ncjunk

Great write up Jack, the pictures are excellent. I don´t think the out of true bore would have bothered me

too much as still improved the guiding when compared to the gears. My problem was the belt and adjustments so your cut-outs are an

excellent idea and the paint jobs fantastic!

How do you guide your C11, I found that a ST80 didnt do the job for me

TS OAG although finding a guide star is a bit of a...pain..the OAG is fixed so no rotation (motorised rotation that is as i control from the house) and i always seemed to be guiding on stars at the limit if S/N ratio.

But the detail is great. my only problem now is that after slewing pointing was 2° out which is way too much for my automated software so need to sort out what is moving during slew.

i need a mesu mount to put more scopes on!

Hi George, how does this perform in the field?

I'm considering it myself as well as high precision replacement ring & worm gears. The thing I like about it is you can always reverse it if it doesn't work out

i had an error on mine and reversed it. i kept getting problems adjusting it and sudden jumps while guiding.

the sudden jumps in guiding turned out to be the adm saddle and the problems adjusting where because one of the pullies was rubbing against the side. when you take the pully down to 13mm make sure you check it...you can always take of 1mm more.

i found all this out after i had stripped it to put the gears back in but i will definately have another go sometime. i just want a non stripped mount for a while.

Apart from the stupid adm not being tight the mount was smoother and quieter. guiding on a c11 at f6.7 was very nice.

i would say give it a go if you like playing.

The smaller pully does guide the belt somewhat but the problem is there is a margin of error as to where you position it on the Motor shaft. This can mean the belt is rubbing on the body of the motor. I had to move it down the shaft a little bit.

As Chris says in his overview it is difficult to see how the belt is performing, so you have to listen out for any tell tale rubbing sounds and adjust accordingly. It would be nice to drill a couple of viewing holes in the mount to be able to look side on at the belt and motor shaft.

Very good write up Chris,

You're patent pending belt adjusting device looks perfect for the Dec but how is it on the RA as the RA mounting points for the motor aren't as large as on the dec and therefore the RA wobbles more when the screws are loose making it more difficult to use the top of the motor as a lever point for applying tension to the belt. (suppose the answer is do the screws up more....but with a screwdriver it was easier applying the force to the base of the motor on the RA)

I would say even with a magnetic screwdriver use a dab of grease as the small washer can still fall off, as happened to me, requiring the RA to be losened....luckily mine fell out when i opened up the ra slightly.

One other word of caution is the belt can rub which causes bits to be ground off and fall into the RA.

Very good though.

Thats got it a bit tighter thanks...now I am going to undo it all and recheck the meshing to see if that little bit of play can disappear.

Theres going to be a week of poor weather so I am going to do now adjust the RA so that I can turn it by hand with minimal backlash then do the belt tension.

...i didn't try twisting the flat screwdriver i may give that a go. I was levering it against the lower part of the stepper. It's quite good at the moment but i am finding it difficult to judge between the mesh adjustment and tension in the belt. I still have slight play in the Axis.

Performing this mod is fun but I hate the adjustments....

I have had a slipping belt (now have very small bits of belt dust in the mount) and trying to get more tension into it is the same nightmare I have always had with Alternator belts on cars Arrrggghhhh.

I then found that when I was running the system I was getting a little pretty heart beat in the system, seriously! I have attached the guiding photos, and so I have now taken everything down and mounted it in the spare room. I have decided to run it whilst I am working on other stuff and see If I can hear anything strange.

When I took the mount down I found the Head was loose and also the RA needed adjusting....so I had made a mistake in the RA and I am now wondering if the Head loosened because I first did it up in hot weather and now the temperatures dropped to 4 deg C.

Tracking graph.bmp

Hi there,

I started to make the tuning for my EQ6, same parts and same supplier like those from the beginning of the threat.

Dismantling the dec gear, I found that one of the teflon washers is missing, the former owner of the mount did some improvements by changing the grease and the bearings with some German ones. But apparently he loose or forgot one of the washers.

So, I ask you all if you know a place where I could find a ready made teflon washer for EQ6 or at least raw material for doing one by myself.

Thank you !

Check astrobabys website under the shims section and there is an email address of someone who sells a set of shims. Mine cost $13 and arrived to Spain in 6days not bad.

http://www.astro-baby.com/EQ6-Supertune/EQ6%20Super%20Tune%20Guide.php

Or you can find some different size teflon sheets and cut your own.

Regards

Neil C

The rubber focuser grips on my ED80 fell to bits in less than 12 months, the rubber O rings that I replaced them with didn't last much longer. Im not saying these belts we have used for the modification are flimsy by any means BUT you have to remember (if its permanently mounted in a observatory) that they will be subjected to all sorts of temperature extremes (-25C here in winter 2009/10 & 45C+ in summer), I doubt RC cars and model helicopters suffer the same climatic abuse a telescope mount does

Time will tell.

To be fair those rubber focuser grips on the ed80 are designed to fall apart at the least sign if danger....well i assume they must be designed that way as mine fell apart too and as no one could be stupid enough to put something so **** on they MUST have done it on purpose..

40 pounds? Crikey! My machinist is cheap at 6€ although he did moan at me at the amount the small pully had to be bored out by.

It's Georges thread and i'm sure we are not too off topic!

Over hear there are still loads of small land owners with lots of equipement to maintain hence lots of machinists around the place. One man and his machines on a street corner, you dont get that in the uk anymore.

Hi Neil, I've been watching with interest and looking forward to seeing some PE data after all these have been assembled, but just out of interest...Which of the companies will rebore out before sending the parts. I quite fancy having a crack at this if I can get the machining done...(or purchase a cheap kit )

My gut feeling is that the peak to peak PE has improved slightly. The main benifit is that my PE before didn't seem to form a nice repeatable pattern. I did a quick check the other night and got a repeating partern similar to Georges he posted here.

Also the guiding is coping better so i think that with PE correction enabled my mount will be guiding much better than before the mod.

It depends on your mount, if its working fine for what you want then i wouldn't touch it.

I got a test shot of m76 at fl1800 on the c11 and the stars were looking a lot better.

George gave this link but i haven't tried them, my machinist was a couple of quid cheaper.

http://www.hpcgears.com/mods.htm

If the teflon sheets are for a hypertune then there is a guy in the states that will send you a pack of teflon washers for 13 dollars enough to do a tune up...i never looked into getting the sheets. His contact details are on astrobaby website in the hypertuning section.

I bought two sets from him last week.

Point taken, plus a group of people are likely to be just covering costs rather than making money.

Those hypertunes are an example of poor value, separately sourced items are so much cheaper and parts lists on this forum. ;-D

Just waiting for some clear skies to test the belt drive. Looks like it is performing similar to Georges at the moment.

Didnt mean to sound annoying in that last message so appologies for that.

One of the companies can rebore them out for a couple of pounds before sending them..hence it becomes just a put together job.

Even if you get all the base bits, i cant remember what its like in the uk. But here in spain it cost me 6 euros for a machinist down the road to bore them out.

That was why for me personally i can see no value in the kit as it wont save anything.

Are machinists that difficult to find in the uk? (now i think about it i wouldnt know where to find one i'd have to wander around a few industrial estates)

Will you be looking into kits for the EQ6 as well as your HEQ5? There's possibly quite a few people like me who are okay with disassembly and reassembly work but lack the skills and tools for more hard core engineering. Whether there's enough to make it worth your while, we'll have to wait and see but I hope so. Wishing you well with it all.

The thread is a discussion on doing a belt mod to an EQ6 and te first post by George mentions the bits needed, how to do it and where you can possibly buy the parts pre-drilled.

It´s a very easy mod on the EQ6.

Malc is just trying to adapt it to the HEQ5 but the thread topic is for th EQ6 and I don´t think it would need a kit (I know nothing about the heq5 so couldn´t comment if a kit is usefull for that).

I should read all the previous posts before commenting...sorry...but I still dont think the eq6 needs a kit.

Thats worth knowing....shows how much I know or can remember, set it up a year ago and I was no use what so ever!

doesn't seem to work for me on the simulator.

I would suggest you use the Mount and try it as mine works fine.

Not sure....I use this by selecting Park Mode = Defined position

I move the scope and then resynced the encoders...I think that was it. My scope parks horzontal so I can close the roof. This works perfectly.

Just testing the simulator now.

Its more the position of the pully on the motor shaft causing the belt to rub on either the upper or lower face of the slot the belt runs through.

I haven't checked where it is rubbing but i think moving the pully down the shaft will fix it, it is a slight swishing noise it is not a major rubbing or grinding noise.

The belt and two pullys are actually working perfectly together...so a very small adjustment will fix it.

Thanks for sorting all the info, suppliers and references out George. You're a shining ball of burning elements!

I can adjust it down the shaft a little so that should do.

.....wwwhhhiiiirrrrr.....

And now for the RA

.....wwwhhhiiirrr...

I'll post a video later so people can see and because i want to play again.

Not sure if the iphone will pick out the belt but i'll give it a go.

I feel like a kid at christmas with this.

Ok, i found using an Allen key to hook around the belt easier.

If you do the DEC first you can hook the belt with the key then put the motor in place and remove the Allen key.

For the RA you can insert the Allen key through the polar scope hole using one hand, and hook the belt. Then lower the RA motor on top.

When inserting the screws, to hold the motor in place, put a bit of grease on the washers to hold them onto the screw.

I lost one of the washers down the RA slot and had to take the RA apart to remove it.

RA is sounding wonderful but with a slight rubbing sound from the belt....i may try to adjust it a bit but it should be ok as it is.

I can't stop popping into the garage and running the motors just to see the belt go round and hear the noise it makes ;-D very sad i know!

Press....wwwwwhhhiiiiirrrrrrr....Press....whhhirrrrrr..

Press.....

The DEC is working but needs a bit of adjustment....not bad seeing as the coller for the compression bearing isnt tight enough, I couldn't wait to play!

Just need to file out the slots in the RA motor a bit first then screw that into place.

The belt can slip before the motors bind when doing adjustments, it caused me to panic a little bit.

Should all be up and running by tomorrow.

I haven't added any photos as Georges display everything you need to know. I slipped the first belt on using an Allen key, small one. Use the allen key to pull the belt down then rotate the allen key so it lets go.

That wont work for the second motor as not enough room so back to the elastic band method for that.

Saludos

Neil C

When rebuilding the mount remember to add the belt onto the worm.....i'm just saying....not that i forgot on the RA.

I'm not that silly...noooooo