HEQ5 Instructions

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Pete
It sounds like you have the cover off the drives.
Unmesh one of the drive motors from its worm and turn it with you fingers. It should move quite freely.
Check the worm and make sure this turns quite freely with no backlash.
Put the motor back and adjust the meshing while turning the motor with your fingers.
Close up the mesh until there is no backlash without any noticeable extra loading.
Do the same with the other gear.

The way you speak I think you will find one of the motors or its corresponding worm binding. If this is the case I think the motor will be OK but the worm is probably too tight and will need to be checked for dirt or lubrication or possible incorrect assembly.

Barry

[widow18 (Pete)]

Thanks Barry, I sort of did that but discovered the RA motor was buzzing, quite a bit. local (brisbane) service place is shut, all I could find on the web were motors in the UK for 80 quid, thats got to be $150 here, add labor and gas and its over a quarter of the price of the mount. You don't look through it while using the dec motor, so I pulled it to bits and swapped them around. It works in the kitchen, fingers crossed for tonight. My only concern is not having a clue how tight the gears are supposed to mesh, and since I did all of them it should be obvious early on if it was correct.
Thanks everyone for the assistance and will advise tomorrow morning if it worked.
Peter

[widow18 (Pete)]

Last night was cloudy, in the end I parked and then told it to go to Saturn without alligning, which it did. There was little or no change in the photos, so I turned tracking off and there was still vibration showing in the photos. To prove I am not set up on some sort of fault line I turned power off completely and got the expected star trails. One of the motors must be quietly humming to itself for no good reason. Will recheck gear meshing and adjust the worm for the RA axis as Barry suggested. If no luck it will go to Brisbane in a bucket for professional help and the children will probably get nothing when I die.
Peter

[widow18 (Pete)]

Actually I remember now both motors would still be powered on, thats how steppers work.
Last night after adjusting the RA worm and balancing with a slight bias to the counter weight I finally had a big improvement. Two good photos, one out of focus when changed from 55mm to 250mm lense, one good then a fuzzy one, followed by a good one. Beginning to suspect the main RA bearing dry or contaminated.
Peter

[widow18 (Pete)]

Got a scope to put on the mount, Orion 120, and no clouds. It worked, more or less as I expected. There must still be a problem though as it "sings", the scope acts as a sort of speaker and the noise is audible from a metre away. Thanks everyone for the advise.
Peter