rubber banding on my eq5 pro

[White Rabbit]

Hey guys.

I'm getting a bit of rubber banding in the dec axix on my mount. I've been told that its because the gears arnt meshing properly. Is this correct? and if so is it because they are to tight or not tight enough.

Thanks

[White Rabbit]

Stumpped ya's huh???Do I win a prize? Ooo, ummm, I'll have an ED127 please.

[gmbfilter]

Can I have the ED127 as a prize?

Do you mean you get wobble in dec axis when you grab the OTA
I have a HEQ5PRO with a WO FLT110. This helped http://www.adur-astronomical.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

A bit of stuffing around was necessary for me. I would have it just right at lunchtime, scope would cool with evenings and early am and jamb up and not drive or visa versa
A couple of alan keys 10 or 12 goes and its not noticeable

Was not as hard as it first appeared, there has to be some movement just not much. Originally it would jump half the field of the 35 Panoptic

[pjphilli]

Hi White Rabbit
Not quite sure what rubber banding is - could you be referring to backlash?
I use PHD for guiding and I noticed that a fair bit of DEC backlash was indicated during training. I undid the plate on the side of the HEQ5Pro and found that the gears for both RA and DEC were exposed. An Allen key was required to loosen the gear attachments and move them into a nice snug fit. I now notice that backlash is negligible on both RA and DEC axes as indicated on both PHD and paddle movements.
Hope this helps.
Cheers Peter

[allan gould]

You can also load the weights on your scope so that its unbalanced in Dec such that only one face of the gears are meshing. This worked for me. Too well balanced is a trap.

[White Rabbit]

Thanks guys.

what I was referring to was when I move a target into the centre FOV it will either carry on for a short while or reverse direction for a short while then come to a stop.

I think I have it fixed though, I stripped the whole thing down and regreased, what a trip that was there was a few moments where I though I might be in over my head. I need to wait until the sky clears to really checkin it out.

BTw if you have one of these mounts, there isnt much lubrication on these things, id recomend getting in and about it with lots of lube.

Sandy

[Live_Steam_Mad]

Hi, I hope noone minds me resurrecting an old post as my 1st post question but I am having a similar problem with a friend's LX90 - rubber banding as described here ;-

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/lx90/conversations/topics/84960

...what happens is ;- I make the star go to the left edge of the FOV in the 8mm eyepiece and then come back to the centre and it stays there, same with the star being made to go to the right hand edge of the FOV and then coming back to centre it stays there also, BUT with the vertical direction, it does NOT cooperate properly. When I ask it to make the star go to the top of the FOV and then bring it back to the centre, it then drifts downwards about 1/4 of the FOV towards the bottom edge, and MUCH worse when make the star go down to the bottom edge of the FOV and then back up to the centre, it drifts back down by 5/8 or nearly 2/3 of the FOV until it's near the bottom edge of the FOV. Yes I have done Callibrate Motors and a careful Train Drives.

...and I was wanting to get a HEQ5 mount at some point very soon for my own OTA's and I wanted to know how much of this rubber banding I can expect to get in the Dec axis on a HEQ5, i.e. how much does your HEQ5 mount have in Dec (or RA) ?

Any answers would be much appreciated.

Best Regards from NW England,

Alistair G.