Bobby Zamora

Thank you very much for your answers!

Belt tension sounds interesting - @1parsec mentioned how to check it, but how to do this if i will need to fit them tighter?

Without full mount disassemble i just can see partly my belts stick out and all i can do is to try fit motors to belts and then pull them higher so that belt tension will be tighter - like this?

I'm little bit afraid of  disassemble mount because it wasn't easy, to be honest:)

On 27/07/2019 at 11:12, newbie alert said:

Seems to me that you could get your PA a bit tighter.. how long are you leaving it to settle during the drift proceedure? 

Maybe look at your belt tension,  seems like quite a bit of slack on your 90 degree graph..

 

Thanks newbie alert, usually i'm leaving drift allign to 5 minutes flat line.

On 27/07/2019 at 15:28, Starflyer said:

9 seconds of backlash is pretty big, something must still be wrong, things to check / consider;

Belt tension - slack should just be taken up and then a tiny bit more, too much and you'll wear out motor bearings etc, too slack and it'll show as backlash.

Worm adjustment not quite right, especially in DEC.  Pulley grub screws not tight / not tightened onto flats on the shafts leading to rocking back and forth.

Too much grease - I've done this, it shows up as stiction, your guiding tries to move an axis, there's no response and suddenly it gives and you get an over correction. It also shows itself as stiff, hard to balance axis.

Particularly bad seeing, the recommended min motions look quite big to me. Is it a finder-guider your using? Did you enter the details correctly in PHD2?

Polar alignment could be better, the better the PA the less work your guiding has to do. If you're setting up every time then you can do this as you're waiting for it to get properly dark.

 

Hope you get it sorted,

Ian

 

Thanks much Ian for your advices, will try to check everything. Belt tension is worth trying, hope it's a core of a problem

I do guiding with a 50/200 guidescope, details in phd are correct .

On 27/07/2019 at 22:45, Thalestris24 said:

Hi

Whereabouts in the world are you? How are you doing PA? How is your guide scope attached? With a belt mod you want perfect balance - in all 3 axes. How windy is it on your balcony? Big newts are like sails... Have you entered your guide scope focal length correctly in PHD2? Things won't work properly until PHD2 can do a decent calibration.

Louise

Hello Thalestris! I'm in Russia, Saint-Petersburg, i usually do PA with drift alignment procedure - i did it for last two years, and my guiding used to be very very good. Guidescope attached with big dovetail to tube rings - connection is pretty tough. I've tested it with no wind, and, as i mentioned, i got good guiding result for last year, in any weather (from -20 to +20), any time, any seeing. And yes, the data in phd is 100% correct.

On 27/07/2019 at 23:40, mos said:

Hi Bobby,

Both axis look fairly unresponsive so hopefully this is just a belt tension issue. PA looks good enough for guiding and shouldn't be the reason for this much backlash. I would try tightening the belts and redo the calibration.

I'm not sure about the NEQ6 but are you able to slew the mount with the motor cover off and see how the pulleys behave when you change slewing directions? If they aren't tight enough you'll get bunching as you reverse directions and see a noticeable issue before there is enough tension in the belt to move the axis again.  The belts shouldn't visibly distort in shape. Try reaching the tension described in the guides - just enough to take up slack and allow for movement of a few mm with slight finger pressure, then tighten it a little more.

Thank you mos! Will try do something with belt tension. It's hard about neq6 because you can't see the belt movement when motors are screwed. But i can see the shaft, i tested slewing back & forward and seems to response from motor to shaft was pretty quick. But anyway, i'll check it again twice.

13 hours ago, 1parsec said:

Hello Bobby,

9 or 10 seconds of backlash equals about 1 tooth of slack on the belt which is a lot. 
The belt may not have engaged the pulley teeth when you fitted the motor. And now the belt has dropped in to mesh with the pulley teeth leaving a lot of slack.

A quick check is to remove the electronic panel.  Remove the worm end cover at the bearing ring adjustment end. Take some pliers and carefully rotate to worm shaft a few degrees back and forth.
If you then look closely at the very center of the motor you should see the motor shaft turn exactly at the same time the pliers turn the worm.  If you feel/see any delay the belt tension isn't correct. 
(Put a small marker pen dot on the end of the motor shaft, it will be easier to to see the motor rotating).

Also check the worm bearing locking ring is lightly snugged up to eliminate any worm end float.

As already mentioned, it could be the 12 tooth or 47 tooth pulley grub screws not tight and rocking on the flat of the shaft.  
Balance doesn't have to be perfect with a belt kit fitted. In fact this is not desirable, just a very small imbalance to keep the worm in contact on one side and not flop side to side as there's usually a small amount of worm-wheel backlash present.

Hello 1parsec, thank you very much! This is extremely helpful for me, will try it soon. And i really hope that tension is the problem

Thanks again to everyone ❤️ 

Regards

Hi everyone!

I’m having huge troubles with guiding on my NEQ6 mount.

I’ve started receiving big spikes in my guiding few month ago (before it, guiding was perfect), so i decided to do belt mod - and I’m still can’t make it works well

So, what I’ve done?

1. Belt mod, new lubricant
2. Worm adjustment from astro-baby article - I don’t feel any play in both axis when I shake my mount with clutches locked.
3. Motors rotating mount very soft and without any extra sounds
4. Balancing - tried many many variants, now my tube is not dropping in any way after losing clutches, so seems to be balancing is very good
5. Polar align with phd2’s included drift alignment feature - on last guiding assistant session error was around 2 arc-min (not so bad, I think), on drift procedure I got almost flat lines for 5 minutes (both axis).
6. Currently I’m trying to guide with same ra/dec parameters that was few months ago, when guiding was perfect
7. Tried two different eqdir cables, two main boards, different usb’s, pc’s - Mac and zwo’s asiair - result is the same
8. Mount level is perfect, and there is no nearby shaking

I attached all logs and screenshots from guiding process and guiding assistant.

Also tried to capture checking for play in both axis, and balancing (sorry, my videos are really not so informative)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1M1AEekBUwq94-qj77fW4_y9xm-ENKfCB

Seems to be i tried everything, and now i feel myself very upset and i really don’t know what to do.

Any advices?

Thanks in advance for any help!

My full specs are:

NEQ6 belt modded, PHD2 2.6.6, EQDIR hitecastro, ZWO ASI 120mm, 50/200 guidescope, balcony

Regards & Clear skies

ps sorry if topic may be in wrong place, i’m completely newbie in this forum

PHD2_GuideLog_2019-07-27_015056.txt