EQ5 doing the splits?

[rwilkey]

Hi, I have an EQ5 mount for my 200P and it is pretty solid and has never done the splits.

But I was at a friend's house over the weekend to help him with his new 200P on an EQ5 mount and whilst he was getting it ready to put away it did what he called a 'Bambi'.  Now I have never seen this happen before and it certainly has never happened with mine.  He was putting it away fully mounted, as I do myself.

Now the only difference between the two mounts is that mine is about four years old and bought from FLO, and his is new and has just been bought through OVL via Amazon.  Now he already had the scope constructed when I arrived, with the exception that the accessory tray was not fitted so we fitted this.

Now I am wondering if we could have done anything different when putting them up as I didn't think the EQ5 was capable of doing the splits.

Does anyone know how or why this happens, or is there something he may not have done correctly when constructing the tripod?

Any clues as to what's going wrong would be most appreciated!

[Dr_Ju_ju]

is the accessory tray in place ?  As that would stop the legs 'opening'...

[John]

Its a flat section in the design of the cast piece at the top of the tripod leg that stops the leg from spreading more than a certain amount. You could put the leg on the wrong way around, ie: with the screw holding the lower section pointing outwards rather than inwards (the latter is correct) and then the leg may well have no limit on the angle it "spreads" to. I've just had a look at the legs on my EQ5 tripod and I think this could happen.

[rwilkey]

Thanks John, I will take a closer look at my friend's EQ5 construction and compare it to mine, I thought there must be something wrong/different.  Thanks also to Dr_ju_ju, the accessory tray was put in place and has no retaining mechanism.

[ronin]

As a spreader usually pushes the legs out then there has to be something up at the top end that prevents them opening out too much. If they can just open then the spreader would never manage to lock it all.

Sounds like part of the tripod construction/assembly is a little wrong.

[rwilkey]

Hi John, yes, my bolts are turned inwards so correct, I will now email my firend and check with him.  Just thinking about mine, it was built by FLO as I bought a show item at the SW Astronomy Fair, mostly already constructed.

[rwilkey]

Thanks Ronin, just waiting for a reply to my email to the friend.  Yes, the accessory tray helps lock the legs in place and acts as a spreader.   I do admire his bravery though, he just bought this telescope without any knowledge of them, didn't know whether it was a refractor or a reflector and so on.  He is so keen to do astronomy, he has just thrown himself in at the deep end.

[John]

It's not necessarily intuative that the bolts would face inwards because on other tripod types, ie: EQ6 and the aluminum tripods, they face outwards. In fact I think the EQ5/HEQ5 steel tube tripod is the only one I can think of that does have inward facing bolts.