NEQ6 RA slew failure ???

[Nico13 (Ken)]

Hi all,

A question for all you EQ6 mount owners out there.

My new EQ6 has started to fail in the middle of a slew in RA drive in either direction.
First noticed a week or so back at the SVAA club night when about half way through the evening it began to just stop in a slew operation.
Had to power down and manually park the mount re power and do another align before I could carry on.
Became a bit of a bother by the end of the night.

Had a play with it over the next couple of days and thought I'd found the problem in the hand piece cable connection not being good and a bit of a wriggle had fixed it.

Well just setting up TheSky6 to drive the mount with ASCOM and EQMOD, no hand piece in the mix and its started to do it again, it will just give a click sound while slewing, like that when you first turn the mount power on and then nothing until you do a full reset.

Anyone experienced this? Will be calling Bintel tomorrow sounds like a trip to Melbourne and may be without a mount for a while.

Ken.

[asimov (John)]

Yeah, if it's still under warranty, you've made the right call. 'Return to sender'

[Nico13 (Ken)]

Well I think I've solved the intermittent fault, its now become a total failure.

Yep that's right it won't do a thing now, the last check I was doing was on battery power just to make sure it wasn't my power supply that was causing the issue.
It stopped half way through a slew as before but this time I could hear the motor still whirring away for a couple of seconds followed by a grinding sound and then nothing.

So it's definitely a trip the Bintel shop in the morning by the looks of it.
There's always a positive side to this though, you never know what you might come home with.

Ken.

Just to add to this when I was packing the mount up I detected a strong burnt electromics smell so the smoke has got out in there somewhere.
Not good but will get it fixed soon I guess. Haven't had it long but really love this as when it is working it does it so well.

[Nico13 (Ken)]

All fixed, pick it up this Sat so I'll be in business again soon.
Turns out it popped a component or two on the circuit board so new bits fitted by the Bintel boys and away we go again.

Ken.