Nexstar 4SE frustrrrrration!

[Psychobilly]

I would...

get a 10 AA cell holder from maplins put 10 of your 2700 mAH NiMH's in it and wire it up to the right DC power plug and bingo

Thats what I do for my ETX...

Billy...

[Helen]

I would...

get a 10 AA cell holder from maplins put 10 of your 2700 mAH NiMH's in it and wire it up to the right DC power plug and bingo

Thats what I do for my ETX...

Billy...

Any chance of a few more details Billy? (designed for someone who has never done anything like this before!) It would be nice to do for the SLT mount I have, rather than worrying about the powerpack

Thanks

Helen

[Psychobilly]

I'll have a look into it...find out what the connections are for the Nextstar mount...

Just so happens I buy battery packs a few thousand at a time from China...and LEDS by the million...

We use a 10 cell 2400 mAH AA pack with built in over current protection and a neat little delta peak charger module with a wallwart PSU ....

Also got some Nylon belt/shoulder pouches for them to fit into....

Will have a look if I have any samples left...

Billy...

[Helen]

Sounds great Billy - many thanks

Helen

[Psychobilly]

Us South Walians Have got to stick together

I'll pick up the plugs in Maplins tomorrow and dig some bits and pieces out...

See what I can do ...

Billy...

[ChrisEdu]

I've just bought a PowerTank in readiness for my Wednesday night viewing!

[Helen]

:notworthy:

[asteria]

Hi - the power tank should do the job - I run a Celestron 80GT of one of the 17aH ones and it lasts a long time. I usually complete a number of sessions with it before giving a charge. It's never been a problem.

Hope it works out for you.

Ed

[ChrisEdu]

Glad to say it's all working fine now. It would seem that there was a motor issue that was behind the problem. Now that has been fixed, I've tried it all again and got alignment first time, every time (3 times, so far). Really pleased at how well it's all working now.

[asteria]

Good news - glad you've got it sorted out. Ed

[Zaphod_B]

Chris

Another issue that I've found out from trying to align my Celestron 130 SLT (which has the same GoTo bits inside although the mount looks different as the arm on the 4SE is straight) is that you generally have to approach the alignment stars from below and from the left (as per the instruction book), that is to say when finalising alignment on each star, the scope should be moving up and right.

Regarding the battery issue, David Hinds suggest that you can use rechargeable NiMH cells but to go for a good (i.e. NOT budget) brand. It is a good point to use 10 cells (giving you 12V) as each NiMH cell gives only 1.2V and so the 8 cells inside the GoTo mount will only give you 9.6V at best (and the GoTo's are pretty sensitive to voltage apparently).

I see that you have sorted this out with a PowerTank. The above is offered to those that have stretched the budget as far as possible in purchasing their scope and can't (yet) afford another £25 - £40 for a PowerTank (or similar).

Further advice, gleaned from another forum, is to dispense with the 3-Star Alignment and use 2-Star Alignment. Many people report problems when using 3-star auto-align (I know this from bitter experience myself)!

Hope this helps.

Zaphod

[ChrisEdu]

Thanks for that. Since my motor issue has been rectified, I've had no trouble at all using the 3 star SkyAlign procedure. I left the scope outside tracking the moon for a few hours, last night, to see how it would cope and was impressed to find it wasn't too far out when I returned to it. The only problem I had was what I presume was dew on the glass surfaces. I say presume, as I'm not too sure how to tell whether it was dew or something else causing a moisture deposit.