rpdayton

Thank you. After 6 years, I still feel like a complete novice at this whole activity/hobby.; I've never gotten comfortable enough using this one to even begin exploring options. I've got about 6 months before next year's eclipse; we're smack in the middle of totality. Maybe by then we'll get something!

Thanks for the info; I never considered mixing and matching mounts and tubes. I'll check it out. I was also given a link to a 'build-your-own-dobs' site last night. I guess I didn't realize how easy it would be to just get a completely different tripod/mount. My weekly 'duh' moment I suppose.

And again, my apologies. Everything we've done with this since it was new has been "just one more thing" to try and get it working. It's tiresome and it just sucks that this is what we spent our money on. It has turned me into a bitter ******* that gets worked up every time I get it out. It is not kind of me to ask for help and then bark at those who offered that help. I a m sorry to you all.

You are correct, I did read his reply but ignored it, I had just been given the news from celestron that it will be an additional $200 in parts, not even the parts I need at this point, just the parts that are likely also in need of replacing... because of the 6 years of use with a loose nut that is not just a loose nut, but a poorly assembled bearing. It is more than upsetting at this point, and I apologize for my outburst. I was able to knock the bearing out to try seating it correctly. There is a small lip in part of the bore, the bearing had been driven in at an angles, likely by being inserted crooked. The aluminum deformed to match the bearing, so it wasn't able to fit in the right way just by me tightening it up by hand. In hindsight this explains a lot. I was able to get it straighter, but I can't get it all the way flush without damaging it. It's clearly fighting the 'puckered' metal. The shoulder screw just drops right through now, I was expecting a tighter fit I guess, but it goes right on in. It is nearly impossible to get the nut tightened 'just right,' I got it close and was going to give it a test, but when I plug in the control it says "No response 17" This is new, but I think it's been 2 years since I last had it plugged in, so I figured I would go through the troubleshooting steps... updated the firmware, double checked all the connectors. No change. Who knows.

Jesus. $50 for a motor, and needs to have a new control board for it for another $150 (so why not sell them as a set if you have to get both?) And that's just the alt. Hopefully the az drive isn't in the same condition. And no price for the bearing, (pretty sure I could get one though) No price for the gears, (no idea where to even look for those if not celestron) And that's just them sending the parts directly to me. Nope. Lesson learned. Maybe banging on it with a hammer would be a good way to work out some frustrations though. Unbelievable.

Thanks again everyone for looking at this and confirming my suspicion that the loose nut was the problem all along. And/or a messed-up bearing. I notified celestron, included a link to this thread, they can do whatever they want with that info. I would think they'd add a page to their tech-support flow chart that says "if a nut is loose it might cause alignment issues" but my guess is they'll ignore it and just keep telling people "alignments are hard. keep practicing." Whatever. I'm done with it and with them. Happy stargazing all.

Please understand... I didn't buy a faulty mount for a few dollars. I bought a $700 telescope. This was a huge expense when we bought it, but it was for our son and wanted to get him something better than the $50 refractor scope I had as a kid. He lost interest in it after the first 6 months. When it wouldn't align, I relied on celestron's tech support to troubleshoot the cause. "Make sure the tube is level before aligning." Okay, there's a bubble level on the tube, I assume that's close enough. But to confirm, bought a dovetail adapter to hold a machine level we use at work. Absurdly accurate to a few microns per meter. "You don't need to make it THAT level. Just use the bubble level on the tripod." Okay, but I DID make it that level, and it didn't solve the problem. Isn't that still a valid result? Nope, you need to practice aligning because the instructions are real hard to follow. "Use a 20mm eyepiece to align with, not the 25mm or 9mm that came with it." Bought a 20mm eyepiece, complete with reticle. "Make sure the power supply is good." Bought a new 12v power supply. "Make sure the tube is balanced." Fair point. Out of the box, it was very tail heavy and would insist on drifting upward at the slightest touch, or if slewing too fast. Spent an evening finding the balance point with every combination of hardware I could imagine... single eyepieces, eyepieces in the 2x barlow, camera+adapter, a zoom lens we got. This was before I found the loose nut. Now, I can pretty much get it at 3oz or less tail heavy without much trouble. It starts to drift upward at about 6 oz, depending on how tight I make the nut. No expense, just another disappointing trial because that didn't solve the problem. "Might need collimated." Bought 2 collimators; wasn't sure if the first one was accurate, so got a higher quality one next. I also confirmed time zones, lat and lon, time to within a second... Updated the firmware (tricky in a non-windows house lol) I'm sure I'm leaving a few steps out. By this time I was getting suggestions on another forum that his since disappeared, so had also moved the mirror all the way in (had to re-set all the balance points) and all the way out (had to reset the balance points,) considered buying a bluetoothe adapter... that's when we stopped wanting to keep spending money on it. During all of this, I'm spending 2-3 nights a week outside for 3 and 4 hours, making zero progress. Found this screw loose. Told celestron. Reported loose screw to celestron in a review. No answer from celestron. (Review is still up, too.) Now it sounds like it needs a new bearing. Also sounds like the gears might be borked as well. I'm guessing the motor is probably going to need replaced, if the bearing is bad and not seated right, then I'm sure that puts a horrible load on the motor. It never ends with this, and I'm honestly just disgusted with the thought of putting more time and money into it. I'm not trying to be rude, I honestly was having kinda good luck with just keeping the nut snug, but this is just another expense that will likely reveal yet another thing to replace... I'm really just done at this point. Thank you again for your help, sorry if the answer I was asking for isn't one I'm wanting to hear.

For completeness.. 6 years ago, not 5. I was looking through the emails back and forth from tech support. We bought it in late 2017, the tickets spanned the end of the year. I've been writing this thinking we *bought* it in 2018, but that was the most recent time I contacted them. My bad.

I told them about it 4-6 months after we bought it, both tech support and then in a review on their site. This was back when every question to them was answered with "Don't adjust anything, alignments are hard and the instructions are very difficult to understand, just keep practicing util you get it." They never asked for pictures; it didn't sound like they thought the loose nut was a problem. I don't remember what the warranty on it was, but it certainly is long since passed. I just assumed it was a lack of practing or getting it set up accurately on my part; but the more I saw pictures that other people are getting with theirs I started asking on reddit (downvotes cause I can't figure out how to align) and twitter (a few people gave me instructions on how to align) and ultimately on here. I appreciate the assistance, I really do, but yelling at them after this long doesn't really appeal to me.

Yes, we bought it from Celestron as a christmas present for our son. I'm not going to buy more parts for it. After all the crap we've purchased for it trying to get it to work, I really can't see spending any more money on it. Like I mentioned before, replacing the bearing will likely reveal that the gears need replaced, and then who knows maybe the drive motor as well. I don't know where it will end. Our son is at college and hasn't shown any interest in it after the first 6 months he had it; I only get it out from time to time thinking it would be nice to get it working, but if I have to spend any more on it I think we'll just get a cheap refractor scope like I had as a kid... at least those can be manually pointd at the thing you want to look at and can be focused without pivoting toward the ground! Again - apologies for being grumpy about this; I really should not post when I'm frustrated.

Apologies all. I know you are all trying to help; I shouldn't post when I'm frustrated. This thing has been disappointing since we first got it; it's a little upsetting to think I need to keep putting time and money into it just to (hopefully) get it working. Until I find the next thing that needs fixed or replaced. Maybe I'm just hangry!

I think that is the answer to my question right there, assuming the bearing isn't seated properly like most have suggested - It's been this way since we got it (5 years ago at this point) and I have tried literally hundreds of alignments since then. To be fair, it may not be a full 5 years; I went through about 6 months of tech support emails after we got it before I finally just said screw it and took it apart, when I saw the loose nut, so more like 4 and a half years since I first actually saw it was loose. But either way I'm thinking based on the replies to the pictures after this long it is probably going to need more than just a new nut. I'm not too worried about replacing the bearing, Timken is one of our customers... I'm sure I could talk them into a freebie. But at this point, I've sank more money into it getting eyepieces and adapters and collimators and so on... I'm not interested in finding and replacing gears as well, and undoubtedly the drive motor won't be far behind. I was hoping just getting the nut tightened down correctly would allow it to work better, but it sounds like this bearing may be causing more issues than it's worth. This may just be posted as a curb alert at this point. Sorry, this is just really disappointing. I end up in a sour mood every time I get it out, this time is no exception. Anybody in SW Ohio want a scope to use for spare parts lol?!

Sorry for sporadic responses; I'm in training at work this week, so bouncing back and forth between this forum and our latest cadcam system. Suggestions I'm receiving: Tighten it down really tight and it won't impact motion, and also Don't over tighten it or it won't move. Currently it is just finger tight against the race, and it is already making it harder to move in Alt. I can go a little tighter by hand and it becomes very difficult to move the alt axis. I think if I actually put a wrench on it it will sieze up the entire assembly. When I first found the loose nut, I gave it about a quarter turn past where it is now, and it became very difficult to move in alt, atleast 2 lbs at the end of the tube. I tried it tightened down to about 1 lb, and had better luck, but it didn't last long. (Last time I balanced the tube in the dovetail with the nut appx as tight as it is now, it will move in alt with about 6oz at either end of the tube.) The bearing needs to be seated differently. I'm a little nervous about banging on it even with a piece of wood, it seems like as delicate as it is that would cause some damage if not extremely careful. Followed by, I can't get it to move any deeper just squeezing it by hand; it feels like it seats pretty securely where it is. If I need to completely disassemble it, would it be better to use a shoulder screw that has a diameter close to the ID of the bearing, and try drawing it in using a nut? Just a thought; I know I asked for help and shouldn't dismiss any suggestions, but I'm nervous about damaging anything. Someone (@doublevodka) posted a picture showing a similar mount with a nyloc nut instead of the one that mine has; is there a specific nut that is used for this, or is something from home depot good enough? And also, several replies suggesting using loctite instead of a locknut; is that a common fix for this? Again - I just want to make sure I'm not causing any damage going through this. Loctite seems like a good way to make a bad situation even worse.

A is the nut that gets loose over time. B is the outer race C is a keeper that keeps the actual ball bearings equally spaced. D is the inner race. For this picture, the nut is snugged up against the inner race. With it like this, the mount still moves freely in Alt. If I tighten it any further, it immediately causes the mount to become very hard to move in Alt. I don't like using it that tight; I'm afraid it will damage the gears or motor. If I raise or lower it in Alt a few times, the nut will again be loose. I didn't go through the exersize of doing that for these pictures; I didn't feel like getting ut the controller and power supply. I haven't tried checking clearance between the inner race and the keeper, but visually it looks like they clear by about .005-,010" when the nut is snugged against the inner race. Sorry for changing units, my shim stock is all inch standard. Call it 100-200 microns. The bearing appears to be seated all the way; I've not tried taking this part of the assembly completely apart to try to force it in any farther because I'm sure at that point nothing will move at all, and I'm sure the pivot rod is pressed into the the inner race and I don't have a puller that small. As for not being centered, I haven't checked that, or even noticed it really until you mentioned it. I'm sure that's just caused by the weird camera angle. The threads are part of the pivot rod (or whatever it's called), and I wouldn't think the threads would be off-centered to the rest of the rod. I'm not even sure how to make a threaded rod with offset threads short of a second op... The face of the rod has a bit of pucker which likely means they used a thread roller, which won't do off-center threads if used in the same machine that cut the OD. Hmmm...I'm thinking I should completely remove the nut and check for concentricity between the rod threads and OD, and the nut's ID threads to the hex.

Hopefully they post correctly. Not sure if they will get compressed or pixielated. But, a picture of the tripod and mount, just in case there are different versions. I'm sure there are, Celestron told me I should be using the 'Index Marks.' I don't have index marks on mine, and they indicated that not all scopes have them. And then gave me instructions on how to use them (facepalm.) But just in case there is some different model or body or something. A picture of the back cover removed; the screw in question is just above and to the left of the center of the picture. I was holding the cover in my other hand to keep tension off the wires, and my aim is not so good one-handed. And a close-up of the screw in question. And just to answer these ahead of time: I have leveled the tripod using a machine level in the dovetail and checked every 90 and 120 degrees. I was confirming the bubble level wasn't grossly out-of-square to the tripod. I figured 2.5 microns per meter was a good sanity check lol. (They told me I was making it *too* level, whatever that means.) Location, date, time, time zone, dst all accurate, verified before every alignment attempt. The tube is not out of balance; i have it balanced with the tail (mirror end) heavy by ~2.5 ounces - which isn't hard, more than about 6oz and it drifts wildly in alt. I have several balance points laid out on the tube for evypieces, eyepieces+barlow, eyepieces+zoom, and camera mount+camera. I do not use planets for 2- or 3- star alignments, nor do I use polaris. I use alignment stars >30 degrees above the horizon, and generally try for at least 120 degrees apart, although I will be honest, after an hour or so of failed alignments I will sometimes lose patience and go for closer to 90 degrees than 120. As was explained above, using the moon as a goto target to confirm alignment is a bad idea; I never considered it may be too complex an orbit to locate it accurately. I started using it a few years ago when it was fairly close to whichever alignment star I had used. However, I have also found it often times won't even goto one of the alignment stars! I will point out, the times it does align, if it misses its target in a goto move, it will always be pretty close in Azimuth, but it will always be off in Alt. Celestron told me that is just a matter of practicing alignments. I have actually used 2 different collimators, I confirmed the second one using a concentricity gage at work; the beam moved less than 10cm at 30 meters in one revolution; overkill I know, but I went through a phase where I was convinced I wasn't doing something right, and just wanted to rule out anything I could have wrong. I don't actually know if there is a spec for checking the concentricity, but I am guessing that is close enough? I have NOT adjusted backlash. I asked Celestron about that; everything I read says 'don't adjust it too high or it could cause alignment and tracking issues (which is what I have already) and wanted to know if there was a way to see if it was already set too high. That was also when I asked them about the torque on the nut. No answer. I primarily try 2- and 3- star alignments. Celestron told me there are 'lmany ways to align and alot of people have their own methods that they swear by." but they never gave any details about these other methods. I think that's all the relevant info. Thanks again for all the help!