HEQ5 rebuilders

[AstroRuz]

Hey all,

 

I'm having extreme issues with my HEQ5 Pro mount. It's an old model and I've put the belt mod on myself, and I even replaced the gears myself. I tightened all the tolerances up and yet I still have major troubles with tracking and guiding accuracy. There's only so much I can pin on software. 

I use anti vibration pads and set up on concrete and PA using a polemaster. Even my calibrations are very good in PHD2 except it's just wildly all over the place. 

 

So I'm now thinking of throwing it at someone who knows what they're doing to look at it and see if there's any mechanical faults with it. To that end do you know of any companies that set up and tune/rebuild/fix second hand HEQ5s?

 

Thanks,

Ruzeen

[Skipper Billy]

When you say 'tightened all the tolerances up' you might have introduced some binding??

This guide is excellent and if followed exactly will leave you with a properly functioning mount.

http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

If you get stuck - shout out.

If you were nearer I would gladly show you how to fettle it.

[michael8554]

2 hours ago, AstroRuz said:

I still have major troubles with tracking and guiding accuracy ........wildly all over the place

Hi Ruzeen

Tracking: do you mean large Periodic Error, or that the Tracking Rate is completely wrong?

Guiding Accuracy........wildly all over the place. Can you be a bit more specific?

Michael

[Starflyer]

What scope are you imaging with?

How are you guiding, finder guider, guidescope, OAG?

Have you run the guiding assistant in PHD, did you make the changes it suggested?

Can you post a PHD log and corresponding image  from a session that you thought was awful?

[Adam J]

On 18/11/2019 at 22:19, Skipper Billy said:

When you say 'tightened all the tolerances up' you might have introduced some binding??

This guide is excellent and if followed exactly will leave you with a properly functioning mount.

http://www.astro-baby.com/heq5-rebuild/heq5-m1.htm

If you get stuck - shout out.

If you were nearer I would gladly show you how to fettle it.

Personally I have always found this guide about as clear as mud. 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Ruzeen,

The HEQ5 is an excellent mount but having stripped one down and rebuilt mine I would say it is fairly simple in design and so should not be too difficult to get it working correctly with some more information.

• Before you did the belt mod and replaced the gears how was the mount performing?
• What gears exactly did you replace and were the replacements genuine SW parts?
• Did you replace or re-grease any of the bearings?

Also a screen shot of PHD2 with the graph displayed and showing Ra and Dec together with the correction pulses will give everyone an idea how good or how bad it really is.

If you manually slew each axis in turn at maximum speed through the full movement of each axis does they move smoothly without too much noise, and no stalling of the stepping motors. Listen very carefully is there any noise that seems periodic as if there is some binding once per rev of the worm gears ?

Steve