Operating EQ6 drives

[Chrissyo (Chris)]

Hey everyone, I have a question that will probably be newbie sounding!

My EQ6 mount arrived at my house this afternoon. I got to assembeling it and everything is fine. However, I'm yet to understand how the drives work. When I press the buttons on the hand controller (its just a standard eq6), it appears as though nothing moves (obviously Im not expecting to see it spin at a really fast rate, but something should be detectable). The noises made within the mount vary from quite a quiet humming to louder noise I would have expected it to make. I read earlier that balance is important, and I just had a go at balancing it with my 10" newt, and still nothing. I was also told to make sure the clamps were tight, and I tried it both ways - nothing.

Unfortunately the mount didnt come with an instruction manual, yet the few I found on the internet didn't give me any information. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for this? (My two biggest thoughts are that I am missing something really simple or it is moving and I'm simply not looking hard enough).

[matt]

Does the hand controller have variable slew speeds on it?

Things like 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x etc?

Can you post a pic of your hand controller so we can have a look? Does it have an LCD readout screen?

[Chrissyo (Chris)]

Yup, variable slew speeds. I have attached a pic of the hand controller.

[TidaLpHasE]

I would say try the 16x or even the 8x, but look through the e/p and watch the field move through the scope.

[matt]

That's the same one I use on my EQ5.

Even at the highest speed you won't notice the gears moving too fast, but they do move - particularly the RA axis.

You need to make sure you tightened the knurled silver locking screws to engage the brass-coloured metal cog with its matching cog. (hope that makes sense?)

Also, make sure you've firmly locked down the RA and Dec locking levers on your mount

Just make sure you've also plugged the right RA and Dec leads into the correct sockets. The hand controller will still work, but it will all be reversed ie the RA buttons will now control Dec movement and vice-versa

[Striker (Tony)]

To get fast slew rates you need the synscan/skyscan otherwise the fastest speed on the standard EQ6 is very slow...more designed to center your target not to slew to all over the sky.

Your EQ6 has max slew rate of 16X where the skyscan is 800X slew rate.

[netwolf]

It seems the EQ6 you have is not a Synscan version meaning it has the motors that are usualy replaced when upgrading to goto. The Synscan (non-goto) version comes with the new motors now so its faster and you just add the Skyscan handcontroller.

Might i ask where you purchased the EQ6 from?

See my post here about the cheapest price for an EQ6 that i have seen with goto.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...60&postcount=2

Regards