Mount restoration

[Peter Ward]

I have been servicing Losmandy mounts for decades, but this one was
a serious challenge.

Some show and tell here. (http://www.atscope.com.au/losmandy/G11refurbishment.html)

When it was done however, the system's drive was silky smooth and despite its near 30 year vintage, purred like a kitten.

Testimony to the timeless excellence of the fully machined design by Scott Losmandy
I expect with only a modicum of care by its new owner, it will still be a very useful mount for another 30 years.

Begging the question, has anyone else on IIS restored a vintage mount? How did it go?

[h0ughy]

Fantastic transformation

Marc did. One for Alan Meehan which was just as crispy. He also did my g11 at the same time and fitted the one piece worm block I bought from you over 20 ye!ars ago. I donated my original worm to Alan's mount as his was far too crispy. Marc worked wonders, and yes I agree what a wonderful machined mount. Proud to have my g11 and titan50. Will have to find the photos of Alan's mount as he got it

[iborg]

Hi Peter



Cleaned up beautifully, well done.


Philip

[Crater101]

It's always good to see an older bit of gear brought back to life. My compliments!

[ChrisV]

I've got Alan's mount now. It's running beautifully, although Ive taken out the old motors & losmandy controller and put in direct drive steppers & onstep controller.

[AstroViking]

That's a lovely piece of work there, Peter. Well done, indeed.

(And I'd never thought I'd hear the phrase "1994, thirty years ago"...)

[Peter Ward]

As an aside, I use quite a bit of isopropyl for cleaning all sorts of Astro-gear, as a result I order 20 litre drums of the stuff. I had taken delivery of a fresh drum a couple of years ago, little did I know the timing was impeccable....two weeks later a thing called COVID arrived.

For a quite some time you couldn't get isopropyl for love or money as everyone was making hand sanitisers out of the stuff!

[leon]

Beautiful job Peter, I remember all those years ago when I received my G11and it was order through you, although I dont have it anymore I know it is working well and is in Perth.

Great job.

leon

[Peter Ward]

Ta Leon. The build quality of Losmandy mounts is exceptional...many have been
in faithful service for decades now....a rare hallmark given today's "throw-away" mentality when something doesn't work.

[AdamJL]

Excellent pictures and result.

You know, I follow a few YouTube channels where they restore old "stuff". MyMechanics is a great example (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMrMVIBtqFW6O0-MWq26gqw)

I would love to see a video of someone doing the same thing with Telescopes and Mounts. Maybe a side-hustle for you ;) There's money in it!

[leon]

Na Peter doesn't need the cash :question::question:

Do ya Pete :lol::lol:

Just having a joke, but then again I am always in trouble here :shrug:

Leon :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Nah, I'm doing OK.

While I did get paid for the restoration, it was hardly at commercial rates.

It was however rather therapeutic...rather like restoring a classic sports car.

[Ant0nio]

An impressive result Peter. I may have become a G11 fan after seeing this.

Cheers,
Tony

[DavidTrap]

Cleaned up beautifully.

While it wasn’t a restoration as such, I converted an old Paramount GT-1100S from the paramount control system over to OnStep. It wouldn’t play nicely with TheSkyX and I’ve found it easier to run it as an ASCOM mount with Voyager. Pointing accuracy is good (plate solve and refine works beautifully) and guiding graph is well below 1 arcsec. I printed up various brackets with a 3D printer to slot the new stepper motors into the same slots as the original servo motors.

Moral of the story, if you come across an old mount that is mechanically sound with good gears and don’t mind tinkering electronically, you can convert it to a capable goto system for well under $500.

DT

[John0z]

I have a Losmandy GM8 that I bought from Peter in December 1997. It was about 5-6 years ago, that I got it out of storage and it didn't seem to move well. I eventually found that the RA shaft wasn't turning properly and it wasn't until I removed the RA assembly that I found that the needle bearings were jammed. It took time with WD40 to clean out the hardened grease and eventually the bearings would finally spin. After leaving it to dry out, I used some white lithium grease and massaged the grease into the bearings before reassembling the assembly.

Now, I am going through the OnStep wiki to work out how to convert this GM8 to computerized.

[netwolf]

Ouch that looks bad but it turned out great. This is what I love about the G11's.

time to take out my old CG11 and give it a clean i think last cleanup was in 2008, every time i think to sell it i resist. Number 1 reason the ability to self service it is much easier than any other mount out there. They way these were made i think they will easily outlast us. A little disappointing that some of the new upgrades require return to factory but dont really need them.


https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=33133