Skywatcher eq6 alignment issues

[Mouton noir]

I’ve had my eq6 with synscan controller for about 6 months now. Love it and have never had an issue ... until now. 

Suddenly mi RA is 180 degrees off when I align. This occurred a few weeks ago after I repeated an alignment routine for a second time that wasn’t started at home position. I’ve done this before without issue but it’s the only think I can think of that occurred. 

Ive quadruple checked my initial positioning data ( time, date, position). Everything is correct. 

When I initiate the alignment, my RA goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction. If I correct it with the hand controller I get a fail message. RA off >45 degrees. If I correct it with in small increments or if I unlock the scope and align to star by hand then my start/home position is off by 180 degrees. 

I’m hoping someone has an idea of what’s going on before I try calling product support. 

Thanks for your help. 

[Cornelius Varley]

I suspect the problem might be due to you making a star alignment from somewhere other than the correct home position. Try a 1 star alignment from the home position and where ever the mount stops declutch and move the telescope onto the alignment star. Tighten the clutches and then complete the alignment using the handset, Accept the alignment and then park the mount. The mount will then return to a position other than the correct home position. Switch off and release the clutches and return the telescope to the correct home position. Switch on again and do another 1 star alignment. In both alignments select No when the handset asks "Start from park position"

[Mouton noir]

Hey. I tried your suggestion. 

I 1 star aligned, declutched and positioned the mount, reclutched and accepted the alignment. I parked the mount then turned off. Declutched and repositioned before turning mount on again. 

Same issue remains. 

The alignment is 180degrees off after alignment and 180 degrees off after I park. I’m correcting both of these for a 360 degree total correction. Otherwise, I’m back where I started. 

I agree that this issue occurred because I started an alignment from a position other than park. I think you’re on to something by deckutching and turning the mount on and off. I’ve tried a few different combinations of this but non is working. 

I think it would work if I could just reset the park position. 180 degrees but I’m not sure how to do that. 

[Cornelius Varley]

Try a factory reset. This should clear all user entered data.

[Mouton noir]

Yes. That did it. 

Thanks for your assistance. 

[newbie alert]

There's no need to undo the clutch and center the star..if you do it's going to be out..the whole point of a star alignment is to tell the mount where it is..if you undo the clutch it's going to be wrong.. start from home position, star align and hey presto..it knows where it is..

[Cornelius Varley]

On 20/05/2019 at 23:06, newbie alert said:

There's no need to undo the clutch and center the star..if you do it's going to be out..the whole point of a star alignment is to tell the mount where it is..if you undo the clutch it's going to be wrong.. start from home position, star align and hey presto..it knows where it is..

You can do this with a 1 star alignment and for the first star with 2 and 3 star alignments . The mount starts from the home position and then slews to a point in the sky where it believes the first alignment star is based upon date, time and location info entered into the handset. You can then release the clutches and manually slew the mount onto the star, re-engage the clutches and fine tune the alignment using the handset and then accept the alignment by pressing enter on the handset. The handset now has an accurate position from where to find the second and third alignment stars. What you can't do is repeat the process for the second and third stars because that would lose the encoder settings.  The home position is only an approximate start point and occasionally using this method can help to improve 1 star alignments. No alignment setting are lost because the handset doesn't know precisely where the mount is pointing until <enter> is pressed to accept the first star alignment.

[newbie alert]

Can't see what the point is, slew to the 1st star and center it, move to the 2nd and 3rd stars and repeat ( notice how the stars are getting more accurate?) 

I don't use a skywatcher atm but I'm doing 3 stars with 3 calibration stars, return to home and hibernate the mount..next time I setup I wake up, slew to a big bright star(vega, Arcturus etc)  and if it's out I re-sync..sure this can be done with a skywatcher.. home position should be accurate on the skywatcher as it has setting circles.. really no need to release the clutches for any reason