Somebody stop me! Aperture fever

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

Having used the XX14i properly tonight, I must say that I'm quite happy with az bearings after all. They're firm enough to make minute corrections possible when trying to locate an object using the object locator. If it was more buttery as I originally posted, I think the small corrections would be just a tad more difficult. So, I'm happy!

I had to shim the finder just a tad to get it to align tonight. No big deal and only took a few seconds. I also noticed that my 12mm and 16mm naglers come to focus in this scope just before the full extent of the focusser. It'll probably be worth getting a small extension tube to keep things comfortable.

I was surprised at how easy it was to get going with the object locator, having never used one before. It literally took about 1 minute to align, and I was ready to go searching. Pity the sky was washed out with moonlight and clouds tonight. I made the most of what I could get my eyes onto and was more than pleased with the views. Collimation was spot on (checked inside out outside focus) - so all in all, a very pleasing new scope that ended up costing me about $7000 less than an Obsession 15".

Dean

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

I thought I must just add an extra snippet to this thread in case anyone interested in the XX14i is reading. I previously commented on the Az setup being firm. I just smoothed it out nicely by treating the formica on the underside of the mount with Armour All. After three applications the mount was nice and smooth, and it took all of about 1 minute to complete - no disassembly required.

Dean

[Archy (George)]

Originally Posted by floyd_2

...... I haven't forgotten about the Meade Lightbridge 16" scopes, however they seem just a little too large and heavy, and I'm not so sure about the build quality on them. I guess you get what you pay for, but I would hate to end up with a nice big mirror, with a mount that makes me cringe every time I use it.

Dean

There is nothing wrong with the mount on a Lightbridge 16, so don't worry you won't cringe when you use it.

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

I thought I may as well continue on with my endless XX14i ramblings for anyone interested now or in the future.

I noticed that eventualy armourall can cause extra stiction in the azimuth bearing, so I tried a few things:

1. Remove armourall and replace stock teflon az bearings with larger 50mm square (beveled edge) virgin teflon bearings (6mm thick). This in itself proved to have about the same friction as the stock teflon bearings - not worth doing in itself.

2. Add armourall to the formica along with the new teflon bearings. No real difference and not worth doing as the stiction problem will soon return.

3. Remove the armourall and clean all surfaces. Try a very small amount of fine talcum powder as a lubricant. Absolutely no stiction. Friction increased too much.

3. Clean all surfaces and try dry lubing the formica. Stiction reduced, but friction greater than without lube.

4. Clean all surfaces and polish formica twice with Turtle Wax (the $11 one in a tin) per Dave Kriege. Friction reduced considerably, stiction reduced.

5. Apply 2 thin coats of armoursll over the top of the Turtle Wax per Dave Kriege. Friction reduced further still, stiction almost gone. The az bearing is now significantly better than it was out of the box.

So far, option 5 has yielded the best results and is the solution I'm sticking with (until next weekend )

Dean

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Hi Dean,

Who was the bright spark that tried wax polish first? It certainly would never have occured to me. It is really thinking outside the box.

The difference wax polish makes is extraordinary.

Also, a periodic clean of the Teflon pads and the bearing surfaces and then a reapplication of the wax will restore the beast to its optimal performance. You become unaware of the gradual deteroriation of the surface quality as dirt slowly accumalates, and the restored condition will surprise you as much as the very first time.

[Rick Petrie]

Hi Dean
Did you try the smear of Kero over your ebony star to remove all gunk and wax.(kero dissolves wax really good)
Kero will also aid in a minor lubrication of the bearings and should not gunk up with further use.
As you know I used this method on my XX14i and have had no stiction problems since and the az action is very smooth. Kero also will not affect the teflon or ebony star laminate.
Cheers Rick

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

Hi Alexander and Rick,
I've read that a lot of people use Sailkote with great success, but I'm keeping that one up my sleeve for now as it's about $25.00 a can. Others have moved the bearings inwards with great success, however, that will take the addition of more formica as Orion trickily only used a ring of formica on the base of rocker. I'm not convinced that moving the bearings inwards would be a good idea anyway as the teflon pads would no longer be directly over the feet where the greatest support is.

I didn't try the smear of kero yet Rick. I actually used a little solvent (again, per Dave Kriege) to clean the bearing surfaces and it seemed to work really well (no better than wd40 though). However, given that I seem to be in the swing of cleaning, then trying new ideas to eliminate stiction, I may well be on the kero path this weekend

On a side note, I finally managed to get the secondary cell loose on my scope. The scope arrived with a well collimated secondary but it needed tweaking. Finally, after much persistence, I managed to get the secondary loose and have now collimated it perfectly using my trusty tektron auto collimator eyepiece. I'm not sure how many people use an auto collimator properly. I've read that as long as the image in the middle is dark, then your scope is collimated as the light path is closed. However, there's an extra step where you insert something coloured and fine into the light path between the secondary and the draw tube in good light (I use the tip of a yellow cable tie). As the cable tie reaches the centre of the light path from one side, you should see a mirror image of it approaching from the opposite side. If they meet exactly in the middle of the light path, the centre image should flush with the colour of the object in the light path (yellow in my case). If this doesn't happen, you still have work to do on your secondary. This might be old fashioned now that laser collimators are about lol.

Dean