a system l made for my Meade a little while back. l weight the left fork arm independently so l only need to use a 2D system.

[Shawn]

Hi Mick
I see your rather proffesional system there, I see however your weights as far back as they can go, ,my rails will need to be extended back as well. I suspect when Meade fitted these with Ritchey Creiten optics ie: big heavier corrector,or so Im led to believe, they didnt change the COG on the tube assy, so these machines are by nature nose heavy."put me right on this if Im wrong". Ill have to hang about 8 kilos almost directly under the EP to achieve balance, 5 if I remove the 100mm Guidesope. now doesnt that suck. straight out of the box without a piggy, the dec motor complains anywhere near polar slewing up the meridian. not good for the gearbox assy and worm assy I would thing. so more welding, just have to watch for my other nose finger....:>)