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AVX alternative

Shelster1973

By Shelster1973
in Discussions - Mounts

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Shelster1973

Shelster1973

Posted
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Sad day.....it looks like my trusty AVX has gone to the great mount in the sky home. Was being a pig the other night and ra tracking was very intermittent. Now have it in bits and am giving it a good service in the hope of resurrection, but that is being problematic as the nut that holds the ra axis in has seized

What would people recommend as an alternative? My equipment is in my signature and it will be pier mounted. Budget of up to a grand

Cheers

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Chris

Chris

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The on par alternative is the HEQ5 pro, but if it's going to be pier mounted and you have upto a grand to spend I would look at either a new NEQ6 or second hand EQ-AZ6.

There are some new mounts by Celestron coming out very soon, but they might be stretching the old budget:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-mounts/celestron-cgem-ii-equatorial-mount-tripod.html

Ioptron have some nice innovative mounts but they tend to have a bad price to payload ratio from all I've read.

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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2 hours ago, Shelster1973 said:

Sad day.....it looks like my trusty AVX has gone to the great mount in the sky home. Was being a pig the other night and ra tracking was very intermittent. Now have it in bits and am giving it a good service in the hope of resurrection, but that is being problematic as the nut that holds the ra axis in has seized

What would people recommend as an alternative? My equipment is in my signature and it will be pier mounted. Budget of up to a grand

Cheers

Hi

There are grub screws that hold that nut in place. You'll never get it out without undoing the grubs! That caught me out too - see my old thread 

Louise

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Shelster1973

Shelster1973

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Well.....some progress has been made over the last few days, but not to a fully restored and functioning mount.

Having removed all three grub screws (:icon_biggrin:) the end 'nut' still would not come undone.  Have been able to fully rotate the bearing inside that has the teeth cut on for the worm gear, so know this is not seized.  Worm gear also fully turns too.

After 1st re-assemble, the motor was very laboured so stripped it back down again and when re-assembling only tightened up the allen bolts holding down the worm gear casing fractionally.  This made for easier movement.

Motor does not sound laboured, but now have a very weird issue.

I am guessing (and kind of recall from my past use) the RA should be able to rotate under power for a full 360 and beyond?  I can only get about approx 270 degree rotation.  Have shot a very interesting video and put it on YouTube that shows the situation (millions of hits coming my way on this one)

 

 

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Shelster1973

Shelster1973

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Smally update....

Have managed to rotate the RA past where it stops in the video under hand power (now have very sore fingers after moving cogs), so know that the axis is free.

My spidey senses are tingling in saying that this may be a physical cut out to stop the mount wrecking itself and also fouling on any supports.  My thinking is that when at the home position, the mount knows how far round it can go by counting the pulses from the opto sensor that can be seen in the video.  After x amount of pulses, RA is too far so cuts out.

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Shelster1973

Shelster1973

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Managed to get the axis out now......just needed some gentle persuasion.

Found the bearing that I mentioned.  This sits under the rear retaining collar/nut.

There is also a second bearing that sits at the front, under the worm collar too.  Both of these are free from debris and rotate well, but will be taking the opportunity to replace the rear thrust bearing while I have it apart.

Some pics of the fully dismantled axis below

 

AVX RA Full.jpg

AVX RA Front End.jpg

AVX RA Rear End.jpg

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Droogie 2001

Droogie 2001

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A little alarming to see the AVX in so many bits :shocked:. I don't think I would have the skills to do this but as it's either that or a new mount I can see your efforts will be worth it if you succeed.

As for alternative mounts as others have said either an NEQ 6 Pro or an AZEQ6 is likely to be my next upgrade on the AVX.
For the moment I am having a bit of a resurgence on the AVX mount having had a chequered love / hate relationship with it from the start.
Currently achieving some acceptable guiding, well 10 mins exposures so far. Aiming for 15mins which makes Narrowband a more enticing prospect...

Good Luck with the maintenance.

 


 

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Shelster1973

Shelster1973

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As ever...RT*M

There is a section at pages 19 and 20 in the manual about RA limits.  Have never set these, but from reading it appears to limit the rotation.  When I have the mount rebuild after the bearing turns up, will check that these are set to off.  This then allows tracking to -20 degrees on east and west side of meridian.

Slowly getting there.....

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Once you have it rebuilt you can use an ampmeter in the power lead to see how much it's drawing and if it's the same all round the slewing.

When I blueprinted my iEQ45 it was drawing over 2 amps in places before and less than 1 amp afterwards, without any scope mounted.

Dave

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iapa

iapa

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One small request as this is amount rarely laid bare in public

Document each stage when reassembling - with photos for different angles.; so many people setup a camera thee hide the important bits with their hands or tools.

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iapa

iapa

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5 hours ago, Shelster1973 said:

Well.....some progress has been made over the last few days, but not to a fully restored and functioning mount.

Having removed all three grub screws (:icon_biggrin:) the end 'nut' still would not come undone.  Have been able to fully rotate the bearing inside that has the teeth cut on for the worm gear, so know this is not seized.  Worm gear also fully turns too.

After 1st re-assemble, the motor was very laboured so stripped it back down again and when re-assembling only tightened up the allen bolts holding down the worm gear casing fractionally.  This made for easier movement.

Motor does not sound laboured, but now have a very weird issue.

I am guessing (and kind of recall from my past use) the RA should be able to rotate under power for a full 360 and beyond?  I can only get about approx 270 degree rotation.  Have shot a very interesting video and put it on YouTube that shows the situation (millions of hits coming my way on this one)

 

 

ouch what happened to the clutch stop?

 

Screenshot 2017-01-10 18.44.28.png

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