HEQ5 rowan belt mod

[Astroblagger]

Hello

Is this mod worth it? what are the benefits? my guiding seems ok when I image so is there any benefits??

[vlaiv]

For me it was well worth it. It considerably improved my peak PE, but more importantly made PE curve much smoother and removed nasty spikes when guiding.

Made guiding so much easier. Prior to doing the mod, sub 1" total RMS was really rare, and there were significant elongation of stars in RA direction. Post mod - I'm able to guide 0.5" - 0.7" range (I even managed to get 0.42" one night for couple of minutes - but I attribute this new improvement to additional mods - changed saddle plate and Barlebach planet tripod) and stars are almost always round (subject mostly to other influences like wind and cable snag).

In general it is an easy mod, but you should take care of tension of belts - I had problem with undertensioned belts - improper belt / gear meshing that gave me nasty +/- 2" 13.6s oscillation.

I also "hypertuned" mount by taking it apart, cleaning, replacing bearings with high quality ones.

[wxsatuser]

I would say it's worth it.
Did the same as vlaiv, all the bearings as well,  there were same duff original ones.
Took time to adjust backlash etc.

Can actually get very good unguided 5minute subs and guiding with the Lacerta MGEN is good
out to 900secs or more.

[Skipper Billy]

Plus it makes it SO much quieter!!

If you bite the bullet drop me a PM and I will send you the pinion extractor - it make the job easier and removes the possibility of bending the shafts. 

[edjrgibbs]

Just completed mine and itching to find out if its improved things or not. I found aligning the RA and Dec worm gears challenging but worked out that I had over tightened one float and massively under tightened the other. I fracture my finger and almost took it off as well but that's another story down to stupidity... All in all the mod was reasonably easy following the instructions. Give yourself a decent amount of time i.e. 4-6 hours of peace and quiet. 

[Turbocoo]

An old thread I know but was wondering if anyone has the 3mm extractor for sale as they are out of stock and I was wanting to do the mod. Thanks