teoria_del_big_bang

I did the belt mod and replaced all bearings when I obtained my HEQ5 2nd hand.
I actually bought all bearings before even stripping it down and for me I think it was a waste of time replacing the bearings (but might not be in your case) as there relly was nothing wrong with the originals. 
The thing is none of these bearings are under any real load or work at speed and so even if they are not top quality bearings they are unlikely to wear over time.

The one caveat to this statement is unless somebody previously has stripped it down and put it back together wrongly.

If replacing the bearings anyway, to be sure all is in good, order then do not pack the bearings with grease, in the literal sense. They need grease but not packed to the gunnels with the stuff. Again they will not get hot and so the grease will run anywhere and packing just means the motors have to use more current to move them.

In my opinion the bearings that do need to be of good quality are the smaller ones on the worm gear shaft.
Also I found the biggest improvement to backlash was getting the worm gear shaft just right with no float, this is critical as there must be no float but if you overtighten the float adjusters then the whole thing is too tight and the stepper motors can stall and start missing steps.

The other critical step is the meshing of the gear and the worm. Again I found this the main cause of backlash and needs adjusting very (very) carefully which takes time. These mounts are not the pinnacle of engineering (although great mounts for the price, hence their popularity with astrophotographers) but they are not precisely machined and so you will not get this meshing perfect as there will be some runout of the gear to worm. This means in one position the mesh will be perfect, with no backlash at all, but then turn it 90 degrees and there will be a little backlash (or you will be able to waggle the gear a little without moving the worm) then at 180 degrees movement of the gear there will be a little more backlash. Once the gear moves a full turn it will be back to no backlash. So there is a periodic error every revolution of this gear. It maybe more complicated than this and there maybe some similar interaction every full revolution of the worm as well, but generally you will not eliminate backlash at all angular positions of this gear and worm. That is mainly just down to machining errors that you will not fix.
I suspect some mounts will be better than others and all will not be made the same just to a certain tolerance that will not be microns but 10's of microns.
So it takes some doing but basically get the meshing of these two gears too tight so they bind once per rev will stall the motors, so it is a matter of getting them tight enough so they do not bind and reduce any backlash at their loosest point (if that makes sense).
The final adjusts needs to be done when all back together and keep adjusting for minimal backlash until at the highest slew speed you find the motor just stalls when at high speed. Then back this off ever such a small amount and check you can slew both axes (with scope and counter weights) at full speed through full movement of Ra and DEC several times without stalling the motors.

Adjusting Worm Gear Engagement

All the other large bearings are easy to replace, as I say just do not pack the bearings totally with grease.
The ones to be careful with are the taper bearings. These need a minimal amount of pre-load. Pre load is applied when you tighten the slotted nuts as they compress the two halves together and these then wedge together.
The nut literally just needs to be hand tight and no more. Do not be tempted to start tightening with tools. If your grip on them is poor then maybe just use a screwdriver to turn with it in the slot of the nut but really just hand tight. It just needs to nip up so there is no movement in the axis up and down (in direction of arrows), that's all. Any tighter and again it means the motors need more current to turn and more likely to stall.
 

All pictures from Astro Babys' website that has a superb guide to all this.
Rebuilding-the-skywatcher-heq5orion-sirius-mount

One other note is make sure you bu Standard Clearance bearings and do not be tempted to buy C3 clearance bearings thinking they are better quality. C3 bearings are designed for high speed use where the bearing will get hot and the balls and races will expand so they are designed with extra clearance when cold to allow for the expansion and clearances will not be correct unless running at high speed. So as nothing is remotely high speed at all in this use you will actually have bearings that are less stiff than standard clearance bearings.

Steve

Here you go:

Steve

14 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Thank you very much!

On another thought, i wonder what the faint small fuzzies are dotted around the picture. Stellarium is not very helpful and the platesolve function in SIRIL did not annotate them.

You can upload your image HERE to find out.

Steve

I agree that is an excellent image

Steve

That is an amazing image, I just love this target.

Steve

51 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I have to say Steve you have, in the end, taken this all very well, and looked at it all very positively, not sure I would have seen the bright side so soon, and the rest of my kit would have been up for sale by now….so kudos for that…and maybe some of us have learned a thing or two… I personally have made my own, albeit much less costly blunders, and have been grumpy for weeks….👍🏼

I hope you get it all sorted for the bare minimal cost…And I wish I could help, as you have helped me in the past…👍🏼

Believe me yesterday evening after it happened up until going to bed I was not like that, I was not good to be around.

I was mad enough when it first happened I was mad enough (with myself) thinking I had just blown up a £35 hub and started looking in garage for another hub to test everything when it dawned on me I may have damaged other equipment. Hence why I was up until about 1:00 am testing what had gone and learned the full horror of my actions.
Going to bed last night I told the missus its all going now - I have had enough stress.

So not sure what changed apart from some kip but this morning just looked at what I had in life and watching the morning news about whats going on in the world (wont mention where as no politics) as well as other issues around the globe and thought what had happened is small compared to some peoples issues. Also I have just got over covid without any real issues and wife is also starting to recover again without major issues so I have a lot to be happy about and just thought why should I give up a hobby I love for another setback no matter how big it seemed.

Thanks again to all for your encouragement and also help from Pegasus and Deep Sky Day that also helps more than people know 🙂 

Steve

Pavle from DSD has also got back to me and offered me a discounted price for a new electronics board and offered to make a video for me showing me how to replace it. So that has cost me 50 Euros + shipping, so compared to the cost of a new rotator I will take that any day.

So at the end of the day what seemed like £1250 of damage should cost me £700 if I get a replacement guide cam, and £450 if I use my Altair I already have..
Not a mistake I will make again and not something to be sniffed at but compared to the original cost I am a lot happier and I will be back 🙂 

Steve

29 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

I'm confused. Even though the extra hub should have only had 5v input, shouldn't the output from the ports only been 5v anyway? 

It looks like it was whatever the power supply was, which in this instance was 12V

Steve

Many thanks to @M40 for the offer of sending me a 4 port USB hub, great to see how helpful SGL members can be.

This together with the new board from Pegasus will sort my USB ports out, I do have a guide camera and have ordered a new focusser so its a direct replacement for my Sesto Senso, which is actually a V2 and so maybe even an upgrade, although unless connecting to other primaluce equipment not sure if there is any gain.

So this means I should have a working rig again if any clear nights are on the horizon (not holding breath)

Steve

1st step to recovery thanks to some great support from Pegasus.

I emailed them early hours of this morning and had a reply waiting for me when I got up at 7:00am (yest not much sleep - I wonder why).
Since then I have had several replies asking for info and generally they suspect the unit is damaged beyond repair but have offered me a replacement board, which I can fit myself, for 160 euros including VAT and postage so around £140.
Not cheap but much better than £260 + postage for a new unit.

I have emailed other manufacturers but not had replies yet but I am sure DSD will very soon as Pavle is normally very helpful.

Steve

Thanks for all the support, it does mean a lot even though there's very little you can do.

I have to learn to accept what was a stupid mistake on my behalf and it really hit hard because I have built up my kit over 2 or 3 years prior to my retirement last year as I knew I would not have the cash to do so later.
The rotator was like the last but I really wanted to complete the kit, and I have blown that as well, but probably repairable as the mechanics are there and it still works with the hand controller just not through USB.

And after maybe throwing all my toys out of the pram O actually still could have a setup as I have another guide camera somewhere, I do have a DSD focusser but will take some ingenuity to fit it to this scope as it was on my WO 73, and I can use the rotator just not through INDI and EKOS. So in many way so long as my expensive CCD works I still have a setup.

So I think I have got over the "give it all up" stage as I do love AP and still lots to do and learn, I just have to decide do I carry on with the reduced setup, or take the hit and get back to where i was ????

All this and on top of just getting over Covid these last couple of weeks really got me down last night but I realise things could be far worse 🙂 

Steve

2 minutes ago, markse68 said:

What a horrible thing to happen- one bad move and such damage caused  absolute nightmare- hope you can claim on your insurance.

Going forward one option might be an industrial usb hub from eg startech- the ones in the steel housings. They have a non-standard side by side industrial type power input so you can’t really plug anything else into them, and 7-42V input so internal dc-dc conversion. I can’t find any info on if they have over voltage protection should the dc-dc fail though….

Mark

I know which you mean and two were sold on SGL not too long ago and if it were not for the fact I had the Pegasus PPBA, which is not cheap at around £260 and that had all the ports I needed I would have bought one on here.
It was only when I got this rotator I needed one more port and so added a USB hub that has worked so reliably in the past, It is a Startech (but not the industrial type you mention) but had been redundant for many months in a drawer, so I just forgot the power needs to be 5V when I quickly connected everything up to test the rotator.

Daft thing is that more than likely I could have used the hub without the power but I was a bit tired and plugged everything in without even really thinking.

Steve

7 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Steve, I stand corrected.  My experience, especially between 5v wall plugs for things like old routers or phones etc, they have small yellow tipped barrels, making them impossible to fit a 12v alternative.  But I agree there are no real standards between the voltages, and thus  a safe guard that prevent this sort of thing happening. 

Yes I wish that were the case for all things, and it could be, that would be logical 🙂 

Steve

1 minute ago, Paul M said:

If  one of the outbound USB ports on the PPBA was connected to the inbound port on the hub then, for the reasons  I gave above, it is possible for the 12v inadvertently put on the outbound USB ports 5v line to be back fed to the 5v line on the PPBA USB port. 

Which was the case

20 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Sorry to hear what's happened, but it does suggest a flaw in the design of either the hub, or the PPBA as normally the plugs between 12v and 5v are different, having either a larger centre pin, or different diameter barrels to prevent such a mishap.

Hi, sadly this is not always the case and one of the things that maddens me in this day and age.
You would have thought it not too difficult by now to have a standard 5V connector, a standard 12V and even a standard 24V that were all different.

Even on my astro gear that is all 12V whilst most manufacturers use 5.5 x 2.1 connectors some use the 5.5 x 2.5 connectors which means I have to carry both leads and/or use adapters.
What makes it worse is that you can use a 2.5 inner female socket on a 2.1 male plug and they do make a connection and seem to work but the connection is poor and plug may overheat.

But it seems many manufacturers also choose the same connectors for 5V as well, and I have 24V power supplies with same plugs so keep those well away.

Steve

43 minutes ago, wornish said:

Are you certain the USB ports on the laptop are working?

Yes, laptop was just connected remotely so are okay, but after the incident I have plugged all units into laptop directly to test them and only main CCD was working.
But it does raise another point that I have not yet tested the RPi ports that were connected, small issue if that needs replacing though, but still looks like the others are damaged and sent messages off to manufacturers to see if repair is viable.

Steve
 

Yes I did this until late last night as I couldn't sleep knowing what did and didn't work.

I have plugged everything in individually to my laptop and tried each unit on its own with the windows utility provided by the manufacturer.
The Pegasus PPBA, the Sesto Senso focuser, the ZWO ASI 290MM Mini camera, my new DSD rotator all seemed to have suffered and none are recognised on USB either by the utility or if I look in Device Manager on Windows so assume its damaged the USB ports somehow.

Now I am sure they maybe repairable given time, but not sure of the cost effectiveness of sending them off and cost of repair compared to replacing them.

The insurance I did not think about and maybe worth a call I do have accidental cover I think.

Steve

What a disaster this evening - I really feel like packing it in as I can't keep piling money into this anymore.

What happened is that I bough myself a new rotator and fitted it without issues today. Then to test it and I did not have a spare USB port on my Pegasus PPBA so added a 4 port powered hub but without thinking connected the 5V power to 12V on the PPBA. 

It appears to have fried all USB ports, with the exception (I think) of the main CCD camera.

I can no longer connect to my Senso Sesto focuser, Mini ZWO guidecam, Pegasus PPBA, or the new DSD rotator. All in all over £1K of equipment.
Not even 100% sure about the QHY268M CCD, It seems to connect and I can seem to take an image but it is all white even with endcap on scope, that may just be the autostretch so may be okay, filterwheel seems to work.

Needless to say with weather being crap for months and this I really am frustrated, with myself for doing such a stupid thing as much as anything.

Steve

Flip-Flat panel and Rotator from Deep Sky Dad.

These came a lot sooner than expected, a Flip-Flat panel that I should be able to automate via INDI to take flats at end of a session and it should change the illumination level to suit different filters.

Also a rotator. I have been after a good affordable rotator for sometime now, is this good enough ?  Hopefully soon to find out.
I have physically fit the rotator, that was simplicity in itself now to get it to work and test how stiff and reliable it really is.

All being well I will try to review it in the appropriate section in the coming weeks.

Steve

My first attempt. still so much to learn  

Sorry I know this is an oldish thread but on images with very little actual background, so lots of nebulosity or dust clouds or galaxy is DBE really needed ?
I know in many images it is the single most useful tool there probably is and normally is a must do, but with so little you can actually determine as real background is it worth going through all the pain to add the samples in the right place and then play around with the parameters to smooth it al out ??

I am assuming with this that the images also do not show any real obvious gradients or artifacts as well 🙂 

Steve
 

Welcome to SGL 🙂 

Steve

My first setup was the WO 73, flattener, and guidescope and a great scope.
My mount was a 2nd hand HEQ5 which I replaced all bearings and added the Rowan Belt modification and was a great setup.
Also had a modified DSLR.

So I can't fault that setup.

You are too far away anyway  but I keep contemplating selling this setup (although with a dedicated astro cam as I have a pending sale on the DSLR) as I still have it and am struggling to part with it (sound like a hoarder now).

I bet there is not a lot of difference between the WO and the RVO setup you know - not sure what the price difference is but RVO and FLO are really helpful and is often worth talking to them by email or telephone them. I doubt's they will sway you to buy the RVO setup over the WO unless it is for a valid reason.

A lovely image and what a nice FOV.
 

Steve

If the package has been put together by RVO I would think it would be an excellent setup. You still however require the HEQ5 pro mount as the package does not have a mount so total cost would be around the £2K.
It really is worth getting the Rowan belt modded version. 

With your 80ED option the cost is £1600 but that is without the flattener which you really need for AP so add that in and its £1800. Also if later you want to guide then you probably would want a proper guidescope instead of the finderscope you get with it, so that would be another £150 to £200.
ED80 & Mount package
Flattener

Personally if I could afford the extra I would go for the RVO setup and HEQ5 with Rowan Belt mod. I think the modded mount and the better guidescope will be of benefit.
RVO package
HEQ5 & Rowan Belt mod

Also I mentioned about getting into guiding, neither of these packages above have a guide camera so you would need to budget another £150 or so for that for both options.

Steve