HEQ5 Pro Mount altitude is very stiff

[Wpit]

Hi I have just bought a second hand HEQ5 pro mount and I'm happy with my first outing. Just pointing the scope with the hand controller to view and track.

However now moving on to Polar Alignment for acurate tracking i have found that the Altitude was very stiff and needs a lot of effort to move. So having seen other posts were the bolts or mount are damaged I have now removed both bolts and trying to free up the mounts by regularly moving this up and down across the full travel. I have noticed that this needs a lot of effort to get started but when moving it seems to be not too bad to keep moving. If i stop for any reason it then needs the same surge of effort to get it moving again. So I still think the bolts or mount would be damaged if I used those for the adjustment. Its not that old 1-2 years and the previous owner said he had not bothered with using the polar scope much.

So my question here is should I persevere in trying to free up movement using brute force or should I take the side plates off to slacken the main bolt. The main reason I have not gone for this option is the feedback that this may damage the plastic side covers.

Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[SteveA]

I can only talk from my experience with an EQ6-Pro, so don't take this as gospel. But i have to say I think this movement is designed to be relatively stiff and is designed to be adjusted using the altitude bolts rather than by hand. Once you have the altitude set to roughly correspond with your latitude it should only take a small amount of adjustment either way to get it right and you are going to use the adjustment bolts for that. With your scope and counterweights on the mount you wont be wanting to adjust it any other way.

Steve

 

[Alien_Photons]

Its binding so sounds like it needs a bit of greese. If your willing there are plenty of instructions on the net. As any mount gets used, ages etc they need a little looking after. 

[spillage]

I can only comment on the neq6 so not sure if your mount is the same. If you remove the plastic cover on the side (not sure which side)..trying not to break them and you should find a metal shim with three grub screws that are used to increase/decrease resistance in the mount movement.

There are tons of people here using the heq5 so they will step in and put me right if I am wrong.

[Wpit]

Having moved it with brute force to get it moving and set roughly to the 51 degrees nomial altitude. I found that the small movements were working fine with the Alt bolts, it does feel like a weak spot on the mount though and needs careful treatment.

Now I found that the polar reticule needs some alignment as it was not directly centre as i spun the mount round. I think the previous owner just kept away from this setup. So I will now need to pour over the once off alignmentment instructions.

This feels great as i'm getting all the pleaseure/pAIN of setting up a new mount for the price of a second hand setup:-)

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[SteveA]

This is a great guide to aligning the reticule...

 

[Wpit]

thanks for that, great ideas and since i don't have any thumbwheels I'll dig out two allen keys so that I can release and tighten at the same time.

[Wpit]

It seems that when the bolt is extended too far into the mount the bolt will struggle to push the altitude. If it closer to the bolt hole the no trouble. So one adjustment will always be easier. In my case at 51 degrees the easy adjustment is the top bolt and the one by the polar scope is a struggle. So I have ordered to stronger bolts but I think I only have to worry about the bottom bolt. Should come this week. I' still wary of this as I think this will still but stress on the bolt hole metal as that will be new weak point as it needs more pressure to move. I saw a mod on one forum that inserted a wedge onto the internal metal tab. That looks like an elegant solution but it means taking the mount to bits to insert the wedge.

has anyone manages to insert a stregthing spacer wedge through the gap above the bolt?

[Wpit]

On 14/06/2017 at 13:48, Alien_Photons said:

Its binding so sounds like it needs a bit of greese. If your willing there are plenty of instructions on the net. As any mount gets used, ages etc they need a little looking after. 

Well I finally got the courage to strip this down and it was  lacking grease and so tight, I'm not sure it needs to be as tight as it was so I'll leave the end caps off for a while. Like many people I found one end  cap (the one with the alt scale) popped off easily. The other was hard to get off and I can see how the get broken. However I managed in the end by using a couple of plastic guitar pick like tyre levers and managed with minimum damage. I do think this should be improved to make maintenance easier.