HEQ5 Pro problem

[CaptainShiznit]

I had a strange issue with my HEQ5 last night so I was wondering if anyone could shed light on it.

I was attempting to image the horsehead nebula and then towards the end of the session as Orion set behind a house, I decided to give Bode's galaxy a quick try. I was controlling my mount using Stellarium on my laptop and all seemed fine for most of the night until I slewed to Bode's which was near the zenith.

It slewed to around the right spot (I think) but then when it stopped, the tracking sound of the gears was a bit different, like a different rhythm. I took a quick 60s snap and there were big star trails. I tried to manually slew and it wouldn't move. I then tried to slew back to Orion in Stellarium and it worked but the first few seconds of the slew were like in slow motion before it seemed to 'get loose' and slew properly. It then seemed fine and was tracking correctly.

Any ideas what was going on here?

[Waldemar]

Sounds like the worm & wheel were jammed... Sometimes that happens when the worm-wheel is not perfectly round and/or too tightly adjusted. 

[CaptainShiznit]

24 minutes ago, Waldemar said:

Sounds like the worm & wheel were jammed... Sometimes that happens when the worm-wheel is not perfectly round and/or too tightly adjusted. 

Ah cheers. Nothing to worry about then unless it happens often? Considering a belt mod upgrade soon regardless.

[Waldemar]

well 'nothing to worry' is not exactly right... The jamming may damage the motor, and with the belt upgrade the worm & wheel are still i use, so you will have to readjust the spacing to solve the problem.

[MarkAR]

It could also be possible that the worm and wheel are too loose and it jumped and started to ride on the peaks of the thread.

Or there could be a buildup of crud in the gear, safest thing would be to tear it down and inspect it.

[CaptainShiznit]

31 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

It could also be possible that the worm and wheel are too loose and it jumped and started to ride on the peaks of the thread.

Or there could be a buildup of crud in the gear, safest thing would be to tear it down and inspect it.

Cheers guys. Is there a preferred guide to taking it down/servicing these particular parts?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I used this and found if really useful.

heq5-rebuild

Steve