Lakeside Focuser Calibration

[kirkster501]

Hey all,

Connected up my bracket all good.  Time to calibrate it.  I start the calibration routine from the box.  I selecting moving in and is starts counting down from 65536.  I am losing the will to live holding this IN button down.  After 10 mins holding it I am down to 59000 so many more thousands to go.  Am I missing something?  I am following the instructions in the manual.

I had a play last night and by pressing this, that and the other know the focuser is good.

[swag72]

In the Lakeside utilities you can set the 'step size' I think it is.... or something similar.... I have mine set to 5 so that it positively shoots along

[kirkster501]

I have given up with it before I smash it with an hammer.  Extremely frustrating.  I need to come back with fresh eyes.

The Normal and reverse seem to make no difference when I press IN it moves out and vice versa.  And the util keeps crashing casing exception errors.

[kirkster501]

Right, had a cup of tea and a chip buttie, a few deep breathes and gone back to it.  I sussed it. I could feel the motor was turning but the focuser was not moving any more.  The adapter grub screw connecting the shaft of the motor to the focuser spindle had loosened so the motor was just spinning and not driving the focuser.

Reinstalled the v2 driver and stable now.

I'm making progress.....

[Uplooker]

Yes, as Sara says, increase the step size. I would increase it by more than 5. Try 10 or 20.

Also, before you start,measure with a ruler how far out the Focuser will go. This will allow you to stop with the Lakeside before you end up going too far and causing damage to the Focuser and auto Focuser. You maybe lucky and have graduations already on the draw tube, which negates this.

[kirkster501]

9 minutes ago, Uplooker said:

Yes, as Sara says, increase the step size. I would increase it by more than 5. Try 10 or 20.

Also, before you start,measure with a ruler how far out the Focuser will go. This will allow you to stop with the Lakeside before you end up going too far and causing damage to the Focuser and auto Focuser. You maybe lucky and have graduations already on the draw tube, which negates this.

I think that is what I did... I went too far and the focuser was at its "end".  I kept the button pressed a bit too long so that the motor kept trying to turn the spindle and so loosened the grub screw holding it to the spindle.  So after that of course the motor was spinning against nothing and hence nothing I did seemed to work.

I have two steps of backlash when changing direction as well I have worked out from the utility.