HEQ5 pro belt mod

[RyanJones]

Hi all,

I'd like to do the belt drive modification to my HEQ5 Pro. When I've searched for it, the only one that seems to come up is the Rowan kit. Is this the only kit ? Is it the best kit ? And does anyone know where it can be sourced locally ? The first kits that come up are from Europe.

Thanks in advance for your help.:thumbsup:

[doppler]

Hi Ryan, I think that Rowan is the only one that makes the kit, I got mine straight from Rowan, reasonable postage and here in a week.

http://www.rowanastronomy.com/productsa1.htm

I did have a look at buying the individual parts but they are not that cheap and when you add the lot up the kit is a good price and ready to go. There is an optional pinion extractor tool, I got mine off easily by leaving the motors in and levering the gears off with two flat screwdrivers, one on each side of the gear.

Pretty easy mod and defiantly improves tracking.

Rick

[traveller]

HEQ5 belts mods are much easier to do than EQ6 (which I did on mine).
you need to make sure there is adequate tension in the belts otherwise your tracking will suffer.
Bo

[RyanJones]

Thanks for the advice guys and Rick for the link.

I'm assuming once I've carried out the mod. I'll need to set my backlash settings to zero and readjust it. Is there anything else I would be doing post-mod to help ?

[Paulyman]

My HEQ5 Pro came with really bad dec backlash which meant I had to guide in one direction only and very carefully balance camera heavy in dec. I had some weird 13.6s oscillations in ra that made guiding difficult and I tended to have an total rms of 1.5 to 2.

I just belt modded my HEQ5 Pro with the kit from Rowan, it was surprisingly easy the only hard part was getting the little gears off even with the pinion extractor. I finally got to test it on the weekend, on Saturday night the ra axis kept stalling so I had to bring it all in and play around with the tension in the belt. On Sunday night it worked like a dream, my total rms for nearly 8 hours across 3 targets was sub 1.5 all night, most times it was sub 1. My dec backlash is still pretty bad so I may have to play some more with the belt tension on that axis but I could guide it in both directions at least. The ra axis is running smooth as now.

[kens]

You also need to adjust the worm mesh and float in addition to belt tension.
http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-we1.htm

[bojan]

You do not need to go with Rowan kit.

You can buy parts at Small parts or SDP-Si (for a fraction of Rowan's price).. they have belts with various number of teeth, you only have to specify the right sizes. Belt tension can be adjusted by slightly moving the motors.