EarthLTD

The Z-axis balance on my CEM 70G was way off. I had two issues. My C11 has an off center balance so after I balanced RA, the DEC would go off to the side. The bigger problem with the RA was with the manufacture. The Counter Weight shaft was not in a straight line with the load. It was off by more than the small adjustment of others with youtube videos. I don't recommend what I ended up doing for anyone else. I took the bolt out at the top o the CW shaft and loosened the two smaller screws holding the shaft's position on the RA axis. I could position the CW shaft such the the imbalance was very close. But I could see that the bolt would not return to it's hole. The movement distance was too much for the holes to align. I very carefully used a dremmel and made the bolt hole more of a slot. To prevent the bolt from moving in the slot, I made a crescent shaped piece of metal in the extra space to keep the bolt from sliding out of position. The final corrections are done with two small CW that Ioptron sells for this purpose. One goes on the saddle for DEC. The other was put on a 10k CW in a hole that I drilled and tapped. I can easily put it on the left or right or anywhere in between. without changing the horizontal balance. Now it's actually fun to balance no matter what equipment I am using. Ron

Beware this person's videos. He gives bad advice. There is a reason comments aren't allowed.