What on Earth is this glop??

[cantharis]

I have started dismantling my EQ5 mount, I am intending to remove the factory fitted grease, polish the internals, and re-assemble with fresh grease. I was prompted to do this with finding the mount very slow and stiff in its movements, balancing (on either axis) being especially imprecise. I found a useful and well illustrated how-to website - http://www.astronomyboy.com/cg5/dec2.shtml

But what on earth is this muck that the mount has been filled with at the factory? Its properties are more akin to those of an adhesive than a lubricant - so sticky and viscous. I am going to rebuild the mount with a general purpose lithium grease - but to be honest anything else would make a better replacement than the original glop.

I presume that Synta, who make this and a large number of Chinese mounts, use the same stuff in all their products. So if you have a Chinese mount do yourself a favour and re-lube it.

[Sir Roderic Spode]

Probably was decent grease when originally applied, but like all oils/ and lubricants... It has a shelf life and requires changing otherwise it will start doing more damage than good.

Source : Im a Train Engineer, and grease expert due to being covered in the Rubbish most days

[cantharis]

Thanks Sir Rod - but the action of the mount has not deteriorated with time - it was like that when I bought it new about 4 years ago. The stuff in question is a clear very sticky gel-like substance. Does not look like a grease at all.

[Capricorn]

In fairness to Synta, they have to cover all aspects.

If it is thick people will say it is too sticky, if they put a less viscous one in people would complain that any heat and it disappears.

It has to work for you in Costa Blanca in summer and others in Scandinavia in winter with small 12v motors driving a 15kg load fairly accurately.

[Jiggy 67]

What is the best grease to use??

[Peter Drew]

I would use the existing grease, which seems like a variant of Rocol Kilopoise, but I would introduce it as a mix with some Castro LM grease to thin it a little. The EQ5 mount has plain bearings I believe, if so a grease with a high bearing load is required to avoid binding or even seizing. I'm not sure if lithium grease has this property.

[cantharis]

When the job is done in a few days time I will let you know.

[x6gas]

I used Badfish Barracuda WS2 grease when I hypertuned my CGEM and it seems to tick all of the boxes including having a very high bearing load.

http://reelschematic.com/isc/products/BadFish-Barracuda-Grease.html

I actually got mine from a UK supplier - check out the fishing stores as it is used to lubricate fishing rod things...

[moriniboy]

I use mountain bike bottom braket grease, its very resistant to moisture ingress etc.

[E621Keith]

I have started dismantling my EQ5 mount, I am intending to remove the factory fitted grease, polish the internals, and re-assemble with fresh grease. I was prompted to do this with finding the mount very slow and stiff in its movements, balancing (on either axis) being especially imprecise. I found a useful and well illustrated how-to website - http://www.astronomy.../cg5/dec2.shtml

But what on earth is this muck that the mount has been filled with at the factory? Its properties are more akin to those of an adhesive than a lubricant - so sticky and viscous. I am going to rebuild the mount with a general purpose lithium grease - but to be honest anything else would make a better replacement than the original glop.

I presume that Synta, who make this and a large number of Chinese mounts, use the same stuff in all their products. So if you have a Chinese mount do yourself a favour and re-lube it.

Just to let you know, my Vixen GP2 and both GPDX also uses a clear thick glue like grease, much like the brown Synta glue in the clone mount. It's thick because it is was designed to be that way and not because of Chinese cost cutting. The grease is thick and sticky to match the static friction properties with the kinematic friction properties, as well as sticking and lubricating the gears for the entire service life of the mount.

Unlike normal worm gear, GEM worm operates at an extremely low RPM and doesn't perform that many revolution in its life, so new grease can't be introduced to the working part of the worm wheel. In high RPM worm drive the worm needs to be lubricated by immersing in a sealed oil bath or re-greased regularly/continuously lubricated. A GEM is designed to be maintenance free for life and not meant to be re-greased regularly, the heavy loading on the worm wheel will strip lighter grease quickly, so it's even more important to have grease that will stick to the gears and don't get scrape off.

If you can wipe the grease off easily, then the grease is not sticky enough. Lithium grease definitely fall into this category.

[Xplode]

On my mount i have used Super Lube for the parts i have regreased, this is a teflon(PTFE) based grease that works very well in the cold, is water resistant and doesn't dry up like other greases.

[cantharis]

Well the job is done, the mount is much more pleasant to use, and you can now actually balance the mount on both axes, as the designer intended. You couldn´t do that before as the glop introduced excessive ´stiction´. Well pleased with the result.

[Ouroboros]

Do you do any long exposure imaging? It would be interesting to see if the mounts tracks better now.

[cantharis]

Do you do any long exposure imaging? It would be interesting to see if the mounts tracks better now.

No, so far I am strictly visual.

[Wobbly Bob]

My first encounter with this horrible chinese kilopoise grease was when dismantling the simple Alt Az mounts, they used this GLUPE to pack out the very poor castings so that the bearing surfaces would appear smooth LOL. I would remove this muck and pack the space with a bit of poly milk bottle as a bearing shim plus a bit of lithium grease. The end result was a far superior movement with no slop.

When tuning my LXD mount the ball races had the same Kilopoise muck in them, after tuning the gears and removing burs and rough metal bits, I repacked the bearings with lithium grease the difference in performance was amazing.