Orion 12" Azimuth Problem

[Joguj]

OK, had a good inspection of my new XX12i last night and everything seems in fairly good order. Collimated, fan working, encoders accurate, alt movement fine. Azimuth though, not very good at all.

I've been reading various comments about this common problem on here and other forums and would like opinions on fixes please.

My azimuth is specified as "Virgin teflon on ebony star laminate" . I have read people using Armorall as a lubricant - this seeming to have best results of many I read about.

Also quite interesting was placing a CD in the Azimuth bearing which had very good results for one user. Has anyone tried this? Any other advice for this bearing type?

Thanks.

[Joguj]

Well I made some progress with the mount. Put a blank dvd after the encoder fitting to just lift the teflon pads a tiny bit and it's a fair improvement.

Last night was my first proper adventure without goto and I'm encouraged by how I got on. I'm a great lover of goto but I can see the benefits of using a manual dob as well now, quick and quiet being the main two. I did setup the intelliscan guider to break me in gently, and found it a pleasure to use (until it lost its bearings after a couple of hours for some reason).

I'm happy about the fact that I have to learn to recognise the sky with this scope, and tracking objects even a double with my X-Cel 5mm is not half as troublesome as I had feared. Last night also gave me views of the hercules clusters, Andromeda, Ring Nebula and Dumbell Nebula. The nebula being particularly pleasing, and well out of practical reach of my 130P. I thought at first the ring nebula was an out of focus star at first sight as a lot of folk probably do, but a beautiful view which I spent some time with.

The supplied 35mm 2" eyepiece is perfect for scanning and locating objects in my opinion, then using my revelation plossl or X-Cel for higher mags. All in all, pretty chuffed. I shall have some enjoyable nights through the winter with it I hope. Maybe next year the lure of goto may take me to selling both my scopes and buy a 300p goto but I won't be making any decisions for a while. Maybe I'll keep the dob AND the 5" goto, the wife would be very happy with that suggestion!