Skywatcher EQ3/2 RA drive motor

[Bob_O]

Help Anyone,

I have a Skywatcher Skymax 127 on an EQ3/2 mount, but the RA drive only slews at 2 degrees per minute at its fastest. Can I improve this without physically loosening the 2mm grub screw fixing the motor to the RA axis? I am now 76 years old and my fingers aren't as nimble as they used to be and performing this operation in the dark (and in the cold) is asking for the screw to fall out! The screw is also not in a convenient location. Sometimes, Skywatcher mechanical design lets them down.

[ronin]

I have the idea that 2 degrees a minute is the maximum, that would be 8x which I am sure is the highest rate.

As the set up is not goto then I suspect that the idea is you loosen off the screws slew it by hand to the apprioximate postion then tighten up and centre again by the handset and motors.

I am not even sure if there is an alternative motor out there that does it any quicker but if there were that would be an additional expense. Thinking of AWR when I say this.

[Cornelius Varley]

If you need to quickly slew the telescope to another point in the sky unlock the ra clutch and then manually slew the telescope to the desired location and then relock the clutch to start tracking again.

[JamesF]

Yup, unlocking the clutches and moving the mount manually is what I do.

James

[Bob_O]

Thanks, guys. I was afraid you'd say that! I'll just have to bite the bullet and flex my poor old fingers. I do, however posses a long(ish) handled driver with a 2mm hex head. My old Vixen scope & mount was (were?) easy to operate in that respect, with levers to clamp and de-clamp the drive axes. I had to let it go because it was too heavy to handle.

[Mr Q]

My old Meade DS-10 had a motor drive with a built in clutch so that there was a little resistance when slewing but then where ever the scope ended up, the clock drive took over and tracked the object. Is this feature a lost one for modern scopes?

[Bob_O]

Hallo Mr Q: That Meade feature sounds useful, but there's no mention of it in the Skywatcher EQ£/2 manual and since I've already burnt out one motor by inadvertenlty connebting to the wrong voltage (12v, instead of 6V!), I'm not anxious to exoeriment! I shall follow the advice of the other chaps. Thanks.