AZ EQ6 users - feedback requested

[Ant-33]

Hi there,

I'm curious to hear from those of you who use a Skywatcher AZ EQ6 mount. What are the issues and problems with the mount? I'm particularly interested in either design problems you've stumbled upon or quality problems. Also anything that doesn't show up as a problem until you've had it for a while. For example, I've seen reports of stiff bearings for RA and Dec, and problems with overspray of the finish. What else? Especially anything that affects its usage.

Thanks in advance

Cheers, Tony

[jambouk]

It's a Skywatcher mount... so every mount is unique in terms of tolerances of the manufacturing process...

I love mine, once you get used to using it, it is a joy. Mine had a reasonable amount of backlash in it to start with, but a friend tightened this up for me. There is some play in the altitude adjustment, but once loaded with scope and stuff this isn't noticeable. The saddle is fine, but there are reports of it dropping off so tighten the three grub screw which hold it on. The lever to tighten or release the RA clutch must be screwed in all the way, else it will snap off; mine snapped but FLO replaced it the next day, and there are reports of other people snapping them too, but if you make a point of screwing it in to the hilt you'll be fine. The RA clutch does seem to "bed in" so over time you will likely need to move the clutch lever along by a hole or two, but this is simply a case of unscrewing it and screwing it into the next hole along - no biggie.

Mine tracks really well now. I've never really played much with periodic error, but there is some, but I don't have a permanent set up so don't bother with PEC.

I use a pillar extension on mine so the mount head sits 12" or so above the tripod as I was finding the camera was knocking the tripod leg when I was using my ED80. The pillar extension isn't as solid as the mount head sitting directly on the tripod, but again I'm not doing any fancy imaging so this isn't a problem for me.

There was an issue with the encoders for some people, me included, when using the handset to set up. This was first highlighted in the S@N review two years or so ago. Once the mount had been polar aligned, it was necessary to turn the mount off and on again, else the subsequent star alignment was poor. I'm not sure if firmware v3.37 has fixed this or not, but I am still in the habit of turning the mount off and on again once I've polar aligned, so this isn't an issue for me.

In all, I think it is a great mount. I've never used it in alt-az mode, though this is why I bought this mount as I'd never used an equatorial mount and I was scared I was too thick to get my head around an equatorial mount and at least I could revert to alt-az, but I took to it like a duck to water, or whatever the saying is. I did get a third counter weight so I could easily balance the C11 on it.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

James

 

[johnrt]

My first one had to be replaced by FLO (who I must add sorted it in double quick time with no fuss) due to a random jump in the RA axis while tracking. It would sometimes track quite happily for up to 45 mins, then suddenly the RA would spike up and down. I didn't attepmt to find the cause or a solution as it was new, so FLO simply replaced.

My replacement has been without issue and has performed as expected.

[Ant-33]

18 minutes ago, jambouk said:

It's a Skywatcher mount... so every mount is unique in terms of tolerances of the manufacturing process...

I love mine, once you get used to using it, it is a joy. Mine had a reasonable amount of backlash in it to start with, but a friend tightened this up for me. There is some play in the altitude adjustment, but once loaded with scope and stuff this isn't noticeable. The saddle is fine, but there are reports of it dropping off so tighten the three grub screw which hold it on. The lever to tighten or release the RA clutch must be screwed in all the way, else it will snap off; mine snapped but FLO replaced it the next day, and there are reports of other people snapping them too, but if you make a point of screwing it in to the hilt you'll be fine. The RA clutch does seem to "bed in" so over time you will likely need to move the clutch lever along by a hole or two, but this is simply a case of unscrewing it and screwing it into the next hole along - no biggie.

Mine tracks really well now. I've never really played much with periodic error, but there is some, but I don't have a permanent set up so don't bother with PEC.

I use a pillar extension on mine so the mount head sits 12" or so above the tripod as I was finding the camera was knocking the tripod leg when I was using my ED80. The pillar extension isn't as solid as the mount head sitting directly on the tripod, but again I'm not doing any fancy imaging so this isn't a problem for me.

There was an issue with the encoders for some people, me included, when using the handset to set up. This was first highlighted in the S@N review two years or so ago. Once the mount had been polar aligned, it was necessary to turn the mount off and on again, else the subsequent star alignment was poor. I'm not sure if firmware v3.37 has fixed this or not, but I am still in the habit of turning the mount off and on again once I've polar aligned, so this isn't an issue for me.

In all, I think it is a great mount. I've never used it in alt-az mode, though this is why I bought this mount as I'd never used an equatorial mount and I was scared I was too thick to get my head around an equatorial mount and at least I could revert to alt-az, but I took to it like a duck to water, or whatever the saying is. I did get a third counter weight so I could easily balance the C11 on it.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

James

 

James, thank you for your detailed reply - much appreciated. I'd heard about the issue of having to turn off the mount after polar alignment, and although it's a bit hokey if it's necessary, I don't think it really affects the usefulness or performance of the mount. I'm glad to hear you're having good experiences with it.

Cheers, Tony

[Ant-33]

23 minutes ago, johnrt said:

My first one had to be replaced by FLO (who I must add sorted it in double quick time with no fuss) due to a random jump in the RA axis while tracking. It would sometimes track quite happily for up to 45 mins, then suddenly the RA would spike up and down. I didn't attepmt to find the cause or a solution as it was new, so FLO simply replaced.

My replacement has been without issue and has performed as expected.

Hi Johnrt,

Thanks for your reply. I think you're just down the road from me - I live in Maidstone. It's great to hear that your experience is so positive. I'm interested in the problem with the jump in RA tracking, though. How big (easy to notice) was the jump? I guess if you were taking an exposure at the time it would show up pretty badly, but would you have noticed it if you weren't imaging?

Cheers, Tony

[russp]

Isn't it kinda obvious that if the mount can track where it is when you move it with the clutches disengaged that it needs zeroing after the PA is done - I'd always assumed so and that simply hitting the on off switch wasn't even a glitch. The ability for it to keep it's alignment when slewing with the clutches undone is a great feature IMO - then again it's the only mount I've ever used so don't have much to compare it to ! having said that been very happy with mine - been an uncomplicated learning experience and has always tracked great unguided and guided.

 

[Ant-33]

4 minutes ago, russp said:

Isn't it kinda obvious that if the mount can track where it is when you move it with the clutches disengaged that it needs zeroing after the PA is done - I'd always assumed so and that simply hitting the on off switch wasn't even a glitch. The ability for it to keep it's alignment when slewing with the clutches undone is a great feature IMO - then again it's the only mount I've ever used so don't have much to compare it to ! having said that been very happy with mine - been an uncomplicated learning experience and has always tracked great unguided and guided.

 

Ha!  You're probably right - having never used this model of mount I'm not familiar with the procedure, but what you say makes sense. I agree that the ability to keep alignment when it's slewing with the clutches loose is an excellent feature. Glad to hear you're having good experiences with the mount - many thanks for the reply.

Cheers, Tony

[johnrt]

15 minutes ago, Ant-33 said:

Hi Johnrt,

Thanks for your reply. I think you're just down the road from me - I live in Maidstone. It's great to hear that your experience is so positive. I'm interested in the problem with the jump in RA tracking, though. How big (easy to notice) was the jump? I guess if you were taking an exposure at the time it would show up pretty badly, but would you have noticed it if you weren't imaging?

Cheers, Tony

Yes Maidstone is just down the road! I can't really say what effects it would have had on visual, I'm an imager only, but lets just say it ruined every sub it happened on. I was not happy! But that's why we buy from FLO, it was fixed in no time with a brand new mount, no question.

[Ant-33]

Yes, Johnrt, FLO have excellent customer care. Thanks for posting the image. It gives me a good idea of the magnitude of the problem.

Cheers, Tony

[jambouk]

1 hour ago, russp said:

Isn't it kinda obvious that if the mount can track where it is when you move it with the clutches disengaged that it needs zeroing after the PA is done - I'd always assumed so and that simply hitting the on off switch wasn't even a glitch. The ability for it to keep it's alignment when slewing with the clutches undone is a great feature IMO - then again it's the only mount I've ever used so don't have much to compare it to ! having said that been very happy with mine - been an uncomplicated learning experience and has always tracked great unguided and guided.

 

I came to the AZEQ6 having never worked with an equatorial mount before, and had very little understanding about polar alignment. There was nothing in the manual about turning it on and off again, and to be honest I have the encoders turned off most of the time and I still switch it on/off after polar aligning now as it is such a simple thing to do, but the potential consequences of not doing it as painful. I'm not sure of what the error is, or why it occurs, as even if doing a three star alignment and confirming to the mount where the three stars were, if the mount hadn't been rebooted the subsequent GOTO accuracy was shockingly poor. It's like many things, it would be fun and interesting to work through it, but as there is an easy fix and the number of clear nights is so few (combined with my desire to set up on those nights) that I never really have experimented with it.

James

 

[jambouk]

"We came across a minor quirk when polar aligning the mount. If you power it up and then rotate the dec. axis so that you can view and align Polaris through the polarscope, you also activate the dual encoders. On successive attempts we found the scope always pointed 90° away from the first alignment star. We found that it was better to do the polar alignment, turn the power off and line up the scope north, then power back up again. After doing this we could align every time."

 

From part one of the review:

http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/review/mounts/sky-watcher-az-eq6-gt-mount

 

Part two:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/blog/skywatcher-az-eq6-gt-review-part-2.html

 

Part three:

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/blog/skywatcher-az-eq6-gt-review-part-3.html

 

James

 

[Leveye]

I'm taking delivery of the Orion version of this mount today (had to go to the dark side!) and will chime in with my initial impressions after set up and first light tonight. I can say after fiddling with the tripod that the knobs to tighten down the mount to the tripod are a bit small. My small iOptron Zmount has larger ones. Just feels weird. I bought an 8" extension pier that came in a bit damaged but a small file job will be an easy fix. The quality of materials looks great so far. The bearing system on the pier looks quality. By chance can anyone tell me which backup battery the V4 synscan hand controller uses? I want to replace it right away with a descent and fresh one.

[jambouk]

The manual doesn't mention that it contains a battery:

http://www.skywatcher.com/downloads/Synscan%20V4%20Hand%20Control%20Manual_v4_36_01.pdf

James

 

[Owmuchonomy]

I had a very similar experience to johnrt in that I had a spike in RA exactly on the 8 minute worm cycle.  It was blindingly obvious but via FLO I still had to prove it to Synta by running the Synta test protocol. FLO very kindly replaced the mount immediately.  Regarding poor GoTo alignment I have never encountered this problem and it quite clearly states in the manual to disable the encoders for improved alignment accuracy.  That's exactly what I do. You can then turn them on if you need to manually move the mount later. On the FLO website there are three excellent reviews by Steve Richards in which he picks up on the poor quality of the dovetail fastening. I use plastic yoghurt pot shims to remove the free play. It dramatically reduces the cone error.

[Leveye]

1 hour ago, jambouk said:

The manual doesn't mention that it contains a battery:

http://www.skywatcher.com/downloads/Synscan%20V4%20Hand%20Control%20Manual_v4_36_01.pdf

James

 

Most manuals don't  mention this but I would think it must have one to retain info after the power is shut off. My iOptron HC has one and it is not mentioned in the user manual either. This is the first thing I check/replace before using a new/neused mount.

[Ant-33]

2 hours ago, Leveye said:

I'm taking delivery of the Orion version of this mount today (had to go to the dark side!) and will chime in with my initial impressions after set up and first light tonight. I can say after fiddling with the tripod that the knobs to tighten down the mount to the tripod are a bit small. My small iOptron Zmount has larger ones. Just feels weird. I bought an 8" extension pier that came in a bit damaged but a small file job will be an easy fix. The quality of materials looks great so far. The bearing system on the pier looks quality. By chance can anyone tell me which backup battery the V4 synscan hand controller uses? I want to replace it right away with a descent and fresh one.

It may not have a battery, I'm not sure. It could store the settings in non-volatile memory while it's powered up. It doesn't keep time when it's not powered, so I suspect there's no battery.

Cheers, Tony

[Leveye]

In my many years of retail musical electronics sales and service and doing small in house repairs for customers I have seen a backup battery in just about everything that has memory and user presets. Most units are easily replaceable but some are hardwired in with a lithium and need to be unsoldered to replace. I'll have a report later today for everyone if it has a battery or not.

[Ant-33]

14 minutes ago, Leveye said:

In my many years of retail musical electronics sales and service and doing small in house repairs for customers I have seen a backup battery in just about everything that has memory and user presets. Most units are easily replaceable but some are hardwired in with a lithium and need to be unsoldered to replace. I'll have a report later today for everyone if it has a battery or not.

Great - I'll be interested in the verdict 

[jambouk]

There is no removable battery in the v3 Skywatcher handset.

The comment in the manual about the encoders and GOTO accuracy is "...Users may turn off the auxiliary encoder to obtain the best pointing accuracy..." I recall reading somewhere else that if the encoders were engaged GOTO accuracy was a few arcminutes worse than if they were turned off, irrespective of whether a reset had been undertaken between polar alignment and star alignment. GOTO accuracy in my experience was many degrees off if there was no reset between polar alignment and star alignment, which others have reported and which was highlighted in the review above.

Do let us know how you get on.

James

 

[Leveye]

It's due to arrive any minute now. I believe this one will have the V4 version that does not have a power adapter input correct? Again seeing as how it retains your location co-ordinates,timezone and daylight saving settings after power down I would imagine it does. We shall see.

[tich]

I've just brought one of these second hand so will be watching this thread with interest, I haven't managed to get out much with it though although I did have it Solar tracking nicely at a Stargazing live event a few weeks back & that was in EQ mode with a very rough polar alignment so was quite pleased about that. I did try it in AZ mode with a 250P & C6 indoors over the weekend just to try it out really. Seemed to slew etc fine although need to test it out outdoors sooner rather than later if possible. The set up via the handset in AZ mode seemed quite self explanatory plus its nice to have the eyepiece on the Newtonian at a decent angle rather than having my neck & head all over the place.

I did adjust the play out of both axis which didn't take to long & apart from the I'm quite happy with the build quality of the mount., it came with a HitecAstro lead & it connected to the laptop via EQMOD straight away so very happy about that.

So what I gather with the alignment routine I'd switch on the mount set date time etc then do a polar alignment, (I'm guessing I'd do a similar routine via EQMOD too) Then switch off put the scope in the park position switch back on enter date & time again then do a star align then should be good to go?

[jambouk]

Tich, yes, that is what I do but I only ever set up using the handset so have no idea about eqmod or how the glitch interfers with that if at all.

James

 

[tich]

Thanks James.

 

[Leveye]

Ok the mount has arrived. I can now confirm that there is no battery inside the HC. A welcome surprise to me and one less thing to worry about. Excellent. Everything came packed very well and the look and feel of everything is top notch so far. The black is really cool looking. Stealthy. Time to read up before initial power up. More initial impressions to come. 

[Leveye]

Can others chime in and tell me if on their mount the RA and DEC make a small motor/rub sound at the start and the end of it's slew? While it's in mid slew it's whisper quiet. Just a small short noise at the beginning and end of the movement. Here's a small video clip of the sound it's making...

dec motor sound atlas azeqg mount.mp4