I've finally done it.

[Demonperformer]

Right. The Alt bolts have arrived, so I decided it was time to take the mount out of the box and try to set it up.

First thing I noticed is that the mount head is a SERIOUSLY heavy chunk of metal. I am going to have to give some careful consideration about where I keep it, so as not to put my back out picking it up.

The second thing I noticed was that it had arrived with all the bolts loosened, so all of the joints (except one, I'll come to that one in a moment) moved with gay abandon and I nearly dropped the whole thing.

The third thing I noticed was that the instruction to "replace the altitude bolts" is a loose use of the word "replace" as the mount did not arrive with the original alt bolts in place. I presume they are the bolts with the 'floppy ears', which came in a separate bag. OK, new bolts screwed in loosely.

The fourth thing I noticed was that I needed to loosen the azimuth adjustment knobs quite a lot to make sufficient room for the peg on the top of the tripod to slide right into the mount head.

So far, so good.

Remember I said there was one joint that did not move when I picked up the mount head? Well, that was the one that sets your latitude. All well and good, you may think, don't want that one flopping around. But it is set at about 32 degrees, which is significantly off for me. Ok, make sure latitude bolts are not locked in tightly and try to ... uughh! ... try to ... uuuugggghhhh! ...

That joint is locked solid.

Get past my initial, knee-jerk reaction of "they've sent me a faulty mount", take a step back and think.

I suppose it could be that it is designed so that it doesn't respond to brute force (of which I have little) and ignorance (which I possess in abundance), and will only move by using the bolts, BUT I read on another thread that the original bolts are designed to be bendy so that they bend before you do any damage to anything inside, which implies that there is something inside to which I could do damage by forcing the new bolts that won't bend. This gives me pause before I start trying that.

So here (at last) is my question:

Are other users of the EQ6 able to adjust the latitude joint by manually grabbing hold of the mount and applying torque?

If others can do this, that would imply a problem with my mount and I can pursue the issue with FLO. (Before twenty mods start jumping up and down at that comment, I am not implying any fault on FLO's part if this is the case, it's just that they are the people from whom I bought it and so, under privity-of-contract, they are the people with whom I would need to raise any issues of this kind).

If others can only adjust the latitude by using the bolts, then, knowing that is the way things are supposed to work, I will proceed to try that.

Thanks to everyone for your continued assistance.

[sloz1664]

Hi DP,

The altitude bolts I'll describe as Top & Bottom bolts both lock on a "tag" of metal to fix the altitude or inclination.

The idea is to loosen one and tighten the other to move the mount head. With your mount needing to increase in inclination to 51 degrees I would

remove the Top bolt and adjust the bottom bolt until you are at your required setting. Replace your Top bolt and just hand tighten to lock in position.

You are now ready to polar align. There may be some resistance when adjusting the Bottom bolt, you wouldn't want it loose or your polar alignment would

suffer. Hope this helps.

Steve

[r3i]

Hi DP,

The latitude pivot can be very stiff - there are 3 grub screws under the name plates which apply pressure to a plate inside. Here's a thread which discusses a mod to enable you to adjust them and make the latitude adjustment a lot easier: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/164290-neq6-tight-latitude-adjustment/page__hl__+m5#entry1687651 However this mod can potentially trash the plastic name plates so you may not want to be doing that on your shiny new mount

You should be able to get some adjustment with the latitude bolts but you need to ensure that the opposite one is sufficiently loosened off. Also it sometimes helps to push on the counterweight shaft in the appropriate direction whilst making the adjustments as it gives a fair bit of leverage.

[Demonperformer]

Thank you both for your comments and help.

Mike, I have to say that, being as kak-handed as I am, I am not going to be doing any mods if I can possibly avoid it. However, reading the link gave me some additional thoughts around the problem.

I removed the 'top' bolt, and tried the old 'apply pressure - release - apply pressure -release' approach, and after some initial resistance it started to move with reasonable ease.

I had already worked out that removing the cover from the polarscope would make life easier, but I did have a 'moment' when the lever of the 'bottom' bolt hit the polarscope itself. Then I discovered a neat little trick, of which everyone else is probably already aware, but in case there is anyone who fancies challenging me for the title 'Mechanically inept bod of the year', I will mention it anyway. If you press on the red button at the end of the bolt, you can turn the 'lever' bit of the bolt back, without turning the bolt itself back, rather like a ratchet screwdriver. As I say, probably obvious to everyone else. Alt now set to about 51 and I tried going the other way a bit just to check and that worked, so I think it was just a bit of 'factory stiffness'. Hopefully when I get out under Polaris, I won't have too much difficulty using the bolts to achieve PA.

Next job is finding a screwdriver with a small enough head to be able to adjust the screws on the reticle to get that aligned.

My target was to be using this mount "in anger" by September, but I am now beginning to wonder if that was a little optimistic ... !

[Demonperformer]

Things are now moving on apace.

With the promise of some clear skies tonight, I decided it was time to give the software a 'dry run' inside in the light.

I followed Daddystu's advice on #2 and everything went swimmingly.

Followed the EQMOD instruction sheet for setting up that and it found the mount (on COM9) and the motors made a pleasing humming noise.

I configured CdC (as per that website's instructions) and all seemed to be well.

However, at this point, when I tried slewing to an object on cdc, the mount didn't want to know. Went to the CdC helpfiles and discovered that I needed to 'sync' an object before I could slew, so, I selected Polaris on CdC (as good a point as any) and then clicked on xi Dra (not too far and not too close) and pressed 'slew' again. "Nothing" persisted in putting in its appearance as a response. Finally, in desparation, I started clicking on CdC buttons almost at random and hit upon the Control Panel button. At this point the problem became apparent. The red square at the bottom indicated that CdC was not connected to the mount! "Connect" button pressed and tried the previous procedure again.

Sync now produced a nice white box around Polaris. And slew produced a pleasing (slightly noisier than expected) activation of the motors and the mount moved - and I have no reason to doubt that it moved to roughly the right place. After which, the 'park' button on the EQMOD screen returned the mount to its original position.

All-in-all, very pleased I tried it out inside first, and a promising start for tonight.

Now for the REALLY BIG problem: Is the first time I use a mount (with a pre-used telescope) called 'first light' or do I have to call it something else?

Problems, problems!!

[Psychobilly]

I'm picking up a secondhand EQ-6 next weekend ... swapped a HEQ-5 Syntrek after SGL8 thinking I would never need it.. but times have changed... This obez had thr alt mechanism modified by a man who can...

I Wonder if they would notice another pier outside the obs...

I dobt want to do away with the combined Pier abd Wedge for the CPC800 in the obs as it is useful for imaging through the meridian..

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