perfrej

Laser collimators are evil The only one I have ever seen that has been straight straight from the factory is the Hotech. May I point you to something that actually collimates your whole scope and not just the center five microns of it: The Catseye Collimation System. I got one and it is a heck of a difference. If I collimate with the Hotech and then try the catseye, I am looking at some major fiddling to get it right. You should try it! Just google it and you'll find it.

/per

Jack,

If you change the bearings to better ones, like SKF, there is abolutely no play radially in the worm gear. The original ones that I took out did have some play after less than a year of use. That may be one of the most important simple mods to do on an NEQ6!

I will send my two 10Micron mounts off to remote sites over the summer, one of them in southern France, one in the STockholm Archipelago. The NEQ6 thus becomes my only mount at home and I will do the belt mod immediately along with a altitude bolt mod that is badly needed at my latitude. I already did main bearings and worm bearings. It is a very good mount when some of the parts are changed...

/per

I have worked with belted solutions before and have been thinking of doing this to my NEQ6 for a long time. It will complement the quality SKF bearings that I put into it year before last. I figured I'll buy the parts from a local supplier, but then comes the problem: you have to drill out the axis hole yourself. The wheels come unbored. So, at €159, ready to bolt on and tension, this seems like a very good alternative. Thanks for the link!

/per

Wonderful! That was clumsy of me...

I am 100% confident that you will enjoy it - I've had great success with it

/per

Hi all!

It used to be my focuser... Since it has hardly been used and I feel that it has been perfect all along, I can only think of one thing. First of all, there is no way that it can be:

1. Dirty

2. Faulty

3. Damaged in transit

So, the one thing that hits me now is that the black knob is probably in a tad too far on its axis. It was off because I had a Lakeside motor unit on that side and I put it back as the very last thing before closing the case for shipping to Alistair. In other words, I tested the focuser without the knob and it felt normal (which for a feathertouch is close to sexy). I must have pushed it too far in so that it has made contact with the body.

So, Alistair, just loosen the hex nut , ease the black knob out 1mm and tighten it. It must be that, and I am sorry that I didn't check it after putting the knob back on.

All in all, the Feathertouch is a really nice piece of equipment and it doesn't sag one bit with pounds and pounds of load.

All the best,

Per

David,

I just checked on my new EdgeHD 9.25. It is not M4, and if you say it is not UNC (doesn't look like it), it just has to be 8/32 UNF.

Just a guess

/p

Folks!

This is very interesting. I assume that changing the bearings to real SKF (Swedish!) ones is also best to do at the same time, right?

One concern of mine is the flexure of the belts. Any ideas on that?

Looking for a Swedish supplier, and I know that there is one as I did get some 8mm belts and wheels for a project in 2004. I'll let you know what I find.

All the best from cloudy Sweden,

P