issue last night with eq6

[sejanus]

hey guys

I have been having some weird probs with eq6 which have been partially due to bugs in the southern hemisphere code on the controller, but I'm now upgraded to a newer version which supposedly eliminates those.

I had a weird prob last night and this is the email I have sent to the makers of the mount. I was wondering if you have a sec if you can have a quick read and tell me if you think it's a error with the controller or mount or an error by the idiot (me) :)

[Harb]

Is it possible that the OTA or something else struck the mount or tripod etc...........

Cheers
John

[acropolite]

I have had similar wierd behavior with my meed when a bug in the software caused the Lat/Long and time values to reset.:confuse3:

[h0ughy]

OK a few obvious things,
was the mount levelled?
Was the mount aligned to SCP?
how close were you when you aligned the stars, you may need to get a 12mm illuminated reticle (see bintel of Myastro or some other reputable dealers)?
if possible do a 3 star alignment? it does help to tighten things up.

Now on that topic of tightening things up. Thats exactly what has happened here, either the tube has hit the mount or the lever pinch lock wasn't on tight enough. this has happened to me a few times, and basically it was my fault. I beleive that this was your problem.

[sejanus]

hey houghy,

yes i had the mount levelled with a spirit level as best as i could, and the alignment to scp was a pretty decent one. I have as per someones advice put marks in my backyard so the mount goes back in the same correct location each time.

maybe i should get an illuminated reticle, I guess I'll need one eventually anyway. I'm pretty sure the tube did not hit the mount but i will try again next time it is clear.

[[1ponders]]

While I don't have an EQ6 it does sound as though the mount has slewed to its maximum amount but doesn't realise it. The bouncing has me concerned, it's sounds like the worm shaft is continuing to drive on the worm gear and then when tension gets too much, the two gears slip apart until they can reseat again after the tension has been removed. The controller will think that the mount has continued to slew but has become misaligned by the amount the gears have slipped. (and the goto after seems to confirm this)

This is not good for a number of reasons. The least being lose of alignment. When the gears slip you will have the teeth from both the worm drive and the worm gear sliding across each other. This will in time cause damage to the teeth of the gears. It puts excessive strain on your motors as they are trying to drive the mount past a no go point. Eventually you will start to get a worsening of your periodic error and an increase in non-periodic errors.

Does it look like the mount should be able to slew further with the motors? If you loosen the clutches can you move the mount past the points it reaches with the motors. You should be able to move the mount further with clutches disengaged because you have bypassed the software safetys.

Can you check to see what the mount limits are in RA and Dec?

[sejanus]

hi paul,

thanks for the detailed reply. I was looking through your suggestions when it happened again and then I realised as I was manually slewing with my hands that the scope was not balanced very well at all. I had balanced it a fair while ago but things must have gotten out of whack.

So I parked it, and redid the balancing again from scratch. This time it worked ok, so it must have been too heavy on one side and thus was causing the gears to slip as you were getting at.

[sejanus]

well back to scratch. tonight the mount in EXACTLY the same position as when it worked last time, using the same alignment stars, and the goto is so far off it's absolutely ridicolous

I am now grumpy

on the plus side I'm getting pretty decent at navigating the night sky with starry nights on the laptop and looking through the telrad.

[h0ughy]

ok what stars are they again, and in what order. then send an email to tasco notifying them of a possible software problem. I will test out your settings on mine this week

[sejanus]

hey houghy

Rigel & Achernar were the 2 star choices tonight in that order. I even had them centered on a 12mm illuminated crosshair i bought last week. It says the align was successful then you tell it to go to somewhere nice and obvious like orion and it's so far off it's crazy, even though Rigel is relatively close to orion at moment.

I hope it's something I'm doing, though I'm really running out of ways for me to be stuffing up :) wish you lived a bit more south :) having 2 eq6's side by side would be interesting.

I'll call or email bintel as well thats where i got the mount.

cheers