problem with heq5 Sirius Orion EQ-g

[spencerM]

hope someone can help. I bought a used heq5 and was adjusting worm gears and lubricating the gears...I wanted to remove the middle gear so I backed out the bolt but can't seem to get it to go back in. It just rotates. Am I missing something?

[spencerM]

Image attached...

[spencerM]

Figured it out....that middle gear has a lock screw that is accessible if you remove the middle plate from the motor mount. You have to pull the motor out to get it. Or you can strip the threads trying to get it out....guess I'll look into finding replacement parts for the mount

[Astro_Baby]

Not sure why you would remove that bolt at all for tuning purposes - I cant recall what holds it on as I never took the motor elements to pieces.  I recall someone else did in order to put some washers underneath it which helps muffle the motor resonance on start up and and slow down at the end of a slew.

[spencerM]

I figure I will post here as I am working on things in an effort to help others who might have similar issues. I adjusted the worm motor engagement and got the play out and tested with a full balanced load of my ota and counter weights. Ran smooth indoors but after about an hour outside in the freezing temps last couple of nights I was getting that terrible noise of the RA motor binding. I then undid some of the worm adjustment and found that I had to leave what felt like too much play to avoid motor bind. The backlash was noticeable when skewing to frame a target.

This morning I again repeated the process with the added step of also adjusting the RA worm end float. I am new to this mount but it seems so far to me that the worm engagement was closely linked to the motor binding and that I could leave some play there and clean it up with the final step of tightening the end float. After completion I was able to slew indoors all around without any bind and there isn't a large amount of play anymore. If it ever stops snowing I'll do an outside cold temp test.

Has anyone else experienced issues similar to this, the cold temp causing motor bind in what seemed to be a properly adjusted worm engagement?

[Thalestris24]

Hi

You might be interested in my belt mod thread and my general questions concerning binding/noises http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/237793-rowan-belt-mod-help/

Louise

[spencerM]

Hi

You might be interested in my belt mod thread and my general questions concerning binding/noises http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/237793-rowan-belt-mod-help/

Louise

Thanks! I have actually read it and am considering it. I'm waiting for the weather to clear so I can experiment more with the new mount and get a baseline.

The first night after I received the mount I brought it outside and heard that same binding noise....I thought I had just broken my mount in the first hour! Scared the Rubbish out of me.

[Thalestris24]

Hi

I wasn't necessarily suggesting you get a belt mod - just thought you'd be interested in the discussion about the possible binding noise. Astrobaby's guide is probably the best place to go: http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

Louise

[spencerM]

Hi

I wasn't necessarily suggesting you get a belt mod - just thought you'd be interested in the discussion about the possible binding noise. Astrobaby's guide is probably the best place to go: http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

Louise

Yep her guide is great and she has been an excellent source of information. One reason I was considering the belt upgrade was the bolt issue that I started with on this thread...if it turns out to cause problems I haven't had a lot of luck in finding a replacement so one possible move would be to swap to the belts which if I remember correctly has a new shaft to put the middle guide on. I also have been considering a hyper tuning service and ask them to repair my screw up. For now it seems to not be an issue as the grub screw appears to have it locked pretty well in place...hoping for the best.

[Thalestris24]

Astrobaby's guide is a legend! She's made it possible for many, many people to maintain and tune their mounts.

Louise