Problems with SkyWatcher AZ goto

[nicks90]

my lovely wife got me a skywatcher AZ goto mount for my birthday for taking away in the caravan with my small frac - as my 12" dob wont fit in the van for transporting with us!

however i;ve not really had a chance to play with it until last night and I am completely flummoxed! 

Can someone give me some advice, as at the moment I am following the instructions for 2 start align and do the first star (deneb). I then select the second star (Mirfak) and the mount just goes round and round and round in the vertical!!!!!!

I dont know if i am doing something stupid, so if I put down the details I;m entering below - can someone sense check them and let me know if its my fault or a problem with the mount?

turn the mount on with it pointing north and scope horizontal. Mount is perfectly level.

enter my coordinates - Ossett in West Yorkshire 001.34W 53.40N

time zone as +00:00

date as 10/22/2015

current time 21:00 (when i started messing!)

Daylight savings - Yes

begin alignment - yes

1st star Deneb - swing the scope to it and centre it. press enter and it then asks for 2nd star

Pick Mirfak and then its just goes crazy. swings through 360deg or more in the horizontal and the vertical it just goes round and round and round until i press escape and exit alignment,

am i doing something stupid or do i need to take the mount back?

Any help would be massively appreciated!

Nick

[Tinker1947]

How are you supplying power to the mount, it does need a stable supply and if it gets close to 11 volts when slewing it will loses its marbles and throw a wobbly, i run my GoTo 12" from a Tracer 14Ah, i get around 16 hours although its recharges after every session....

[bomberbaz]

Looks ok to me from memory. As Tinker says are you using a power pack or disposables. If the latter make sure they are brand new although will only last a few hours.

Steve

[bomberbaz]

You could trydifferent stars, capella and vega for instance.

[nicks90]

i was using AA batteries last night - brand new duracell (non rechargeable) straight out of the packet and this behaviour started immediately.

I might pull the 12v socket and cables from my SW tracking dob and use my 75Ah leisure battery for a quick test and see what happens in a few minutes. I'll point the scope very roughly using SkEye app and see if the things spins like a lunatic again.

[baggywrinkle]

+3 for checking batteries....from experience with both Celstron and Skywathcer systems the batteries charge is critical and if it is cold battery performance gets poorer.

[jambouk]

Try and balance the scope as much as possible.

Also test how much play there is in the altitude axis; can you move it much by hand? If you can move it at all, yoh need to tighten the nut which sits in the mount arm, under where the dovetail would sit. It needs to be nipped up tight, but not excessively so else the moynt won't be able to move at all.

James

[nicks90]

Tried it this afternoon using the SW 240v plug and there is absolutely no difference.

Couldnt be bothered to put a scope on with it being daylight and no stars about - so just taped a plastic stick on to the dovetail and used that as a sight line to line up the mount with SkEye on my phone when doing an 'alignment' in daylight.

Again, lined up with the first star and pressed enter and then chose a second star - round and round it went.

I think its broken. Even if my coordinates were totally off and i had put in i was in Australia, or said I was at +8 GMT, it should have still pointed to the second star.

[astrotyke]

Tried it this afternoon using the SW 240v plug and there is absolutely no difference.

Couldnt be bothered to put a scope on with it being daylight and no stars about - so just taped a plastic stick on to the dovetail and used that as a sight line to line up the mount with SkEye on my phone when doing an 'alignment' in daylight.

Again, lined up with the first star and pressed enter and then chose a second star - round and round it went.

I think its broken. Even if my coordinates were totally off and i had put in i was in Australia, or said I was at +8 GMT, it should have still pointed to the second star.

It's not the time zone setting is it Nick, arnt we technically still on plus 1 hour?

Sent from my SM-G901F using Tapatalk

[bomberbaz]

Tried it this afternoon using the SW 240v plug and there is absolutely no difference.

Couldnt be bothered to put a scope on with it being daylight and no stars about - so just taped a plastic stick on to the dovetail and used that as a sight line to line up the mount with SkEye on my phone when doing an 'alignment' in daylight.

Again, lined up with the first star and pressed enter and then chose a second star - round and round it went.

I think its broken. Even if my coordinates were totally off and i had put in i was in Australia, or said I was at +8 GMT, it should have still pointed to the second star.

I would tend to agree that given what you have said to have done that something is not right. If it is new it is under warranty so send it back.

Steve

[mapstar]

Nick

Will the mount do the brightest star alignment check?

[AdeKing]

I've experienced this when battery voltage starts to drop on a Virtuoso mount with the Synscan handset attached.

I've also had it do the same when the battery is fine, but in these instances I've found the brightest star alignment to work fine, which is a bit weird, so now I always use brightest star alignment.

I have just got an AZ Goto mount, but not had chance to try it out due to the blanket of cloud that's been covering Dorset or the last week or so.

[bomberbaz]

In all fairness even if it would align in single star mode thats not the point, 2 star align should work also.

However it might be worth just trying a brightest star one first and then try re-aligning with 2 star to see if its some kind of calibration issue. 

Other than that I would still think about invoking the warranty

Steve