Trippelforge

Reading through my mounts manual I noticed it recommending to pretty much unbalance it prior to imaging. Which I guess is due to helping ease the motor strain and eliminate any residual backlash. I am curious if people ever do this? It notes that you should only do it slightly, which honestly seems pretty subjective. But after shooting for years with my old mount I had never done it before, as I always assumed the mount needed to be dead perfect the entire time. Is this a wise thing to do? If so how much is too much?

So will it actually come up on the controller menu as "All Star", or is it just the nickname for the built in alignment? I didn't get the Wifi module, but do have a USB cord to connect the controller into the PC. What software does a good job with calibration via that interface? Thanks for the help!

Hi everyone! I have a new AVX and haven't had clear skies yet to test it out. However according to the product page it comes with "All-Star Polar Alignment", and after looking into it I learned what it is. However I do not know how to use it, as neither the controller or manual mentions it. It's also noted on the page that it has "Sky Align", but I don't know what that even is. Does the controller's menu bring up either so you can start the process? Or is this just a fancy name (All Star) for the 2 star alignment with the additional 4 calibration stars? Sky Align wise, I can't even take a guess on what that entails. Thanks for the help!

How do dew heaters pull more power? Can you hook them up directly to the AVX or are you talking about certain other mounts? Thanks for the link, I will read through it shortly. And ya I am also on Cloudy Nights., I posted a question over there and I pretty much got pages of how to build your own battery... lol. That seems to be a common thing though, you can ask one very basic question and no one usually just answers it (lol). This forum seems more helpful. 😃

I guess due to tracking? I purely do imaging, so I guess maybe I need to simply suck it up and pay the money. The one thing though is it's so expensive I am wondering if it would be best to just pay double and pickup a power station and use the supplied cable. That's an entirely new issue for though.

Why does the 89.00 one say it's 5 amp (that one is 2.5)? It does list the AVX on the compatibility list though. Hmm... does it not matter? EDIT: OK so at the bottom it suggests the 5amp version they have. Which is expensive...

I want to pickup a power station / battery pack to run my mount and DSLR. I can't afford a very expensive one, so I am hoping I can use something around 296wh. However after trying to find the exact amount of power my mount (AVX) and DSLR use (D5300) I am having issues calculating it out. Mostly due to some comments others have made about run times with similar equipment. Such as they are getting a lot more hours off of very small packs. Anyhow I have a Nikon D5300 and a Celestron AVX. I want to use it camping, so I need something large enough to run it maybe for 4-6 hours. I keep searching for the exact wattage each uses, but coming up with varying amounts. From what I can tell they add up to 96 total watt hours. But I think the AVX number is coming off slew usage, not tracking. But still a 296wh pack only gives me 2.6 hrs of run time. Yet others are saying they have gotten with similar equipment 6hrs off a battery 1/3 the size. I am a bit confused on everything obviously, but I want to order something ASAP due to camping season coming up for my son and I. Can someone simply say "if you want around 6 hours get this sized (Wh) battery pack"? Thank you for the help!

Wth... I mean it's obvious as to WHY these companies do it ($$$). But it seems so sketchy as you need to be able to run their equipment. What makes it even worse is how expensive things are... it wouldn't kill them to simply give you a way to power it.

I ordered an AVX (which I posted about) and need to buy an AC adapter for it. I don't own a power station of any kind and I don't want to spend anymore right now. The cigarette lighter adapter is ANNOYING in my opinion... I imagine they do that so you have to buy their other options, or their power banks. But not everyone runs mounts outside of their backyards. Anyways I need to get one ordered today. And obviously Celestron's branded one is the top result, but I have never seen an AC adapter for that price before. Sure it screws in, but I attach the bricks to the legs anyways. I noticed highpoint had one for 40 bucks (USD) or so, but they are back ordered (not shocking). So what makes these SO GREAT that they can charge so much for them? Is it simply branding? I have a hard time believing that they are made outside of same plant as the ones for 1/4 of the price. That brings me to the question also if you guys could point me to a reliable cheaper option. Thanks!!!!

Awesome. Ya I didn't get the power supply situation at all, I forgot where I saw it at. But regardless I imagine it has to do with the fact that they sell their own. I ended up buying an AC adapter that the cigarette plug could go into as I didn't really know what was going on. Luckily it wasn't expensive.

What is an RCD?

Thanks guys! 🙂

I found a few camping spots that are very close to large open fields. Each of them has power, so I thought it would be super cheap to run my equipment off of a cord, rather than invest in a power station right now. The problem is "close" means 150'ft (45m) or so, and obviously that's getting a bit far to run an extension cord. However I am simply running a mount (12v 3.5A) and a DSLR (9v 4.5A) over that distance. So I was curious on everyone's thoughts on if it would work? As driving 3hrs to find out it won't... would kind of suck (lol). Thanks

Thanks for the article! So it seems it has been around 4 years or so when the upgrades were made. I assume then I don't have to worry about getting the older model. Is simply possible to know via the saddle photos? It's probably dumb to even question but ya never know. I noticed the Skyportal, so obviously the connection is decent, any idea on the range you are getting? So any 12v supply will work, you don't need the 80 dollar Celestron version? It's noted that IF you don't use their branded one that the warranty would be voided. However you said it screws on, so I guess it's special? As mentioned I simply bought an adapter to go from cigar to a standard plug.

Thank you, I went ahead and ordered one last night. I got it through Amazon (899usd) as I figured it I got a lemon I could simply return it. A few questions if you don't mind; First of all what's with the supplied power supply? I also ordered an adapter for it so I could use it, as "supposedly" if you don't use Celestrons 80usd supply it voids warranty. For one thing... How do they even know? Anyhow what power supply are you using? Secondly what type of USB cable needs to be used for the connection from the hand controller / PC. I noticed it was update a few years back from a serial connection. I appreciate the help! It's been out almost a decade hasn't it? I do know they updated the serial port interface to USB. Although I am not sure what type of cable I need. I don't understand why Wifi wasn't built in though, or why the power connecter is the type it is (lol).

I did make sure the main gear was fully seated when I rebuilt it. Can it float to another position? I don't know, that's a good question but I have honestly spent hours tweaking it. You would think that at some point I would've had it in the sweet spot? I had it in and out of the fridge probably a dozen times over the weekend. 😕 This has been so frustrating... it doesn't make sense either that a few years ago it seemingly worked in colder weather. And nothing happened to it, wasn't dropped or even went traveling.

There isn't a reason to go into my hellish road with my CG-4 again around here. So I will simply say that I am giving up on it. And now looking for a budget option that can simply do what my son and I need. I don't have a lot of money, which means I don't have a lot of options obviously. Which sucks... but we can always upgrade to a more serious rig in a few years. With that being said there are only a few go-to tracking mounts on the table under 1k. Such as the EQM-35 (880.00) & AVX (899.00). Anyways, so my son and I shoot DSO's primarily and our exposure times are fairly short (45sec - 1min). So I am pretty much looking for a mount that's solid enough to keep up those numbers tracking wise. Equipment wise I will simply be using an 80ED triplet & DSLR, which equal around 10lbs. I know people often recommend the HEQ5 (1,335.00), but an extra 435.00 is hard to swallow right now. So as the title asks, would an AVX do well enough for what my son and I need? Side note, prices are in USD. I forgot most on this site aren't in the US. Also another side note; I have scoured some classifieds, and found a few OK deals (cloudynights), but I really want a warranty and a way to simply send it back if its horrible. And I have bought used equipment before anyhow and it didn't turn out as great as I thought it would. Thanks for any help!

The worm gear itself does not wiggle inside of the housing, and it seemingly is squared up when installed. However there is no way obviously to see inside once it's bolted on. I never tighten the bolts really, I just do so just enough that they don't wiggle. I have of course tried various torque on them though, but once tightened up the worm gear is hard to turn as expected. Do you think there is a tiny bit of misalignment going on anyhow? I tried both gears with the same result. Thanks for helping me!

All this testing is without anything extra installed (no motors). I am using a CG-4 w/ EQStarPro drive system. The crazy thing is that it worked fine during the 2021-2022 season. I purchased the mount new, and prior to the last few years it has very little usage. I would say a total of maybe 12-13 sessions @ 4hrs or so each.

(sorry long post) Last year I was never able to get my mount to work in temps below 2'C. As once the temps dropped near there my RA axis simply got so tight the motors could no longer turn it. I spent the entire weekend making a last ditch effort to fix it (without luck obviously), and at this point even if it's impossible I simply want to know WHY it's doing this. And in all honestly I am finally starting to come to grips that I need a new mount 😕. So I am pretty much well adept at adjusting the worm gear / housing itself. As I probably got a solid 20hrs on tweaking it, both in warm and frigid temps. And at "normal" temps I can make the mount turn smooth as butter, with almost no backlash and very little resistance. I mean it's pretty much perfect. Yet as mentioned once it gets cold it tightens up, so much in fact that it's hard to even turn the gear by hand that the belt goes on. When that I happens I start adjusting the worm gear itself, as if I unlock the axis it spins freely by hand and does so with no noticeable difference in tightness. Yet no matter how much I tweak the worm gear it never loosens up enough to continue tracking. That is until I bring it inside and come back 20 minutes later.... like magic it works again. Fast forward to last weekend and I finally broke down the entire mount head. I didn't do it last year, but figured that was my last shot at this, maybe something was messed up? Due to how the mount was behaving I didn't have a lot of hope though. But I broke it all down, heavily cleaned each internal component and applied superlube, which is rated to -44C. No internal components looked damage, and everything went back together perfectly. Back on went the worm gear, tweaked it, and stuck it back in the fridge and tried again at low temperature. And... once again it seized. At this point I finally came to realization that perhaps it was simply the worm gear itself and it's housing. I felt stupid that I hadn't even tried cooling that alone and seeing if it turned. So I did only to find out that it functioned perfectly at cold temps. So at this point I swapped worm gears all together as they are identical. Nope... didn't make any difference. I am simply out of ideas. But my only guess at this point is that SOMETHING is shrinking and causing the issue. But if I am right.. what is it? I assume if it's simply the mating of the worm gear to RA gear it would ease up when I loosen? This is driving me insane... 😡 If anyone has any ideas on what's going on I would LOVE to gear it! Thanks everyone! 😃

At first it was once temps dropped down to around -2'C. I knew if it was going to go that low it was pointless. Now it's seems to be doing it even above freezing, I think the other night it was around 3'C. The last session I actually was able to use the mount it was around 9'C. I actually tried to keep the worm gear housing warm one of the nights with glove warmers taped to it (lol). But they didn't get hot enough to do much. I can rotate it by hand when it's unlocked. Once locked down it's noticeably hard to turn the axis, even with a knob connected. Ya I think it's becoming obviously I am going to have to do a tear down / re-build now. I have ran out of ideas, and frustrated as hell.

I have not, but obviously at that point now. What will be tough is finding out what actually is binding since it won't be freezing. So I don't really know what to look for, although I guess a tear down and rebuild isn't going to hurt. This has been a huge PITA, and as mentioned I had no issues in the past and it doesn't have a lot of hours on it.

I posted about my issues awhile back and since have been getting extremely frustrated. As well as straight depressed as my son gets let down each time we try and shoot. I have a lackluster CG-4. However I have always been happy enough with it, and never ran into any cold weather issues until this year. I will fully setup outside, test the drive system out, as well as how tight it is to turn via 2 fingers. It's buttery smooth and I always think we are ready to go. When I got back outside an hour later or so it's very tight and it takes a lot of effort to turn. I tried adjusting the worm gear (several times) at that point without luck. Once I take it back inside about 30 minutes later it seems to "un stick" (small pop feeling) and go back to normal again. I thought maybe then it was the RA axis itself, so I ended up loosening that a bit, and I tried it again last night... same thing, it was very hard to turn. Since I have done this a half dozen nights now (and sometimes it happens mid session), so I am pretty sure the drop in temperatures is causing it. So my main question is out of all of the parts which one is doing this? I have taken apart the worm, cleaned it, checked for any play side to side (none). Tried varying levels of recommended grease (told here what to use), AND spent probably a few hours tweaking the worm housing. No luck obviously. Any ideas? I think I will be able to use it when it doesn't drop so cold, but between Nov - March it's ALWAYS cold at night here. Not to mention the summers are horrible... mosquitoes, high humidity, burning temperatures etc. And ya I know... I need to get something else... but it's not in the budget, I would love to figure this out. Thanks!

My neighbors started leaving their porch lights on so I did this...

I need to post the example photo's but it seems like my son didn't shoot them over like he was supposed to. I still figured I might as well ask as you guys probably get what I mean. When I stacked over the weekend (240x30 darks) the image came out with some dust spots and a few other artifacts. Outside of that it seemed fine otherwise. I took a set of flats (30), and when I added them into the process it created horizontal banding across the entire image. One thing that I did screw up on is taking them at a bit higher ISO. As I was trying to center on the histogram and had to set it a bit higher to move it over. When I believe I was supposed to do so via exposure time. So that might be the simple answer, but I wanted to check if anyone had anymore insight on possible causes. Side question on flats; I am obviously new to using them, and was curious HOW people are taking them with fading light. IF I do have to increase exposure time I notice a drop in the histogram, each shot moving a tiny bit over. However I can't take it earlier due to needed to check focus on a star. And I can't take it after as I don't shoot until sunrise. Thanks for the help!