issue last night with eq6

sejanus (Gavin) · #1 29-11-2006, 10:52 AM

hey guys

I have been having some weird probs with eq6 which have been partially due to bugs in the southern hemisphere code on the controller, but I'm now upgraded to a newer version which supposedly eliminates those.

I had a weird prob last night and this is the email I have sent to the makers of the mount. I was wondering if you have a sec if you can have a quick read and tell me if you think it's a error with the controller or mount or an error by the idiot (me)

Quote:

Hi Jack,

Last night another oddity.

I did a 2 star alignment on Rigel & Achernar. Using a 32mm & the telrad to help find the star, then centering it and putting a 11mm in to really lock it in.

The alignment was still a little off but once I did a PAE on Canopus & the moon it seemed reasonably accurate, accurate enough to put the orion nebula in the viewfinder on the 32mm when you issued a goto.

I then tried to pick the first object in the 'guided tour' which is andromeda. The scope began slewing to point directly up, then continued going in an extreme uppish north/west angle. It reached a internal limit on how far it can go (I presume) and you then saw the OTA 'bounce back' a few times as it reached that limit. As it did this bouncing back thing the hand controller kept counting the degrees the mount was supposedly moving, appearing to not realise the mount could go no further.

The main problem is though that once this has happened, the controller has massively lost any idea where the scope is. Now if you tell it to goto orion nebula, whereas before it went there fine - this time it was ludicrously off, i.e. orion is well above my garage height wise, yet the scope now thinks orion is straight through my garage door.

A further idea that the controller has lost sync with where the mount is is that if you go into the utility function and park the scope, it ends parking it nowhere near where you had the scope at the start of the session. This is sort of what happened on the previous night when attempting to align to procyon.

Would appreciate the help. it's not really hugely usable at this point as any object in the sky it can't get to will knock the goto alignment completely out of whack, with you needing to go through the whole alignment process again. I don't know why it can't get to andromeda, I've have thought with the exception of very low horizon objects that it could pretty much point anywhere.

thanks for your help

cheers

Gav

Harb · #2 30-11-2006, 08:42 PM

Is it possible that the OTA or something else struck the mount or tripod etc...........

Cheers
John

acropolite (Phil) · #3 30-11-2006, 10:21 PM

I have had similar wierd behavior with my meed when a bug in the software caused the Lat/Long and time values to reset.

h0ughy (David) · #4 01-12-2006, 07:30 AM

OK a few obvious things,
was the mount levelled?
Was the mount aligned to SCP?
how close were you when you aligned the stars, you may need to get a 12mm illuminated reticle (see bintel of Myastro or some other reputable dealers)?
if possible do a 3 star alignment? it does help to tighten things up.

Now on that topic of tightening things up. Thats exactly what has happened here, either the tube has hit the mount or the lever pinch lock wasn't on tight enough. this has happened to me a few times, and basically it was my fault. I beleive that this was your problem.

sejanus (Gavin) · #5 01-12-2006, 09:28 AM

hey houghy,

yes i had the mount levelled with a spirit level as best as i could, and the alignment to scp was a pretty decent one. I have as per someones advice put marks in my backyard so the mount goes back in the same correct location each time.

maybe i should get an illuminated reticle, I guess I'll need one eventually anyway. I'm pretty sure the tube did not hit the mount but i will try again next time it is clear.

[1ponders] (Paul) · #6 01-12-2006, 10:06 AM

While I don't have an EQ6 it does sound as though the mount has slewed to its maximum amount but doesn't realise it. The bouncing has me concerned, it's sounds like the worm shaft is continuing to drive on the worm gear and then when tension gets too much, the two gears slip apart until they can reseat again after the tension has been removed. The controller will think that the mount has continued to slew but has become misaligned by the amount the gears have slipped. (and the goto after seems to confirm this)

This is not good for a number of reasons. The least being lose of alignment. When the gears slip you will have the teeth from both the worm drive and the worm gear sliding across each other. This will in time cause damage to the teeth of the gears. It puts excessive strain on your motors as they are trying to drive the mount past a no go point. Eventually you will start to get a worsening of your periodic error and an increase in non-periodic errors.

Does it look like the mount should be able to slew further with the motors? If you loosen the clutches can you move the mount past the points it reaches with the motors. You should be able to move the mount further with clutches disengaged because you have bypassed the software safetys.

Can you check to see what the mount limits are in RA and Dec?

sejanus (Gavin) · #7 08-12-2006, 01:14 PM

hi paul,

thanks for the detailed reply. I was looking through your suggestions when it happened again and then I realised as I was manually slewing with my hands that the scope was not balanced very well at all. I had balanced it a fair while ago but things must have gotten out of whack.

So I parked it, and redid the balancing again from scratch. This time it worked ok, so it must have been too heavy on one side and thus was causing the gears to slip as you were getting at.

sejanus (Gavin) · #8 10-12-2006, 10:59 PM

well back to scratch. tonight the mount in EXACTLY the same position as when it worked last time, using the same alignment stars, and the goto is so far off it's absolutely ridicolous

I am now grumpy

on the plus side I'm getting pretty decent at navigating the night sky with starry nights on the laptop and looking through the telrad.

h0ughy (David) · #9 10-12-2006, 11:09 PM

ok what stars are they again, and in what order. then send an email to tasco notifying them of a possible software problem. I will test out your settings on mine this week

sejanus (Gavin) · #10 10-12-2006, 11:27 PM

hey houghy

Rigel & Achernar were the 2 star choices tonight in that order. I even had them centered on a 12mm illuminated crosshair i bought last week. It says the align was successful then you tell it to go to somewhere nice and obvious like orion and it's so far off it's crazy, even though Rigel is relatively close to orion at moment.

I hope it's something I'm doing, though I'm really running out of ways for me to be stuffing up

wish you lived a bit more south

having 2 eq6's side by side would be interesting.

I'll call or email bintel as well thats where i got the mount.

cheers