Tightening springs on AE Luton mount

[dark star]

Having read Skybadger's post about his type C AE mount it seems like the solution to the too loose RA axis on my type B mount is to tighten the spring on the RA axis.

However, does anyone have an explanation of how to do this? There was some information in the previous thread, but it was a bit over my head! Any advice gratefully received, especially with pictures!

David

[Peter Drew]

You need an adjustable collar and a pressure plate to achieve this. They should be larger in diameter than the spring. The collar should have a grubscrew through the outer diameter to secure it in position, also 3 tapped holes at 120 degrees spacing through the flat face. The sequence is spring, pressure plate, collar. Once fitted in contact with each other and the collar tightened, suitable screws then advance the pressure plate untill sufficient spring tension is applied. Hope this helps. .

[dark star]

Thanks for all the advice. I hadn't done the obvious thing and made sure the telescope was really well balanced! I moved the weights right to the end of the weight bar.

The mount works much better now. I will still give the adjustable collar a try in the longer term. As I have no lathe and no experience of using one I would need to adapt something. I managed to drill and tap some aluminium not long ago.

David

[skybadger]

Hi David

if there is any advice to give on this I would recommend that you do not use grub screw collars - they make removing the shaft a complete pain once they have bitten into the shaft and chewed it up. I moved over to using collar clamps that have a screw that tighten the collar round the shaft. The springs I have are quite tough to put pressure on and will take a fair bit of compression, so a compression plate might not have enough travel, but Peter will know

regards

Mike