It' a crazy world of retail isn't it.
The mount from Lee at $1399 and the upgrade from Kirks at $979 would give you a spare setup (in case the SS died) for $2378.
Now thats a little more like it...$2378 is a bit more reasonable than the $3000 that Astronomy online have them for.
I had thought of the Autostar and the LXD motors but realisticaly I wouldn't know where to start. I am one of these people that have thousands of ideas but unfortunately I usually stuff things up when I try and do something. For example I tried making my Dob mount a GOTO mount from scratch, spend years on it litterally 1997 I started the project and still haven't finished, I have since given up on that idea for the EQ6.
My fear is I would spend money on the EQ6 and the Autostar and stuff it up somehow when I install it, there wasting my money.
Also the encoder wheels on the lxd are easily bent arn't they? I heard of quite a few lxd-55's having bent encoder wheels as the main cause for the goto not being very accurate.
It took me 20 hours total over about 5 days to do the conversion. Really nothing super hard about it. If I can do it anyone can.
The encoders are somewhat fragile but if handled with care they come through fine. A trick with them is to spray them Krylon Ultra Flat Black. Seems to smooth out the slewing and tighten up the GoTo's. The number one issue with the Autostar setup is doing a motor calibration and a drive training routine. This solves 98% of most GoTo issues.
I think that you have done a great job of the conversion but was wondering how are the motor from the smaller lxd mounts Torque wise.
The lxd 55 75 mount is only the size of an EQ5 load capacity and from reports is only just up to holding the 10"SN.
I think if your going to upgrade the larger EQ6 mount motors you would want to have more powerful motors and better holding torque which the Astromeccanica kit has.
The motors are fair bit larger with a 20% increase in torque and fill the motor cavity with the motors only -no electronics in the cavity.
As such the reduction ratio has been reduced to allow even faster slew speeds while maintaining more torque.
The AM kit in the DA-1 doesn't have a PE correction as I have been told (see previous post) as if your using an auto guider in the form of a cheap web cam the PE controll is not needed .
Don't get me wrong i think the time you have spent and $ saved are great but what is the mounts abilities now load wise.
Do you have a torque figure for the LXD motors?
I don't have torque figures for the LX motors but I can tell you this, if you've seen the stock motors that come with the mount (Actually you can if you look at my focuser. The motor, gearbox and gear are ALL the original EQ-6 hardware. Now compare them to the AS motors shown below. No comparison.
The 55/75 weakness was/is not the motors ability to slew the scope but the mounts ability to carry the weight. The payload is based mainly for stability issues.
I also used the original Meade drive gear which, being smaller, helps to increase the torque over the stock EQ6 motors.
I would have to say the mount still carries it's original payload capacity although I can honestly say the figure Synta quotes isan absolute visual rating and in no way could be used for imaging. JMO.
This is the Autostar motor and gaerbox mounted to the modified original EQ6 motor plate. Ig nore the comments about the drive gear as I wound up going with the stock Meade drive gears as I said above.
