Baader Focuser Loose Wheel

[Littleguy80]

One of the wheels I turn to focus on my Baader Newtonian Focuser is now loose. It makes a horrible noise when I turn either of the other focusing wheels as it’s slipping. I think this is the previous version of the Focuser to the current steeltracks. I’m guessing I need to move up the gold fine focusing wheel by loosening up the screw circled below. The black wheel arrowed is the loose one. I don’t have an Allen key to fit that screw. Does anyone know what size Allen key I need or if that’s the correct thing to adjust to fix it? 

[discardedastro]

Not sure on the mechanics of the Baader but your assessment seems good - if the 1:10 reducer is like the GSO ones then the grub screw in the gold wheel will let you remove the knob and get access to the reducer (which will be greased).

The exact size I don't know but it'll be a metric size, so either M1, M2, M3 - it could be M1.5/M2.5, but fairly unlikely I'd have thought. Model Fixings are my go-to place for buying those sorts of things - they're cheap, deliver promptly and have pretty much everything you'd ever need for small mechanical bits: http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/tools.htm#allen keys

Edit: One other thought, it may not actually be the wheel making noises - the reducer is inside the wheel, so you're most likely hearing something wrong with the reducer.

Edited July 19, 2019 by discardedastro

[Littleguy80]

4 hours ago, discardedastro said:

Not sure on the mechanics of the Baader but your assessment seems good - if the 1:10 reducer is like the GSO ones then the grub screw in the gold wheel will let you remove the knob and get access to the reducer (which will be greased).

The exact size I don't know but it'll be a metric size, so either M1, M2, M3 - it could be M1.5/M2.5, but fairly unlikely I'd have thought. Model Fixings are my go-to place for buying those sorts of things - they're cheap, deliver promptly and have pretty much everything you'd ever need for small mechanical bits: http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/tools.htm#allen keys

Edit: One other thought, it may not actually be the wheel making noises - the reducer is inside the wheel, so you're most likely hearing something wrong with the reducer.

Thank you very much. Impatience got the better of me so l headed up to screw fix with an Allen key that was a bit too big. Turns out the little one is 1.5mm. Once I got that off I discovered that there are two 2mm grub screws that hold that on. Refitted everything and all seems to be working now