A tale of woe - NEQ6, ASIAIR and a failed homing

[xa-coupe]

It's taken me some years to be comfortable with allowing my ASIAIR to run things whilst I am asleep. To date it is has been 100% reliable, I fire it off and wake up in the morning to collect the data. I don't even do the 0200 check any more, and all was well.

Until it wasn't.

Last weekend I fired it off and went to bed, even got a rare sleep in till 0700. By 0800 I decided I should go check the astro setup and collect the data, only to be greeted by a loud clacking sound and the OTA wedged firmly against the tripod leg. After a panicked shutdown I looked and it seems to be okay, nothing bent other than the external WiFi antenna. I put it away until the next clear night for testing. Looking at the log showed everything went okay until the plan finished and it went to home, clearly going the wrong way.

So, this weekend I set it up and went to polar align it and that was when it all went wrong. The RA initially went okay with the Dec taking some time to get close .. then it just drifted it's merry way ... I adjusted it back towards the pole and it drifted the other way, taking the Dec with it. No matter what I did it wouldn't hold the PA. It is a bit noisier than before but not drastically so.

So, who is the 'goto' person in Melbourne to have it looked at and if it's feasible to repair, have a rowan belt mod done at the time too. I have the belt mod stuff already but was too lazy to do it myself.

[leon]

I feel for you Jeff, there is nothing worse than a failure when on is not present, hope you can get it sorted mate.

Many years ago when i was running my imaging rig I dared not to go to far, just in case something like this might happen.

Lost a lot of sleep, but the rig was safe.

Leon

[Dave882]

Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to your question, but am sorry to hear of that Jeff. I’ve only ever had a few issues with the ASIAIR, and only experience what you describe if I restart the ASIAIR with the mount in a different (non cwd) position, and otherwise only if it can’t finish a plan/autorun due to clouds preventing autofocus etc so it just keeps going till it’s physically stopped. I had a few more dramas when I was initially running a usb from the hc to the ASIAIR before I changed to eqmod.
The one thing that lets me sleep well at night with the rig running is that the eq8 has hard stops, so physically unable to collide with the mount. Reckon all mounts should employ that very simple feature

[Dave882]

Leo- the hard stops are internal - sorry I have never taken it apart to see how it works but it feels like a rubber stopper on the RA (nothing on DEC). All I can say is that this has saved my bacon on a few occasions

[xa-coupe]

Thank you all those who replied.

I might use the opportunity to update to a ZWO AM3 as I could use the portability and the current rig is very very heavy. I'll then be able to look at the EQ6 without having to sweat about losing the opportunity of very rare clear nights.

I should be able to do the belt mod myself, though a critical case of laziness seems to hit me at inopportune times. I recall something about putting in tapered roller bearings and if that isn't too hard I might give that a go as well as it's always been easier to turn it (with the brakes off) one way than the other regardless of how picky I am about balancing. Till recently it's guided like a champ, when I don't put my DYI dew shield on anyway.

Even with some time to ruminate about it I still don't get how it could crash like that. The Plan had finished and it was supposed to home, something I've done many many times. Unfortunately the logging I could find on the ASIAIR is pretty rudimentary. I'll still continue to use the ASIAIR but perhaps be a little less trusting.