R&D well spend :)

[mill]

Well Ladies/Gentlemen i used the first day of my holiday well spend.
As you all know about the eq5,cg4 etc, the slop is horrible.
I have just found some small bearings that fit the wormwheel shaft perfectly :)
They are 6*10 stainless steel roller bearings, 3mm wide and perfect for the job.
The only thing i had to do was make the od bigger by means of rolling four bearings in electrical tape untill i had the right od of 11.3mm.
Those bearings are a very snug fit on the shaft and are showing no slop at all.
Just finished the ra side of my mount and i can say it is an great succes :P
The hollow nut that was used to tighten the shaft and compress the rubber "O" rings can be turned very tight now an i have no sideways movement at all.
After adjusting the ra axis the mount is very smooth and can be turned very easy without backlash (dependant on the age of the mount and gear assembly afcourse).
I will take photo's of my progress for the dec side of things and maybe this can go in the howto section.
Ill keep you all informed on my progress with photo's.

[mill]

Some pics of the whole process.

[Bill Bates]

Nice idea. Just watchout, without the 2 O rings theres no margin for error. If you accidentally bump the RA axis you will bend the teeth on the soft gear against the stainless worm. The O rings are a safety measure for this reason. Seeing your only tracking in one direction, does it matter if it has a bit of play? It's only a pain when manual slewing.

[mill]

Hi Bill.
I made the mount so i can do autoguiding with it and the play that was there made it hard because of the lag when the gears go forwards or backwards.
Now the mount responds directly to the signals.
If i'm not tightning the levers too much and bump the ra axis it will just move and it will still track as long as the scope is well balanced.

[iceman]

Hi all

Martin (mill) has written a how-to article to EQ5 Bearing Replacement.

You can read the article from the IceInSpace Projects & Articles (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/?projects) page, or directly by clicking on the link below:

EQ5 Bearing Replacement (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,432,0,0,1,0)

Thanks to Martin for writing the article. If you'd like to submit an article or review, please Contact Me (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/?contact).

[wasyoungonce]

This issue was also covered by another iceinspace user, serge in 2005, although he hasn't posted since Jan 07.

Have a look here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=4369

serge used similar bearings with bigger OD and bored out the worm shell housing to suit the bearings OD. Sweet.

This is an issue I'll be looking at on my EQ5.

edit:
Martin maybe we can compare musings..I"m in Lilydale just a hop skip and jump down the road.

[mill]

Hi wasyoungonce.
Would love to compare musings.
I used these bearings so i didn't have to make any modifications just in case it went wrong.
It works really well.
Also modified the hand controller for autoguiding (just one cheap IC).

[dugnsuz]

Hi martin,
As you know I decided to go ahead with your roller bearing mod on my Skywatcher Synscan EQ5. Ordered the required bearings from SKF in Adelaide, but they had to be ordered and I started to disassemble the mount for cleaning prior to doing the mod only to find that the worm gear in my mount already has roller bearings on the shafts!!! And they're 11.3mm in outer diameter!!!!!!
So this is just a heads up for owners of THIS model mount.
Cheers
Doug

[mill]

You lucky bugger :)
Cancel the order quickly :P

[dugnsuz]

Yeah Martin - came as quite a shock - where I expected to see rubber O rings were these beautiful roller bearings!!! I'll pass the bad news on to SKF tomorrow!:P
Doug:thumbsup:

[leon]

Good one Doug, now look of at all that extra sleep you could have had, whilst worrying about dose roller bearings. :lol:

Leon :thumbsup:

[pjphilli]

Hi All
I am having a bit of trouble specifying the exact bearing required to a supplier. Are there more details eg external diameter, shaft hole diameter, I see they are 3m wide. Best of all does anyone have a SKF or other type number?
Cheers Peter

[MrB]

See first post:
6mm ID x 10mm OD

and then:
I guess that means rolling all four, side-by-side, at once in tape then slicing them apart with a sharp blade.

[mill]

Exactly as MrB said, very well explained :)