George

Guiding needs to be off Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Worth book marking for cheap Arduino parts https://www.fasttech.com/search?arduino Ive used them a few times and postage is free

It all starts with your feet, keep those warm the rest of you will be warm. Go for clothing aimed at the fisherman I have some Skee-tex wellies and they are brilliant, had them for 20 years and they have never let me down. http://www.skee-tex.co.uk/products/skee-tex-boot-14.aspx

Agreed, there's no way an eccentric gear should have ever been put in a finished product.......that's not bad QC that's just contempt for your customers. Sorry SW this is a big fail.

Depending on the eccentricity of the worm a few hours in the lathe with some lapping compound should see it right. Anyway if there are any EQ8 owners who fancy a straight swap for my lapped and belt driven EQ6 Im up for it

Well turning a Citroen into a EQ8 was always going to be a challenge

The Chinese would just backward engineer one that did work, my point tho was the EQ6 was always compromised by the worm and wheel and engineering wise (on a budget) is next to impossible todo away without some slop in gearing. This slop introduces PE which of course if its repeatable can be compensated with software. But on another note, UK astronomers have to contend with very turbulent seeing at the best of times and will in due course never get the best out of a mount for that reason.

I raised an eyebrow when the 1st betas of the EQ8 were released, my first thoughts were why worm and wheel again when direct drive is much simpler and not so reliant on engineering tolerances. A few thou out in most consumer goods would probably go un-noticed, not so a telescope mount, precision is the top goal with a mount and sadly I don't think the Chinese can mass produce precision products.

Thanks very much for the link.

More than adequate POD's weigh next to nothing so anything more than decking is overkill and going to be a unnecessary cost. 3 pads can be cast for the pier legs far more cheaply than than one big pad for the POD.

4 in mesh sounds about right for the small pulley, I also had to make the motor plate slot a few mm larger for adjustment, it takes a minute or two with a jewellers file.

I think this link has been posted somewhere in this discussion, it will be trial and error until you actually get the pulleys fitted as being a few mm out in your calculations can mean the difference between a few teeth. I think originally to save on postage I opted to get a size either side of my calculations.

A nice bit of polished wood hides many sins

Im sure Ive swapped mine around at some point, I know the gear on the worm shaft is the same for sure. The transfer gears from the stepper motors are different tho.

I'll throw the wife in.......3 kids get the wife free