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NEQ6 altitude adjustment very stiff


Astrokev

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4 hours ago, JamesF said:

Neat job :)  Seems silly not to have left those screws accessible when the mount was manufactured given that over-tightened ones seem rather common.

James

Absolutely. And to add to that, why on earth did SW design the altitude adjustment the way they did. For high latitude locations the design is not really fit for purpose, hence the need for third party fixes. 

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Hi,

I can sympathise with many comments on here, my NEQ6's altitude is very messed up! The Synta Cheese-Steel southern bolt is so bent that the end of it describes an inch-diameter circle when rotated! ? Thankfully the mount can still be polar aligned with just the Northern bolt (which is under almost 0 stress, thank goodness), I think I need to do a rail mod at some point. The "tongue" in the base of the head looks a bit like a half-chewed digestive, I have no clue why they don't make it out of the same stuff as the az tongue on the tripod head. ? 

I think that bolt may need cutting through before it can be removed, although it will instantly increase in strength when I try to file it through, no doubt! ;) I'm not entirely sure how the southern bolt got so bent, previous owner used it with a heavy setup in southern france though so it may be due to that. ?

John

Edited by JohnSadlerAstro
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Bit late to the party here.  But I was told to add a type of grease to the bolts, I can't remember the name of it right now, but I know it has the name of the metal in the title.   I think I know where it is and will look it up once I can get out to the observatory.  

After adding this grease I found my bolts on my NEQ6 (that I used to own), would turn more easily.

Just looked up metals, and I think it might have been copper grease, but will confirm later.

Carole 

 

Edited by carastro
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30 minutes ago, carastro said:

Bit late to the party here.  But I was told to add a type of grease the the bolts, I can't remember the name of it right now, but I know it has the name of the metal in the title.   I think I know where it is and will look it up once I can get out to the observatory.  

After adding this grease I found my bolts on my NEQ6 (that I used to own), would turn more easily.

Just looked up metals, and I think it might have been copper grease, but will confirm later.

Or possibly white lithium grease?

James

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It would probably be a good idea for me to grease the southern bolt. I have a "modified" bolt which is supposed to be stronger than the SW original, but the thread has a very loose tolerance in the female thread of the mount. Grease would help this a little, would give slightly smoother turning, and would help resist corrosion. Not sure what metal it's made from but it certainly ain't rustproof!

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1 minute ago, Astrokev said:

It would probably be a good idea for me to grease the southern bolt. I have a "modified" bolt which is supposed to be stronger than the SW original, but the thread has a very loose tolerance in the female thread of the mount. Grease would help this a little, would give slightly smoother turning, and would help resist corrosion. Not sure what metal it's made from but it certainly ain't rustproof!

No, the metal doesn't seem to be very rustproof at all, which is disappointing. They seem to rust quite nastily in exposed screw threads etc. :( 

John

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And I failed to produce the printable drawing...

Scaling is changing once exported to .pdf of .jpg... I have not managed to find a proper settings to keep the scale 1x1...

Maybe someone more experienced is able to do it properly

Hole Dimensions bellow.

NEQ6cap-Holes2.jpg.1079ff3ff4efeec000d3b47e9df7b56a.jpg

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Remember you do not need to level an EQ mount  before doing a PA. If you're having problems with bolt adjustment then raise or lower one of the tripod legs to compensate and keep the bolt within a useable section of the thread. I had to with my NEQ6 Pro.

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1 hour ago, fwm891 said:

Remember you do not need to level an EQ mount  before doing a PA. If you're having problems with bolt adjustment then raise or lower one of the tripod legs to compensate and keep the bolt within a useable section of the thread. I had to with my NEQ6 Pro.

Yes that's a good option. I have a solid pier, but the adapter plate on the top is adjustable. I'll see how I get on with the plate level to start with. 

One of the challenges of being at 52 north is the relatively small clearance between the south alt bolt and the polar scope cover. It had occurred to me that angling the adapter plate would increase this gap, making it a little easier to get your hand in to turn the alt bolt. 

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47 minutes ago, Astrokev said:

One of the challenges of being at 52 north is the relatively small clearance between the south alt bolt and the polar scope cover. It had occurred to me that angling the adapter plate would increase this gap, making it a little easier to get your hand in to turn the alt bolt. 

I have also thought about doing exactly that.

James

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So, tonight I tested the mod out in earnest and polar aligned the NEQ6 using the EQMOD polar alignment tool. 

Pleased to say that adjusting the altitude was really easy and I was able to change the angle with great control and precision. 

Once completed I retightened the three grub screws. Job done ???

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  • 2 months later...
On 28/03/2019 at 10:46, carastro said:

I think it might have been copper grease, but will confirm later.

I'm for the last 2 days reading about mods to improve my altitude adjustment.

Since the first read I'm asking myself why the hell nobody speaks about this grease? I use it for years an I never had a seized bolt, living in the seaside! Everybody speaks about the lithium grease; is it so better than the copper one?

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On 28/03/2019 at 10:46, carastro said:

Bit late to the party here.  But I was told to add a type of grease to the bolts, I can't remember the name of it right now, but I know it has the name of the metal in the title.   I think I know where it is and will look it up once I can get out to the observatory.  

After adding this grease I found my bolts on my NEQ6 (that I used to own), would turn more easily.

Just looked up metals, and I think it might have been copper grease, but will confirm later.

Carole 

 

Copperslip!

As has been said, tilting the mount slightly is the obvious answer. While a mount which isn't level E-W may need more iterations of the drift method since the two axes will interact slightly, being tilted N-S has no effect whatever on anything (provided the thing doesn't fall over!) How does the polar axis know it's been tilted by the pier-tripod or by the pivot? It doesn't. They are equivalent. (The Avalon has a linear bubble level on the E-W axis only.)

Olly

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  • 1 year later...

I know this is an old topic. I ended up taking my mount apart and found the reason the rear bolt was so stiff was because the mount had been chewed up and the bolts were slipping under the mount part that the bolts hit. This was because of the high altitude and the small angle the bolt was against the adjustment bar. I installed a Rail Kit (£120) and can now adjust the bolts with my little finger no problem at all. PA is now very easy and more accurate. 

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