f300v10

Glad to hear it was a simple problem and nothing actually wrong with your new mount. Enjoy your new EQ6-R.

Kev, it sure sounds like either the time zone or location data is off with the hand controller, but I am sure you have already double checked that. Sorry but I can't think of anything else it would likely be.

I spliced a battery connector onto a spare 12 volt female adaptor and connected the mount to the SLA battery I purchased today. The mount now slews just fine with no stalls or loud noises. When they say 11 Volts is the minimum they mean it. Thanks for the help in figuring this out, I really appreciate it. Hopeful the good weather will hold and I will get to use the mount and see it work as it was intended to. Thanks, Scott

Thanks Neil. I purchased an 18aH sealed lead acid. That should give me plenty of time per charge. Now I just have to rig up a way to connect the battery to the mounts power cord.

I would love to be able to plug it into the wall, but sadly I have almost no view of the sky due to the trees from my yard. So my power supply must be mobile. I'm going to try a battery made for wheelchairs. Moving a telescope around slowly must need less power than running wheelchair with an adult sitting in it right?

This morning I did some testing at home with the mount to see if I could re-produce the stall/noise again. I set the hand controller to display the power voltage and from the start it was only 11.4V. When I used the pointing arrows to slew the mount the voltage dropped to at or below 11 consistently and I could get the mount to stall at will. This would seem to confirm it is insufficient power and not a fault with the mount. I'm going to get a battery the should provide 13V and see if that helps.

Second night out with the mount and again it was stalling and making a loud whine on goto commands. The power LED did not flash, so I don't believe the battery I'm using is the issue. At this point I believe I'm going to return this unit and get a new one, it is unusable as it is.

Well I answered my own question about setting a lower goto slew rate, and the answer is no you can't do it: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/316329-synscan-goto-speed-change/

Alex, I'm using a 12V battery, which I now see is on the low end of the recommended range in the manual. Here is a link to the actual unit: https://www.telescope.com/Orion/Accessories/Power-Supplies-Cables/Orion-Dynamo-Pro-155Wh-ACDCUSB-Lithium-Power-Supply/rc/2160/pc/-1/c/3/sc/396/p/118187.uts I did notice that both times the 'stall' occurred, the mount was attempting to slew at high speed on both axis simultaneously. I think you could be right that the power supply was not sufficient. Is it possible to set/reduce the slew rate the mount uses on a goto command, I would be willing to go slower if it stopped the stall from occurring again. If it is the 12V battery that is the issue, what voltage should I get as a replacement? Also thanks for the info on the home position, I guess I won't worry about getting it exactly right. Thanks, Scott

Well my first night out with the new mount didn't go as well as I had hoped. Clouds rolled in around sunset and the lights were on at the football pitch across the road making finding stars next to impossible. Eventually it cleared enough for me to use the polar scope (which I have not yet checked the alignment on). I think the polar alignment was fairly close as Saturn stayed centered in the high magnification eyepiece for several minutes. I attempted to do a 2 star alignment, but with so few stars visible it didn't work. More troublesome was when executing a slew command the mount started making a very loud noise as if it was impacting something or binding, so I hit the escape key to stop the slew. I only had the power and handset cables attached, and they had plenty of slack. The scope was not hitting the tripod, so I have no idea what the cause was. After this incident what was bad goto became off by 90 degrees goto, so I turned off the mount, put it back to home position and re-initialized. Later on, and again during a goto slew, the loud noise/binding occurred again and I had to stop the slew. I double checked the balance on the scope, and it was good on both axis. I'm concerned there is something seriously wrong with this mount. Has anyone here experienced something similar? Any ideas what it could be and what I should do about it? Another question, how accurate does the 'home position' need to be during initialization? And how do you go about getting an accurate home position? Thanks

Thanks mikey, I saw that cable at FLO and it looks well made. I may order it from here in the US if I can't find a good one here. I assume this is the one you have? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-cables-leads-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-eq5-pro-heq5-syntrek-pro-az-eq5-gt-az-eq6-gt-and-eq8-mounts.html The EQ6-R and scopes are in the car to go do some observing after work, and the weather actually is cooperating.

Some other questions, this is my first GEM mount so all this is new to me. My old scope was a fork mounted C8 I bought in 1988. I will be using a SW Pro 80ED for AP and the C8 for visual observing on the EQ6-R. 1) If the mount is slewing and it appears the scope will impact with the tripod, what key on the hand controller can I hit to stop the mount? 2) Is there a way to force the mount to do a meridian flip, or will it do that automatically? I see in the manual where you can set the flipping mode, but that seems to be during a GOTO only. What if you are tracking a target and the scope is approaching the tripod? Will the mount flip automatically, or do you have to command it? Thanks, and I promise to try and keep the stupid newbie questions to a minimum.

Hello, my EQ6-R arrives today, and I have a question about the cable required to run EQMOD. Will any USB-RJ45 cable work, or do I need to get the one from shoestringastronomy.com that seems specifically designed for EQMOD? I can find several USB-RJ45 cables on amazon, but I have no idea if they work the same as the shoestring cable. Thanks