A few weeks ago, I bought myself a EQ5 Pro, and was very excited when it arrived and I got it all setup. It was devastating then when I attempted a 3 star alignment, I heard this horrendous grinding noise noise coming out of the DEC drive.
It was an immediate case of power off, and then wonder what happened.
Called up Andrews Communication, and apparently another gentleman had the same problem, and he thinks it is the motor controller not sending the right signals. So as instructed I sent the motor controller box back to Andrews, and sent a new one off another mount in return.
That however didn't fix the problem - the same machine gun staccato grinding noise is still present whenever DEC drive is engaged. This happens at low slew rates (*1) as well as high (*8).
So I took the motor off the mount, took away the plastic shroud, then detached all the gears until the motor should be free spinning, and took the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdtGL3hM8sg
I don't think it should be doing that
I actually switched directions thrice in the video. First time at 0:05 and as you can see, the motor didn't switch direction at all! Second time at around 0:09 it did, and it did too at 0:15.
Clearly something is wrong - the stepper seems to be really really confused at the start and end. Either I had 2 dud controllers (bad timing could account for this), or this motor has a busted winding or two.
I have tried changing cables around (the RA drive is fine), doing a factory restore, still the same thing.
I don't suppose anyone has had this problem or know of a solution that doesn't involve a replacement? Christmas is coming up and I am likely going to have to wait until 2010 to get a new unit from Andrews (who has been very very helpful btw)
Cheers,
Steve