Quote:
Originally Posted by dugnsuz
Not sure if adjusting the worm gear would void your warranty as one doesn't need to get into the guts of the mount so to speak. You do have to remove the screws to the Power input box to access one screw though - that might be a problem warranty-wise?? 
You'll probably have need to adjust the backlash in RA or Dec someday, so perhaps today's the day!! The procedure isn't difficult, just requires a bit of patience to find the sweet spot where the gears mesh.
From the sounds of it, I think a minor tune up would solve your problem.
Does the mount track for a bit then give a mechanical , audible click?
Others have had software related problems recently I recall.
Doug |
Hi Doug, no, not quite. I had bought a terrific new pier specifically to hold this mount that I'd bought from it's first owner a little bit earlier. My ROR Obs has 2 separate concrete slabs for piers and the other one has my EQ6 on it already so I was keen to put the HEQ5Pro onto the new pier and really have the ability to do long FL on one with my GSO RC and shorter FL on the other with my ED127.
So as soon as I could get the pier and mount together, the next step was drift alignment and guiding setup.
I use K3CCD Tools for drift alignment as it gives a good 'live' feedback. I had earlier tested the mount "off-pier" and found that the SynScan handpiece didn't respond. I took it to Ron at Sirius Optics in Brisbane and he arranged a replacement without any fuss at all. He was great.
So, finally, started drift aligning and had it pretty close by the old plumb-bob at solar noon technique but as soon as drift alignment started what you could see and hear every 20 or 30 seconds was a real jump in the RA. The star image in K3CCD lept three paces to the right and there was a distinct click/clunk inside the mount. It was at regular intervals but I didn't precisely time it.
I then connected my QHY5 camera to the scope and to the autoguide port on the mount and tried to calibrate in PHD. It said it was connected via ASCOM and PHD went through a calibration routine but whether PHD screen said it was calibrating N,S,E or W, the star just kept drifting off the screen; and when it finally said it was guiding, the same happened. How it thought it was calibrating and guiding when the guidestar was headed towards Broken Hill I don't know.
Anyway, it seemed to me this was not a job for a weekend tinkerer: so it
was a job for the people who had sold the mount 6 months before, Sirius Optics at Mermaid beach and the rest of that story seems to be still developing.
Peter