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WARNING - Bendy EQ6 Altitude Bolts


Astro_Baby

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  • 1 month later...
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I noticed that is was difficult to get to 52 degrees. loosing one tightening other other. Had a search on Google found this thread!

I took them out straight away, and! Noticed one bolt started to bend..

So £27 is pricey for a pair of bolts, but how I see it, it would cost a LOT more if I didn't do nothing about it!

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  • 1 month later...

I've just found this thread after being shocked by how difficult it was to adjust the latitude to 51 degrees on my new NEQ6

Hmmm. Me too - got my NEQ6 today and I also found the bolts difficult to turn as others have mentioned. I removed them and discovered that the longer bolt was already bent, so I'm unimpressed.

So many people have reported this that I don't think that we're all doing it wrong. It really isn't good enough for a mount costing nearly a thousand pounds.

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I'm sure these bolts (or something like them) must be fairly standard parts, but having looked on a few "machinery supplier" websites I can't find anything with the right thread, pitch etc. £24 quid for two bolts seems extortionate, especially when most people are never going to shift them once they are set.

P

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I'm sure these bolts (or something like them) must be fairly standard parts, but having looked on a few "machinery supplier" websites I can't find anything with the right thread, pitch etc. £24 quid for two bolts seems extortionate, especially when most people are never going to shift them once they are set.

P

Well its not that bad a price, if you buy the ratchet handle from RS its almost four quid, add in the round handle on the other bolt, about three quid, pair of bolts at a quid each and a tube of araldite is about four quid so your cost is about 13 quid. Yo still have to make them, file the ends round and probably pay postage for the bits from RS so doing it yourself may mean you save a tenner. Doesnt so great when the mount cost close to a grand. On top of all that you have to find suppliers, mess about web ordering personally my own time is too valuable to be messing about for ages to save myself a tenner. I'd rather just pay up and know the bolts will work.

I beg to differ that most people wont shift them once set up. The only people who wont shift them will be those with an observatory and if I had an obs I wold just use plain bolts to remove any risk that they get messed with once set up. The rest of us will be endlessly shifting them every time we go out unless we dont bother to polar align.

Even if the bolts never bent the AD ones are a sensible upgrade, once you have tried to adjust the factory ones with cold hands in the dark you will see why :)

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I'm looking at getting a EQ6 when I can afford one. I think that one of the first things I'll do when I get it will be to upgrade the bolts.

I don't want to end up bending the bolts when I first try to polar align.

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I have just taken the weight bearing bolt out of my EQ5 having wondered why it was difficult to use and found it started to bend about half way down the bolt. Just a little but enough to make it hard to use. Any more bent and removing it could have been a real pain!

I often find myself adjusting these to get the mount well aligned as I move the mount in and out of the garage to set up. It seems hard to believe that in normal use the bolt should have bent, but the mount has never fallen over and I can't think of any other times when abnormal, bolt-bending loads will have been applied, maybe they simply aren't quitre up to the job in this type of use.

So I'll be oredering some replacements, even though I hope to upgrade come the autumn. Every little helps.....

Thanks for the advice and link on this useful thread! Between this and advice on drift aligning on another thread (which I hope to try very soon) I do hope to be able to stretch my exposure lengths and get some better images soon. Oh and I suppose a few clear nights would help too.....

Martin

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Well as I have said before you dont need the force applied by turning the bolt to deform it. The bolt has a fair bit of pressure on it just when the mount is static. These bolts have a fair bot of weight bearing down on it from the weight of the scope and more.

Dont forget these bolts are carrying the entire weight of the scope, the mount head itself ( which is about 15kg) and the counterweights load on them so the bolts could be under the pressure of 45kg bearing down on them of they are carrying a biggish scope. Thats a fair old load, try lifting 45kg and you get the picture. Once the load is moving even more pressure is being applied, a fast slew for instance is tossing a lot of weight around. I cant recall my phyiscs lessons precisiely but I do know that dynamic weight puts a lot more stress on things.

I used to have steel racking in my garage, no one ever jumped up and down on it or bashed it with a mallet but just the weight if tools on the shelves was enough to bend the retaining bolts for the shelves, and in fact the selves themselves after a numerof years. Its the same with the bolts in these mounts. You dont have to be dim, stupid, careless etc to bend them, just the weight being applied to them will do the job.

There are a number of reasons why people dont report problems with these mounts by the way......heres jus a fe that I can think of which is probably why this problem is under reported.

They have a lightweight scope like an ED80 or small SCT...lots of imagers for instance.

They have the mount in an obs, the bolts might have actually bent but they wont notice, at least until they sell the mount. I know of an instance of this. The bolts bent but it wasnt until they dhanged scoes and messed about with polar alignment that they noticed.

Not everyone is on a board like this, I meet dozens of astronomers who arent online at all...yes really. My sister for a start never comes on line. i have met folk from astro societies who dont come online either. Its very easy on boards to imagine EVERYONE in the hobby is on a board. Its not true.........There are probably more people in the hobby NOT online than are and very often some very knowledgeable people too.

There are folk who buy one of these mounts as a techno toy, realise its beyond them and sell it on ebay. They havent learnt enough to even get as far as polar alignment. I see plenty of astro kit at the high end being sold by people who came it with loadsamoney and then realised it wasnt for them. The kits sold off very possibly to another ebay plank.

Kit thats certifiably bent bolted and is now laying in somones attic or garage or shed. One of myUnitrons was acquired from a house clearance and had been in an attic since the day it was bought. Never used as far as I can tell.

People do make a fuss over this problem but its so easy to fix and not very expensive when set against the cost of the mount. Back in the 1970s Japanese cars and motorcycles were always sold with appalling quality tyres that skidded badly in the wet due to a high nylon content. People just accpted by and large, especially the biking crowd, that changing the tyres was a necessary expense when buying a Japanese bike. People used to moan endlessly about it but most grumblingly parted with their money and got some Dunlops fitted.........others were content to see no problem....at least until they crashed the bike. Experience is always sucha good teacher :)

Dont let a minor hiccup thats easily remedied for less cash than you will spend on a tank of fuel put you off what is a great piece of astro gear like the EQ6. They really are good bits of kit, reliable and solid and at the price nothing comes close.

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Dont forget these bolts are carrying the entire weight of the scope, the mount head itself ( which is about 15kg) and the counterweights load on them so the bolts could be under the pressure of 45kg bearing down on them of they are carrying a biggish scope. Thats a fair old load, try lifting 45kg and you get the picture. Once the load is moving even more pressure is being applied, a fast slew for instance is tossing a lot of weight around. I cant recall my phyiscs lessons precisiely but I do know that dynamic weight puts a lot more stress on things.

Hi Astro Baby

I don't disagree with the overall point your making here, but I have to disagree with your suggestion that the bolts are bearing the entire weight of the scope, mount and counterweights. The main mount axis surely bears a good proportion of the direct vertical force. The bolts will be under the pressure of the turning force of the load around the axis, but I think this will be less than the full load. But then again, trying to drag my school physics from the depths of my memory, the point the force is acting upon is obviously much closer to the axis so, based on the principle of levers, this may well magnify the force. I give up.... any mechanics experts out there???

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The thing i dont undrstand is, why the

mounts, are still being supplied with these

bolts.The amount of new mounts

being sent back, with bent bolts, would

give them a kick up the rear end, to sort

it something out.Perhaps im missing

something here.

Steve

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Yes, there is a fair bit of weight on these things - Good point SB. FWIW, I replaced the (assumed) "load bearing" one - At the back, with a better quality "standard" steel bolt. I can then raise the whole setup against gravity with the, much more efficient, and proverbial, BIG Hammer - Spanner. The front bolt then merely serves to lock things in place? Or at least, that's my theory... ;)

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Bolts are stuck on my eq5 (as posted elsewhere), after a lifetime of wanting a scope I finally bought one six months ago. I am not an engineer or even a compitant DIYer so have very little hope of fixing it myself. I am sick of shelling out money on shoddy equipment and overpriced bits of metal or plastic (£60 to fix a smartphone to a scope!). Makes me want to give up and go back to looking at picks on the nasa website.

Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk 2

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Bolts are stuck on my eq5 (as posted elsewhere), after a lifetime of wanting a scope I finally bought one six months ago. I am not an engineer or even a compitant DIYer so have very little hope of fixing it myself. I am sick of shelling out money on shoddy equipment and overpriced bits of metal or plastic (£60 to fix a smartphone to a scope!). Makes me want to give up and go back to looking at picks on the nasa website.

Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk 2

don´t give up!

do you have some tools? are you afraid of using them? (i´m asking, cause i know a friend who is afraid of a power drill, and i have big respect in front of angle grinders... :shocked: )

method #1:

so use brute force -> take a pipe wrench and try to get the stuck beast out!

worst case -> the bolt breaks -> then you have to drill it out :tongue: and cut a new thread -> worst case going up to M12

method #2:

get a angle grinder, cut the bolt as near as possible on the mount.

drill the bolt -> cut a new thread

this two methods can be easily made in a eg car repair shop...

so if you don´t have the tools, afraid or just simple plain lazyness...

take box of beer or some $$ for coffee and ask the mechanics to do it for you.

this can´t take more then one hour of work -> if they are realy carefull.

i´ve thought about a solution

bendy bolts

the problem is the resulting downward force....maybe i´ll try to solve this when i disassamble the mount someday... :rolleyes:

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Actually the worst case isnt that the bolt breaks, the worst case is that you strip the threads out of the mount or worse still bust the base of the mount. These things arent made from aircraft grade billet. They are relatively soft pot metals and can crack if put under too much pressure.

You dont need an angle grinder, the bolts are soft as cheese. You only need a hacksaw and a screwdriver and maybe a needle file.

Hacksaw the bolt off leaving about 5mm outside the mount. Cut a slot into the top of the bolt, the bit thats left, gently screw it in (or out) of the mount. Chances are its deformed on the inner part of the mount block so you only need cut one end of the bolt off, the bit on the outside and genty crew the bolt into the mount. By removing the plate with the two hex screws you chould be ale to extract the remains of the bolt.

Uonfortunately astro is very much about a fair bit of DiY to get the most out of it. Very little kit comes out the box ready to rock and roll unless you are spending large.

I would deffo not try drilling the bolt out, the may be sof but they are still a lot harder than the mount material and a drill will go through the mount mayerial like a hot knife in butter. I would only consir deilling as a measure of desperation.

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once you have tried to adjust the factory ones with cold hands in the dark you will see why :)

Yes, I must agree, those without an obsy might well want to adjust their bolts. For me (who never learned to drive) that isn't an option/problem - I'm fixed in one place, but I'd still prefer if the shaft was a little bit thicker.

However, I do try to avoid playing with nuts and bolts with cold hands in the dark.

P

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i´ve thought about a solution

the problem is the resulting downward force....maybe i´ll try to solve this when i disassamble the mount someday... :rolleyes:

Hi Tonedeaf,

This idea was also suggested by philming on page 4 of this thread - perhaps you've not seen this. A good idea is worth re-iterating though! :laugh:

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  • 1 month later...

I've had a look at getting a steel wedge made to resurface the chewed mount lug surface of mine and also take out some of the angular strain on the new bolts. I get a lot of silence from most people so I think it's going to be a trip to the DIY shop for some plate and epoxy putty eventually. Astro-Baby makes a good point, over tightening is liable to strip out the treads in the mount block or crack it, I don't see Skywatcher replacements advertised but there is someone making a half decent third party block they'd probably get a lot of customers, especially if they can put the adjusters on a bar or roller that will turn as the mount lug moves up to keep the pressure on the bolts down.

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I've had a look at getting a steel wedge made to resurface the chewed mount lug surface of mine and also take out some of the angular strain on the new bolts. I get a lot of silence from most people so I think it's going to be a trip to the DIY shop for some plate and epoxy putty eventually. Astro-Baby makes a good point, over tightening is liable to strip out the treads in the mount block or crack it, I don't see Skywatcher replacements advertised but there is someone making a half decent third party block they'd probably get a lot of customers, especially if they can put the adjusters on a bar or roller that will turn as the mount lug moves up to keep the pressure on the bolts down.

Have a look at this thread: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/187034-eq6-latitude-lug-modification-or-how-to-avoid-bent-bolts/

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Nice mod, I don't have access to any of that kind of equipment but it gives me a good idea on how aggressively the lug could be built up. It also been 25+ years since I went near a mill (are there any left in the UK outside of industrial museums?)

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