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EQ6-R owners club


mikey2000

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55 minutes ago, discardedastro said:

then you want capacitors, not a boost-buck converter,

I think they use capacitors but im not sure if thats what you mean by playing safe.  The ones used on mine are rated 35 volts. i think these are capacitors but when rated these voltages they cant protect overvoltage I assume 

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14 hours ago, Robindonne said:

I think they use capacitors but im not sure if thats what you mean by playing safe.  The ones used on mine are rated 35 volts. i think these are capacitors but when rated these voltages they cant protect overvoltage I assume 

If you apply mains voltage across the input terminals of your mount then it is going to have a bad time. What conditions are you trying to protect against where you would see voltages beyond those typically provided by a 12V supply? If you are expecting to have wild, varying input voltages - that is what power supplies are for, they produce stable output voltages. Undervolting is the only thing you might be concerned about, but only if your supply is drastically under-rated for the demand you are putting on it.

If you are supplying your mount off of something weirder than a 12V power supply that may produce voltages much higher than 12V, then you will need external input conditioning electronics - a power supply - to produce a clean DC12V output.

In all other conditions, over-voltage protection is not required because it won't happen. The input voltage regulators will tolerate a bit of variance to accommodate the usual range of voltages that 12V systems actually run at.

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1 hour ago, discardedastro said:

What conditions are you trying to protect against where you would see voltages beyond those typically provided by a 12V supply?

Well at first i was only worried i might have  to low amps.  But thats not really damaging electronics right on, maybe after a while... dont know.  The main cause is reading about fried electronics.   A small percentage suffer from wrong polarity, but the main suffer from overvoltage.  Read it a lot.  BoardS are being fried more then scopes fall out their saddle.  And for that we all put some bolts to catch a gliding scope, even if it Basically never happens.  The main fear i have, the overvoltage, isnt really protected with a fuse for overconsumption of amps.  Tested one of my planning to use powerbricks and measured almost 19v for a small second at start up.   (Not a new one).  
 

so overvoltage is my main fear.  And if it costs 100s of euroS i might take the risk not being protected.  But these protection parts cost 1€ each.  
just dont know if there are other users protecting their stuff for this and with what different ways.  
 

Maybe a good advice to have the device power switch alwausy “off” when plugging in the powersupplies

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2 hours ago, Robindonne said:

Well at first i was only worried i might have  to low amps.  But thats not really damaging electronics right on, maybe after a while... dont know.  The main cause is reading about fried electronics.   A small percentage suffer from wrong polarity, but the main suffer from overvoltage.  Read it a lot.  BoardS are being fried more then scopes fall out their saddle.  And for that we all put some bolts to catch a gliding scope, even if it Basically never happens.  The main fear i have, the overvoltage, isnt really protected with a fuse for overconsumption of amps.  Tested one of my planning to use powerbricks and measured almost 19v for a small second at start up.   (Not a new one).  
 

so overvoltage is my main fear.  And if it costs 100s of euroS i might take the risk not being protected.  But these protection parts cost 1€ each.  
just dont know if there are other users protecting their stuff for this and with what different ways.  
 

Maybe a good advice to have the device power switch alwausy “off” when plugging in the powersupplies

"Too low amps" leads to undervoltages which can absolutely damage electronics, yes, and will in any case cause problems with your mount - your motor drive boards will not have the expected power/speed and without encoders the mount is unable to notice and correct for this.

Connectors need to be rated and specified for being unplugged and plugged in under load, and typical DC barrel jacks will be fine on that front typically but it is good practice not to do that, yes.

Damaged power supplies are a rare occurrence, usually caused by environmental effects. While it is sensible to protect against damage to power supplies, good power supplies already do this - protection circuits on the output will stop the PSU driving high/low voltages. Placing that protection external to the PSU is fine, but you now need to ensure that your protection circuits aren't going to fail. I've seen plenty of cheap buck-boost boards fail to the high end of the input voltage range, for instance. DC-DC supplies in general also tend to undervolt much more drastically if they go near their current limits and in some cases will just outright fail and cut the output. The quality of power you supply is limited by the cheapest component in the chain - if your "protection" board fails then it can cause more damage than your PSU failing. This is one of those cases where less is more. Some devices are safer to include - for instance, you could put a small fuse or circuit breaker in-line with your supply cable. This can only fail closed (though you need to think about what happens when one half of your supply is still connected - depending on your grounding conditions, this again can be worse than doing nothing at all).

You might see 19V at startup briefly, but that's fine - it's not going to "fry" a board. Try that again under load, incidentally, rather than with no load on the output - I guarantee you'll see a much more muted spike, if any at all. Transients are "normal".

The best thing you can do to protect your equipment is to use a good-quality power supply rated well above your target load and to ensure your connections are made and secure before you apply power. I use a standard 12V cigarette lighter cable for my mount, and a DC jack feeds the input to some spring-loaded terminal blocks that I use to provide power to everything else on my telescope (about 6 different consumers overall) with a pair of blocks secured near the focuser to keep the cable runs tidier. The PSU is the basic Nevada PSU from FLO which can do 6A continuously, 8A peak. I've never seen any power issues of any kind in several years of use of this set-up.

I really wouldn't worry about a good quality PSU rated well above the normal load failing. Failures are very rare. You do hear the occasional story from people who insist their PSU has enough capacity, but then it turns out they're drawing 4-5A continous out of a PSU rated for 3A continuous/5A peak, and other such silliness.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/power-accessories/nevada-ps-08-6a-8a-regulated-linear-power-supply.html

The other thing to note about PSUs like the Nevada is they are linear - this is opposed to switched-mode which is the form you'll find inside most "compact" PSUs. Switched mode power supplies have a much more complex internal topology and can fail in more interesting ways- the market is also fairly well flooded with them. Linear supplies are less efficient but much, much simpler. The Nevada one is also regulated - this means the output voltage is controlled and fixed at 13.8V. Obviously if you exceed the current limit this "guarantee" goes away, but only in a negative direction (i.e. you can end up with undervoltage conditions). They are therefore very safe, as the last "item" in the output chain is a regulator. Obviously if that fails you're in trouble - but this is the case for literally anything, including the regulator in the mount itself producing the 5V for the control electronics, and any regulators/components in your 1 EUR "protection" device. This is a classic case of fault engineering where adding protective equipment makes the likelihood of a failure worse and doesn't actually reduce the impact of a failure except in some (limited - if your input goes to 230V, is your protection part rated for that, or is it going to fail and let it through?) conditions.

My personal advice would be not to touch those cheap boards with a barge pole and make sure you use a good-quality PSU instead.

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A second hand entry here, I picked up a pre-owned EQ6-R on ebay yesterday, should be here in the next week. Only a few months old and its just had the £700 darkframe tune up. I had planned to buy one new anyway so I thought it was a good price for a tuned and fettled one.

Finally I can use my C11 for planetary again  🙂

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1 hour ago, billhinge said:

A second hand entry here, I picked up a pre-owned EQ6-R on ebay yesterday, should be here in the next week. Only a few months old and its just had the £700 darkframe tune up. I had planned to buy one new anyway so I thought it was a good price for a tuned and fettled one.

Finally I can use my C11 for planetary again  🙂

Very nice😀.   Im also hoping a lot of quarantine buyers sell their young stuff soon.   I guess the markets will overflow when the world get slowly back to normal 

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5 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

Oke sorry last non eq6r post in this thread.  Added file is from a thread from yesterday.  

 

Yeah, so - thread link is:

The PSU in that case is indeed a fairly no-name brand. There was actual damage to the cable which caused a short circuit which damaged the PSU. The root cause was the socket/cable, the PSU couldn't cope. In this case, if the owner had checked the PSU with a voltmeter the fault would have been immediately apparent.

In that case, a short-circuit would have had similar outcomes even with a protection board in. A fuse/breaker might've caught the fault, of course, and protected the gear, but the fault may not have generated enough current to trip it. A buck converter would likely have suffered a similar fate to the PSU and caused the same outcome.

Use a reputable brand, make sure your cables/connections are good, and all will be well.

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17 minutes ago, Robindonne said:

Very nice😀.   Im also hoping a lot of quarantine buyers sell their young stuff soon.   I guess the markets will overflow when the world get slowly back to normal 

Turns out the seller was after the new CEM70 instead, I had thought of a CEM60 myself but it would have been a vanity buy, don't think I need it. I just need a decent camera now. I have the full set of Primaluce Eagle bits and pieces. No more freezing hands and feet in winter!

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2 minutes ago, billhinge said:

Turns out the seller was after the new CEM70 instead, I had thought of a CEM60 myself but it would have been a vanity buy, don't think I need it. I just need a decent camera now. I have the full set of Primaluce Eagle bits and pieces. No more freezing hands and feet in winter!

The CEMs are interesting mounts, have been tempted in the sense of considering a CEM120 as an upgrade should I ever need to go beyond what I can do with the EQ6R but the 6R's a formidable mount for the money!

Not sure we'll see a lot of "post-lockdown" sell-offs, but it's possible I suppose.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone, i'm new to this forum.  

I was moving my EQ6-R Pro inside for cable management and took the CWs off, etc.. when i put the mount back on the tripod, i accidentally hit the CW shaft and the mount's RA shifted... Is it supposed to move if i apply enough pressure?  Thanks!

 

 

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36 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

Yes, the clutch only holds the RA in place with pressure, it's not a locking mechanism. It's designed like this so the gearing inside isn't damaged if it does get knocked.

Ahh!! Thank you! :) 

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I too have a new EQ6-R PRO and I have read through all 17 pages of this topic with interest.

I had a Sky-Watcher HEQ5 PRO and noticed that the RA Setting Circle does not behave as expected e.g. it's either locked at 0, or clamped but doesn't indicate RA. The dealer said it was mostly "cosmetic" e.g. not a fault.

Now that I have the EQ6-R PRO I notice that the locking screw is moved from the mount to the Setting Circle and the manual does refer to it as a Setting Circle and not a Polar Alignment Aid (HEQ5).

With both screws locked down, when I move the RA with the clutches "unlocked" it does move and does indicate RA.

When I have the clutches "locked" and slew with the HC  then it doesn't move with RA. Did I miss something?

I'm guessing it depends what it is clamped to internally. So it's better but not perfect.

Simon    

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hello Everyone

I have recently joined the club, which wasn't originally my intention 

I originally ordered the 150p and EQ3 Pro setup but after more research decided to upgrade to the PDS and HEQ5 mount. The mount arrived in store but the scope was still delayed, by the time the scope arrived the mount was sold due to a mix up. Ro rather than waiting till December for the mount I ended up upgrading to the EQ6-R mount. It all arrived today so working my way through setting it up and waiting for the next clear sky.

Edited by Greg Shaw
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11 minutes ago, Greg Shaw said:

I have recently joined the club, which wasn't originally my intention 

EQ-3  to  EQ-6-R ....  that's what I call future proofing.  As they say, it's all in the mount. Good work.

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I don’t own an EQ6-R, so won’t be joining the club. However, I pricked up my ears at the comment by @SimM about the RA setting circles on his HEQ5 ‘not behaving as expected’. I am completely new to this hobby, and have only very recently taken delivery of my new HEQ5 (and 150P-DS), so am a little unsure of the expected behaviour. The issue I have is that if I lock the RA setting circle, then unlock the clutch, the setting circle spins with the shaft some of the way, then the circle  sticks, while the shaft continues to rotate. I’m not overly worried by this, as I don’t think I’ll be using the circles that much, but having paid what I consider to be a reasonable sum of money for the mount, I would at least expect it to work properly. The slightly more worrying issue (and quite probably the cause) is that the RA shaft appears to bind in one point when rotated. I can’t help thinking that I might be attempting a strip-down and rebuild in the near future!

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After 8 months of owning the eq6-rand being disappointed as it performed like my old hypertuned heq5-pro i finally managed to get it to outperfom my heq5-pro. The main issue i have with it is that that the axes are too stiff maybe from excessive and not proper grease at the gears thus making it too hard to balance the mount. The other day i found a video on using a clamp-meter to measure the current of the mount and balance it . Needless to say that night the backlash of the mount was the smallest i had in months and the guiding error dropped to 0.3'' from 0.8'' that was the norm i had in good conditions.  Here is the aforementioned video

 and some images form my calibration and guiding. One question though do you guys have lower Dec backlash than what i show here? Is that normal?

18-8-2020_1.jpg

18-8-2020_2.jpg

18-8-2020_3.jpg

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I haven't even been in this hobby for a month(unless you count sitting outside just looking at the sky or sitting in stellarium for hours) and I've already made the plunge and ordered myself a EQ6-R. I couldn't wait. I want to start astrophotography so badly and since it's my birthday tomorrow, I figured, why not?

I'm so excited I can't even sleep! I was just laying in bed earlier and I actually started crying out of sheer excitement and joy!  I CAN'T WAIT for it to get here!


Anyways, in other words. Not even a month in and this hobby is already more expencive than my car and I couldn't be happier!😁

Edited by Pryce
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What a cool idea, I have noticed when I have been balancing my scope it can be bit stiff in certain locations as I rotate the scope around to check balance.

I had a look on Amazon and the meter that Cuiv uses is £35. I also found this one for £22 which is AC/DC and has good reviews. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meterk-Multimeter-Capacitance-Resistance-Temperature/dp/B073Y162BZ/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=clamp+meter&qid=1598252676&sr=8-5#customerReviews

Looks like this will be the next tool to add to the kit

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