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The Paramounts allow you to change the axis drive acceleration rates, so if you have a big heavy rig like a 16" RC or 20" CDK you just reduce the value in the settings.
However when you are at or beyond the mount's capacity, the bearings are being overloaded and will deform and may degrade, likewise the surface pressures on the contact points on the drive gears will be exceeded from their design and this can also result in either permanent deformation at worst or premature wear and degradation at best.
The size, material hardness, surface pressures, load and speed are all directly related to one another in gear design.
As mentioned you can get flex in the counterbalance shaft itself.
Flex on its own probably doesnt matter much but if you get harmonic vibration happening due to the shaft being heavily stressed (or possible hysteresis in the drive systems electromechanical design) that is not so good.
That vibration can increase in amplitude if it then coincides with whatever natural harmonic resonances your mount permits - and you can end up with unmanageable vibration that will affect performance.
I made up a very large (around twice the normal diameter) custom stainless weight to be mounted at the end of the shaft on a P-ME for a friend in order to try and keep the total counterweight/telescope mass as low as possible, but this appeared to overly stress the counterbalance shaft (if you can believe that on a P-ME shaft !) and caused such a problem.
The initial solution was to go back to ordinary weights stacked hard together and an extension shaft - fully loaded, which meant a greater mass overall.
But ultimately the mount had to be replaced with a bigger mount to handle the total mass.
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