Goto on SW Dob = rubbish. Suggestions please folks?

[kirkster501]

As above.

I have collimated the scope so that it an absolute joy to behold optically. I am over the moon with it. Saturn tonight, even though it is rather low in the UK is astonishing in its clarity now I have the scope tuned to perfection in terms of collimation. M81 and M82 were great.

However, the goto and the mount gearing/motors is absolute, 100% pants. Its worse than pants, the slop in the gearing means there is play of a full FoV of a 35mm EP such that it is impossible almost to use even manually. I have tightened the 17mm nut in accordance with most guides but it still doesn't remove the ridiculous amount of slop in the system. I can push the scope almost three or four degrees before I feel resistance in the gears.

I have tried the "right button, up button" on the final alignment star. If I get that far (i.e. the goto handset has not crashed 3.34 FW) then even then the alignment is wrong. For instance, tonight I aligned on Polaris and Arcturus. It says alignment success. So to test this alignment I tell it to go back to Polaris. Miles out. Ok then, go back to Arcturus. Miles out. And yes I am on DST with precise date and time and location configured.

Also, when centering and pressing the arrow buttons it does not seem granular enough to finely move the scope. It takes so many presses to get past the backlash that by the time it moves it jumps further than you want it to. A most frustrating experience compared to the goto excellence of the NEQ6 or the CPC series.

Anyone got any ideas what to do please? Perhaps I am doing something wrong - although i fail to see what.... I am on the verge of binning the Goto completely and converting it to a manual dob and selling the handset- it would be nice as such and easier to use as a manual. I'd need a few bits to do that -i.e. a left mounting circle and some bushes to place in the side wall of the mount to replace the goto mounting point.

I want to keep this scope since optically its brilliant. And I bought it used so will not have lost out financially by doing such a manual conversion.

Thanks for reading this far, Steve

[swamp thing]

Wow! Steve.

That doesn't sound right. I've not owned a SW Flextube,Goto but I have used a few (admittedly set up by their owners). They seem like a pretty good package to me. The Goto system and tracking always seemed to work very well from my knowledge.

[kirkster501]

Wow! Steve.

That doesn't sound right. I've not owned a SW Flextube,Goto but I have used a few (admittedly set up by their owners). They seem like a pretty good package to me. The Goto system and tracking always seemed to work very well from my knowledge.

Lol, no not right at all. I might strip the whole thing down. To do what exactly I dont know. But stripping it down sounds right...!

[SeedyF]

Oh dear - this doesn't sound good. And it seems to match some of the problems I had when I first took delivery of my scope. In the end I had to return the mount to opticalvision and they replaced it covering all costs. Maybe if I describe what was happening and what I did it might help.

I found the same problem as you that I would set up properly but when I selected an object to view the scope would overshoot it by about 15 degrees. Now I had no slop like you experience but the goto was unusable.

I tried a daytime test using a big knot in a tree some distance off. I centred it. Noted the position on the handset - then slewed away by say 20 degrees, using the handset readout as a guage. I then slewed back - again only watching the handset until the display showed the original starting coordinates. So when the handset said I was back at my starting position I looked through the eyepiece. No sign of the tree - not even the knot. I knew it had missed as it was obvious the scope had slewed way past the point the handset suggested I should be looking at. Now this test was using the AZ motor. When I repeated it using ALT it was bang on and the knot was centred when I slewed the scope back down.

So I contacted the supplier and described the problem and optical vision arrange the replacement. Now it works like a dream and it really is a great scope. My advice would be go to the supplier (assuming it was new) rather than stripping down.

[void]

Just an FYI checkout out this thread also this user might be having the same issues as you. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/184687-250px-goto-help-please/

[fenmarwal]

I don't know if you've seen this thread on CN but I fixed mine doing this.

http://www.cloudynig...5/o/all/fpart/1

Cheers Andy.

[kirkster501]

Thanks Andy. Will check into that.

I was using this scope over weekend and the optics are truly magnificent - just let down my this goto mechanism. I am sure it must be repairable. I am going to strip it down later.