Dropped my NEQ6 on the floor ... yikes!!!

[souls33k3r]

5 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

I can understand your woes. I purchased an Atik 314 and I dropped that. It bounced many times on a stone floor. It looked a right state, dented and scratched. I was gutted. But, it worked and did me proud for a few years.

Steve

That was Atik, this is SW product we're talking about lol 

I remember just before i was about to buy this mount, one of the guys who used to work for WSC mentioned that he dropped his mount from about 5 feet height and it still worked. Not that i ever wanted to put my mount to the test but seems like yesterday that's exactly what just happened.

[KemalOz]

I tipped over my EQ5 mount once on tile floor while leveling but it was okay after that. Aluminum is soft and bends rather easily but it doesn't break. I also think your mount is fine.

 

Though EQ6 is much heavier probably it would have cracked the tiles

[souls33k3r]

3 minutes ago, KemalOz said:

I tipped over my EQ5 mount once on tile floor while leveling but it was okay after that. Aluminum is soft and bends rather easily but it doesn't break. I also think your mount is fine.

 

Though EQ6 is much heavier probably it would have cracked the tiles

 Hahahaha well it was indoors so no tiles indoors in my house. It's oakwood but did not see a single mark on it. I vaguely remember it falling half on the carpet and half on the floor. The carpet most certainly helped with the cosmetics 

[KemalOz]

Just now, souls33k3r said:

 Hahahaha well it was indoors so no tiles indoors in my house. It's oakwood but did not see a single mark on it. I vaguely remember it falling half on the carpet and half on the floor. The carpet most certainly helped with the cosmetics 

One nice thing about synta mounts is that you can pretty much replace anything in them if necessary. Bearings are standard size and cheap and all the other parts including worm and worm gear are sold by retailers. Plus there are tons of online tutorials for how to strip the mount. 

 

So even if something gets damaged you can fix it yourself. And it won't cost you much.

[souls33k3r]

2 minutes ago, KemalOz said:

One nice thing about synta mounts is that you can pretty much replace anything in them if necessary. Bearings are standard size and cheap and all the other parts including worm and worm gear are sold by retailers. Plus there are tons of online tutorials for how to strip the mount. 

 

So even if something gets damaged you can fix it yourself. And it won't cost you much.

I'd agree with that but i wouldn't want to go down that route if i can help it buddy.

[Horwig]

Don't know if it would make you feel any better, I managed to over balance my AZ EQ6 last year, I'd removed the scope, but not both counterweights, and somehow pushed on the mount as I turned. It fell with a horrendous crack onto stone slabs, cracking two of them. A stiff drink later, and apart from some scratches to the casing the only real damage I could find was the thumb screw on one of the counterweights was bent, the mount itself just soldiers on, shame about its new battle scars though.

My wife on the other hand was distaught at the damage to the slabs

Huw

[souls33k3r]

12 minutes ago, Horwig said:

Don't know if it would make you feel any better, I managed to over balance my AZ EQ6 last year, I'd removed the scope, but not both counterweights, and somehow pushed on the mount as I turned. It fell with a horrendous crack onto stone slabs, cracking two of them. A stiff drink later, and apart from some scratches to the casing the only real damage I could find was the thumb screw on one of the counterweights was bent, the mount itself just soldiers on, shame about its new battle scars though.

My wife on the other hand was distaught at the damage to the slabs

Huw

Hahaha you have no idea how much trouble I would've been if I had damaged the oakwood floor that my wife likes but glad there is no mark on them. 

Makes me feel much getter knowing that we have a tough mount and can really take a hit but I'm hoping to test this out very soon and will report back. 

Thank you sir. 

[Horwig]

Just to prove there was no great misfortune, this is post drop:

nothing much wrong with that, and M1 is not a big target

[souls33k3r]

Slight update on this. 

Last night was the first night i was able to test my mount properly and under the stars. The purpose of last night was not to image anything but to firstly get back in to the feel for the equipment and how it behaves and secondly getting the hang of SGP and PHD which is another story.

After battling the demons for most part of it, i was finally able to take a few test images. Some short (1 min - 3 min) and they came out good and then went really hardcore and push my mount to it's limits. Did a 10 min exposure and regardless of how bad my total RMS was on guiding, my stars came out nice and round albeit out of focus (D'oh!)

So basically what i'm trying to say is that i'm happy to report my mount behaved nicely.

Now this might be totally unrelated but one of the altitude bolts (closer to the polar scope end) was really really stiff. I'm thinking of un-doing it and lubricate it to make it slightly smoother to work with?

[vlaiv]

25 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

Slight update on this. 

Last night was the first night i was able to test my mount properly and under the stars. The purpose of last night was not to image anything but to firstly get back in to the feel for the equipment and how it behaves and secondly getting the hang of SGP and PHD which is another story.

After battling the demons for most part of it, i was finally able to take a few test images. Some short (1 min - 3 min) and they came out good and then went really hardcore and push my mount to it's limits. Did a 10 min exposure and regardless of how bad my total RMS was on guiding, my stars came out nice and round albeit out of focus (D'oh!)

So basically what i'm trying to say is that i'm happy to report my mount behaved nicely.

Now this might be totally unrelated but one of the altitude bolts (closer to the polar scope end) was really really stiff. I'm thinking of un-doing it and lubricate it to make it slightly smoother to work with?

Might be that it suffered a hit when mount fell, and is just a bit bent - that would make it stiff when turning. Unscrew it and inspect it for slight curvature. Not sure how to go about it, lubrication might help, but you might end up needing a replacement. On the other hand it might get straight again after repeated use, but not sure if it will cause unwanted wear and tear on thread inside mount head.

[souls33k3r]

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Might be that it suffered a hit when mount fell, and is just a bit bent - that would make it stiff when turning. Unscrew it and inspect it for slight curvature. Not sure how to go about it, lubrication might help, but you might end up needing a replacement. On the other hand it might get straight again after repeated use, but not sure if it will cause unwanted wear and tear on thread inside mount head.

Thank you for your reply mate, maybe it did or maybe it didn't. I guess i will have to unscrew it tonight and find out.

I'm hoping to leave work early today and check this. I only noticed that the bolt felt really really hard when i was doing my polar alignment and i had to loosen this side of the bolt to bring polaris in to the respective field. 

[souls33k3r]

Hi All, 

Well came back home today after work and first thing I did was to check the bolt. 

I'm happy to report that the bolt was not bent at all. I completely unscrewed it and cleaned what appeared to be some black dust of some sort off the bolt which then made it quite smooth going back in. 

Will have them greased tomorrow any way to avoid them being jammed for a long time. 

[RayD]

53 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

Hi All, 

Well came back home today after work and first thing I did was to check the bolt. 

I'm happy to report that the bolt was not bent at all. I completely unscrewed it and cleaned what appeared to be some black dust of some sort off the bolt which then made it quite smooth going back in. 

Will have them greased tomorrow any way to avoid them being jammed for a long time. 

Great new mate! 

A worrying moment hopefully sorted.  Now get on and get some serious imaging done 

[souls33k3r]

18 minutes ago, RayD said:

Great new mate! 

A worrying moment hopefully sorted.  Now get on and get some serious imaging done 

Absolutely mate. 

Well tonight is my second night out. Last night was very clear so jumped right back on this horse and immediately started to get in to issues. You know you have some serious issues with your mindset if you forget to unpark your scope isn't it?  Well that was just the tip of the ice berg. Any way, mount behaved perfectly well all night last night and tonight was game time. Well i say game time, these pesky high clouds are ruining everything for me. Nonetheless i am imaging.

[RayD]

16 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

You know you have some serious issues with your mindset if you forget to unpark your scope isn't it?