Sick and tired of my mount.

[raymo]

Eager to try out my new lens, and the mount's star alignment function
started giving impossible, ludicrous read outs again. Got down to a minute or so, and the next iteration said I was 16* 32' off in Az and
6* 22' in Ev. Tried a different pair of stars and just got more rubbish readings. Another whole evening wasted. I wish I could afford to throw this mount on the tip. Looking back through my log I find that 17 days
is the longest run I have had without something playing up since I bought
it several years ago.:sad::sad::sad::sad::sad:
raymo

[leon]

Goodness me Raymo, what else can cause you frustration, you have had a bit of it of late.
Hope you get it sorted mate.

Leon

[peter_4059]

Get eqmod. You will never look back.

[Robert9]

Hi Raymo.
I see you are trying to use the alignment routine built into the handset.
I have the same experience. I think after each P.A. you need to do a star alignment (at least 2 star) and then the next P.A. I have had better results with this routine but must admit I'm thinking seriously about just going back to drift alignment or alternatively, putting a web-cam on the polar scope to save my ageing back, and doing an old fashioned visual.
Robert

[raymo]

Thanks for the commiserations Leon; the digital age has overtaken me, and I'm thinking of going back to visual.
Peter, I have looked in detail at EQMOD, and the whole process of installing and operating it just makes my head spin. One of the EQMOD
websites says that it is an awful lot to take in initially. Waaaay beyond me. I've never even used BYEOS that I bought a while back.
Robert, I don't use the P.A. function at all, numerous people on IIS
[ including me ] have found it to be pretty useless. I just do two star
aligns until down to less than one minute error on both axes, and when
it is behaving itself it tracks quite nicely.
raymo

[Somnium]

when i was using my EQ6 i was using EQMOD with Cart du ciel and astrotortilla (all free). that set up was really good. having a plate solving tool that can sync the planetarium software and give you a read on your P.A accuracy is extremely useful. people will say that this type of set up can be difficult but to be honest, a quick google or youtube search will get you to a tutorial which will step you through the settings and it is just a game of simon says.

[raymo]

Hi Aidan, I had these nonsensical readouts on my first hand controller from time to time, up until it failed altogether. My new V.4 H/C does
exactly the same thing. Sometimes I am up and running in a few iterations, and sometimes I never achieve alignment. My point is that
what is the likelihood of both controllers having the same problem?
Maybe I could go through all the rigmarole of installing the various
software, only to find that EQMOD can't control the mount properly either.
Some months ago an IIS member spent an evening with me, him using
his NEQ6. I was so envious watching everything working as it should.
Oddly, we couldn't get my mount to align even using a spare H/C that he brought with him.
raymo

[Somnium]

hmm that is a strange one, i know how frustrating it can be when equipment doesnt work like it is supposed to. i hope you get on top of it

[JimsShed]

Sounds demoralising, so you have my sympathy. In addition to my previous response on the other thread, On a prior Occassion I once received a Skywatcher mount that developed a fault in the electronics, although this was about 2 weeks after receiving it. Symptoms were hand controller becoming unresponsive or crazy characters on the controller display, or erratic goto results. I'd bought it from Andrews so they got me to post back the hand controller, black box, and cables. They swapped in/out the parts on another new mount from their shop and found the culprit...faulty black box, not the hand controller. You need to find a friend or dealer you can send the bits to and do the same. The Andrews guy said faulty motors can also be the cause, and that would have been our plan B.
PS: gold star to Andrews for prompt service.

[raymo]

Thank you Jim; I'll look into that. I had cable troubles before, but
recrimped them and never had any more trouble. What black box are you talking about? I assume that it must be inside the mount.

Believe me, so do I Aidan.

[doppler]

Maybe it's the the mount electronics that's faulty? Looks like an easy one to swap over and cheaper than a hand set.

http://www.opticstar.com/Run/Astronomy/Astro-Accessories-Mounts-Skywatcher.asp?p=0_10_5_2_0_60

[sharptrack2]

Hi Raymo,

My back ground is in electronics and the first thought that crosses my mind is that the encoders in your mount have something wrong with them, possibly areas of intermittent readings. From my rudimentary knowledge of how they work, as you adjust from night to night, the reference point rotates around the center axis of the sensors. Since you get periods of easy alignment, this starts to become a likely suspect.

I don't have any real experience with these mounts but it could simply be some oxidation on metal contacts, or if the encoder is completely magnetic in nature, the magnet ring could be out of round and not causing enough deflection to be read properly by the circuitry in certain areas.

I'm still working mostly with manual adjusting so have not experienced the joys of electronic tracking, but as strange as it might seem, I'm looking forward to it. ;)

It might be worth an email to the manufacturer to see if this hypothesis holds any water...

[JimsShed]

On mine it was the box that clips onto the mount's leg. The hand controller plugs into it along with the power cord and RA cable. It's also referred to as the motor controller. On your mount, this part may be a component in the mount.

[raymo]

Thank you Jim, Kevin, and Rick. Some new avenues to explore. The motherboard or encoders do seem likely suspects. [Actually the motherboard is almost the same price as an H/C, which is A$215 ]. Not a happy camper, if I have to send the whole mount, it'll cost a bit for postage, let alone the cost of testing and repair.
raymo

[bert]

The heq5 does not have encoders, it uses stepper motors and open loop.

[glend]

I know your constrained by your age and budget, but i'd consider replacing the HEQ with either a NEQ6 or Z25, either will bive you more imaging capacity, a new system, and the flexibility to go to heavier scopes.

[raymo]

Well that cuts out one possibility Brett. Thanks for that.

Glen, I got the 5 in the first place because it suited my needs size wise
then, and still does. The last thing I need is a larger scope; it is fairly
hard work mounting my 8" with it's electric focuser, and my D.I.Y.
tube rotating device, and sometimes with my 80mm on it as well.
I have to set up every time, and can just carry my 5 with the weights attached; can't do that with a 6. Many people happily use a 5 for years, I just seem to have got a lemon. Maybe the vendor knew it was faulty, and
that's why he got rid of it. The perils of buying used electronics.
raymo

[Howard]

You say once you've done your normal series of 2-star alignments and got the polar error as small as you can that the tracking is fine. Great. How about the go to's? Are they ok too?
I have an EQ5 Pro and in the past had occasional weird tracking and goto issues. The solution was the power supply cable plug which is connected to the mount was rotating in its plug hole on top of the mount. Once I took the head to bits and soldered the positive power pin in the actual plug hole in the mount (as it was loose) and got a replacement plug from Jaycar and soldered it onto the power lead and (lastly) got in the habit of using a rubber band to go around the cable securing it to the polar scope cover at the back of the scope, the problems disappeared. The last bit re rubber band means the power lead came from the plug inserted into the head in a small arc towards the back of the mount where the plastic polar scope cap is. The cover rotates in RA as the head rotates in RA thus keeping the arc of power cable stationary relative to the plug hole so there is absolutely no rotation nor weight on the plug going into the mount.
Lastly, re alignment, you could do an iterative polar alignment. Google it ... but basically ... setup then without doing an alignment GoTo a star roughly on the equator about 45 degrees altitude. Then SYNC to that star using the hand control (hold ESC for 2 seconds). It will ask you to centre the star using the hand control. Then GoTo a star near'ish to the pole ... Acrux etc are fine. You correct half the error in that GoTo by using the Alt and Az bolts (underline half the error and underline bolts). Repeat the process two or three times and you should find each time the Alt/Az bolts adjustment to correct half the error reduces. You should end up with quite a good PA. Good luck ... hope you find it's just your power lead or male or female power plug adapters/hole which are the problem.
Cheers

[raymo]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Howard.
Firstly, I had H/C to mount cable problems,[as did a number of other people], giving weird results. Recrimped the cable and everything returned to normal.
I have for quite a while had the power cable fixed like yours but using a cable tie.
After alignment down to a minute or less Go Tos are pretty good, placing
the target very near the centre of the F.O.V. in a medium power EP. and when the target is a very long way from either of the alignment stars, it
is usually within half way to the edge of the F.O.V. of a low power EP.
Using my present method when the mount is behaving itself I can get
round stars for 60 secs, and sometimes up to 100secs, so the mount can track pretty damn well.
I would drift align, but my F.O.V. doesn't allow me to access any stars
low in the sky. I will try an iterative align, but difficult as can't see anywhere near the pole until late at night this time of year.
raymo

[raymo]

Well I tried an iterative P.A. tonight, but it didn't matter what star I went
to, when pressed escape button it just said re-centering Betelgeuse.
Pressing enter did nothing. Tried again later but it said re-centering Sirius. My mount tonight was the worst it's ever been, all rubbish readouts.
raymo

[Shiraz]

if your problem is only polar alignment, maybe consider getting a polar scope and do it optically (if you can see the polar region) - that will be plenty accurate for short exposure imaging or visual.

the mount does not have encoders, but I think that the ring counters (which keep track of where the mount is) are on the main board, so it may still be worth trying a new board in the mount.

[Nortilus]

raymo, I was having a similar issue with my NEQ6. I found that one of my AZ bearing retainer caps was loose and giving me a whole lot of movment in AZ. Check to see if you can move the scope freely in AZ, if you can move it back and forward then you need to tighten down your AZ bearing retainer cap. There is info online about how to set these correctly.

[doppler]

There is alignment info on pages 35 and 36 of the manual. I have never read the whole manual but page 36 looks worth trying out.

[raymo]

Thanks once again everyone, am looking into all points raised.
Bearings are secure Josh.
raymo

[Howard]

And the 'sync' ability is on page 34. They call it PAE. It sounds like you either didnt press and hold ESC for 2 seconds or more ... or your HC or SW or something else is corrupt.

BTW, have you updated your HC yet when trying to fix this problem with it giving weird readouts, and not Polar aligning?

Cheers

[raymo]

Hi Howard, I certainly did hold the escape button down for two seconds,
and got the message "centering Betelgeuse" or Sirius, stars I had been nowhere near for a while. I have the V.4 H/C which has I believe, the latest version installed, 4.10 if I remember rightly.
I am familiar with P.A.E. but got the wrong message when pressing escape. It should say "centre -------" whatever object, but said
"re-centering ---------" some irrelevant star.

[Howard]

Wow! ... I'd be "Sick and Tired of my mount" too if I had all the problems you are getting. Do hope you or someone who posts is able to suggest something which works. Good luck. You have more patience than me. :)

[raymo]

Thanks Howard.
raymo

[kens]

I was having a quick look at the SynScan manuals. V3 says "center..." whereas V4 says "re-centering..."
Have you tried explicitly clearing the PAE data? In theory they should clear whenever you do 1,2 or 3 star alignment but you never know.
With EQMOD I was getting some weird stuff happening due to bad data.

[raymo]

Hi Ken, I have never used P.A.E. on this mount, so I assume that there wouldn't be any data to clear. Apart from which, I wouldn't know how to clear it. As I mentioned just now in another thread, my mount went truly bananas last night. I happened to plonk it down almost spot on with first
iteration less than one degree on both axes, made a small correction and was then told I was 23 degs out in Az and 9 degs in Alt; clearly impossible. Ended up doing a rough drift align.
raymo

[g__day]

Sure sounds like something is scrambled. Can you borrow another controller / mount to isolate if its the mounts electronics, the hand controller or both units that are scrambled?

[kens]

You can clear PAE using UTILITY Function > PAE > Clear PAE data
Its worth doing if only to eliminate as a possible cause.

Elsewhere you wrote

This doesn't sound right. Pressing the ESC key for 2 seconds initiates PAE which is Positioning Accuracy Enhancement.
For Polar Alignment you need to use the MENU > Alignment > Polar Alignment option after doing a normal 2 or 3 star alignment.
You then repeat by doing another 2 or 3 star alignment then MENU > Alignment > Polar Alignment until you get reasonable polar alignment error (which just happens to have the same initials but is not the same thing)
I can't say for sure but I can imagine that doing a PAE before the polar alignment could screw things up..

Another way to check where the problem lies is to use the UTILITY function > Show Position option too read out where the controller thinks your scope is pointed.
This mount does not have any encoders and uses the start position and number of steps it has taken to work out where it is. This is done in the Motor Control Unit (MCU) inside the mount. The handset asks the MCU how many steps it has taken and converts to RA/Dec.
The fact that the scope seems to be tracking OK after a manual PA suggests the drive hardware (motors and gears) is OK.

[raymo]

Matthew, I don't think the hand controller is at fault; This mount has had
this problem on and off for a long time, before the hand controller packed
up and I got this new one. I'm pulling out the motherboard for a visual
inspection.

Ken, since owning this mount, a 2 star alignment has always provided
adequate tracking and Go To, [when working properly], so I have never used P.A.E. I have tried the polar alignment function, and got no benefit from it. The motors and direction buttons have always functioned faultlessly, so it is looking more and more like the MCU is faulty.
I will clear the P.A.E. data, and look at the show position function.
Thanks Ken.
raymo

[kens]

Another idea just popped into my head. There could be a faulty connection between the hand controller and MCU - either in the cable or connector. If it was affecting the Rx line but not the Tx then the controller could send commands to the MCU but would not get data back reliably.

[raymo]

I did have [ along with other people] H/C to Mount cable troubles giving
all sorts of weird readings. I got a spare cable, and recrimped the connections on both ends of both cables, and the problem was fixed.
The H/C cable got caught in the R.A. axis clutch lever a while ago when slewing the mount. This put a lot of stress on the H/C cable to mount
connection. I removed the little board and am going to unsolder the connection pins and check to see if there is any damage to the connector.
raymo

[g__day]

Still posit you need to run an elimination test to see if its power supply, cables, mount electronics or hand controller electronics that are borked. Guessing may not help much. If the problem is persistent and you believe the wrong bit of gear is faulty you will waste a lot of time.

Fins someone with the exact same gear and test component at a time until you get the full list of everything that is wrong absolutely nailed.

[raymo]

I would love to do a process of elimination Matthew, but I don't know anyone with the same mount as me that would be prepared to pull
their mount to pieces, in order for me to try out each component in turn.
I have removed the motherboard and power board, and both look o.k. visually. I'll put my meter on them, and see if I can find any faults.
I have a spare hand controller to mount cable, so have pretty much ruled that out as the culprit.
raymo

[g__day]

Bummer Raymo,

You can't arrange to take it back to the original supplier and have them work with you on a elimination test - or don't they have these in stock? The sooner the real culprit is found - the easier it will to work out next steps!

Matthew

[raymo]

It came from Andrews originally, but is way out of warranty, and I bought
it used, so I don't think Andrews would be too interested, especially as
they don't sell spare parts for it as far as I know.No doubt I will get there
in the end.
raymo

[g__day]

No one with a HEQ5 lives close-by? If you could set up another mount and test your hand controller on it - and their hand controller on yours - that should identify the faulty part pretty quickly.

[raymo]

As far as I know there is only one other "proper" scope in my little town, and that is a 10" Lightbridge. I checked the H/C to mount cable today,
all good. The H/C is a V.4 and less than six months old, so I tend to think
it a little unlikely to be the culprit. I'm liking Ken's suggestion from half
a dozen posts back in this thread. I'm going to unsolder the female H/C
cable socket on the power board, and see if it suffered any damage when the cable got snagged a few weeks ago. It ripped all the cable ends out
of the mount end of the cable. Luckily I have a spare cable[ which is the one I checked today].
raymo

[Merlin66]

http://www.astro-baby.com/EQ6%20rebuild%20guide/EQ6%20Development%20and%20Software% 20Releases.htm

Worth a read......

[raymo]

Thanks Ken, it's interesting that they don't list the features that have been deleted with the introduction of the V.4 H/C. such as ambient temp, and beep at end of slew.
raymo

[raymo]

Well, I found a popped capacitor on my motor control board, and
managed to install a new one, despite not really having the right tools.
The next night with enough gaps between the clouds will tell me
whether that was my problem; fingers crossed.
raymo