Paramount ME dec homing issue

[Paul Haese]

Hopefully someone will know the answer to this problem.

First off, nothing has changed at all from a previous use, but like everything that I see a problem has arisen.

I go to home the mount and the RA homes fine but the dec moves in the reverse direction from the normal movement (dec moves anti clockwise)and hits the hard stop. I moved the mount to behind the home position for dec and it travels past that and heads down and around to the hard stop.

Anyone got any ideas?

[Bassnut]

Assuming set up in software isnt corrupted (reload?), either the servo driver PCB is faulty (just driving regardless), or the dec home switch is crook.

[ericwbenson]

Hi Paul,
I might of seen this before, IIRC the software/firmware settings got corrupted (never found out why) and I redid the southern hemisphere setup from the manual and it was ok.
But then it could be just that the home sensor is toast like Fred said... :(

EB

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys, unfortunately it looks like it is a hardware problem. I installed the skyX on the computer, I connected up the mount easily, set for southern hemisphere and went to home and it did the same thing. Maybe the homing sensor is fried.

[frolinmod]

You could probably use some spare parts anyway, so you might as well order some.

[Joshua Bunn]

Could there be some grease on the sensor? You have just been through a pretty warm summer.

[Peter Ward]

Paul,

Power up the mount and home it via a double-click on the joystick. It should slew to the north east.

If it doesn't I'd suspect hardware.

If it does , your software set-up is probably incorrect. (check observer lat/long/time/SH settings, then sync to a SH star )

Cheers
Peter

[Paul Haese]

Tried that Pete, did the same thing. Must be hardware.

Joshua, I will take a look at the sensor but think it is fried. As grease on the sensor usually means the alarm would go off.

Ernie, ordered a sensor kit this morning. Might as well have a spare or two like you suggest.

[Paul Haese]

Just a bit of an update.

SB recommended that I change over the homing sensor kit, so I bought one of those and it arrived yesterday. Today I drove down to the house and pulled the old one out and installed the new one. Which was a pretty easy job really. Took me a bit over an hour.

Turns out that the cable has been rubbing on the inside because I inadvertently cable tied a portion of it further down which in effect restricted the movement and caused the rubbing. That rubbing wore through the cable and severed it. Hence why it was not working.

Up shot is I know have my PME back in operation and homing as it should. Pretty happy with that. :)

[Joshua Bunn]

good to hear Paul, bet your chuffed.

[Paul Haese]

Yep, its nice to have my PME back. :)