would the battery charger work on its own? I have one sitting in the garage... Says on it that its output is 12v DC 2.5A... the mounts manual states it requires 11-15vDC with sustained current above 2A...
I wouldn't risk it, the battery acts like a huge capacitor smoothing the volts. Voltage regulation on battery chargers is either very poor or non existant. Don't blow it up on day one
I bought a 3A 12v regulated power supply for $60 from Richard Smiths for when I'm close to AC. No problems so far and saves having to charge my 7ah battery all the time.
At a guess I don't think a regulated supply is necessary as the manual says 11-15v supply, suggesting to me the mount has it's own regulator, hardly surprising as the chips cost less than a dollar in bulk.
Don't take that as gospel though, better to be safe than sorry.
i got the dickies 12v3a regulated power supply, came with a ciggy lighter plug.. Powered her up this morning and input location information etc. 3 star alignment didnt go well at 10 am but slewed it around to check balance.. All sounded sweet. I'm happy i got a quick play in before work. Just need the clouds to move along.
Sorry to hear about the bad weather. Obviously too many people buying Eq6s!
Just a suggestion. As much as the polarscope use seems a bit of a nightmare it is actually much simpler than you might think. If you can work out south and your latitude and find the asterism you will be pretty close. After a 1 star align my target star is in the field of view low power.
Saves heaps of time after you have done it once. You then just line the polar axis with an object in the distance and you should be pretty close to the asterism next time round. You can leave your polar axis altitude pretty much set for next time.
saw acrux and Jupiter for about 40 seconds or so through some low level cloud... but then it quickly clouded over....
The EQ6 is spending another night out of use....
Getting the balance right for my big honkin refractor is actually quite difficult.... especially when adding the weight of the 350D+70-200L on top.. I think its right.. but I would feel a lot more comfortable if there was someone else who knew more about it than I who could have a look for me... Last thing i want to do is damage the mount due to it being mis-balanced.. it stays still where ever i situate it on RA and DEC axis... no matter where i point it, if i swing it around the RA axis it turns and slowly comes to a stop in either direction... but im still uming and ahhing..
