azgti wifi question

[davekelley]

Hi all

I have a skymax 127, deluxe tripod azgti wifi mount.  I find connecting to wifi and setting up is a bit of a faff sometimes I just want to pop out for a quick look and I use it manually.  When I'm doing this, I find a very annoying amount of backlash in this mount.  Is this normal, I'd say there's about half a degree of "kickback", so it's best to point the finder at a spot above and centre  it in a downwards direction, or let go and hope it "falls into place".  Is this normal?  Should I be using my phone app all the time with the mount fully tightened in both axis?  (I find using my phone I can accidentally touch the screen or some button and anything can happen - also a bit annoying).    Thanks for looking, any advice gratefully received........

Clear skies

Dave

[Owmuchonomy]

There is a little backlash but it can be adjusted out to a point by removing the cover and adjusting the tension on the worm drives.  For a portable mount I find the small amount of backlash acceptable.  I use mine all the time for outreach public events and its very quick and easy to set up especially when using the point and track option.  Which bit of the setup is a faff?

[davekelley]

15 minutes ago, Owmuchonomy said:

There is a little backlash but it can be adjusted out to a point by removing the cover and adjusting the tension on the worm drives.  For a portable mount I find the small amount of backlash acceptable.  I use mine all the time for outreach public events and its very quick and easy to set up especially when using the point and track option.  Which bit of the setup is a faff?

Thanks for that, I expect that if I remove the cover I would end up making things worse, I'm not sure.  I think that what I find a bit of a pain in the setup is, firstly connecting the app to the mount,  I have to mess around with settings on my phone, I'm always touching the screen and off it goes and I can't get back, also I do a 2 star alignment,  the 1st star will be nowhere near the fov, centre that, the 2nd star is still way off, centre that,  ask the scope to goto an easy target, it's just not even close.  I'm looking for bright, easy targets just to get an idea of how it all works.  I thought I'd be able to find fainter, difficult objects more easily with this but it's not looking like it so far!  I like the tracking and that's really the main reason I wanted the mount but it's not anywhere near as marvellous as I had expected......so far.........

I'm not very technical minded......

 

[Steve Clay]

I had this mount and bought the handset as I found  using the phone very annoying.  I also found the goto pretty rubbish even after a perfect alignment. I've now parted company with it as I spent more time messing with it than looking at stuff.

 

[davekelley]

Thank you.

 

[davekelley]

It looks like a toy.  It is a toy.

[david_taurus83]

2 hours ago, Owmuchonomy said:

There is a little backlash but it can be adjusted out to a point by removing the cover and adjusting the tension on the worm drives.  For a portable mount I find the small amount of backlash acceptable.  I use mine all the time for outreach public events and its very quick and easy to set up especially when using the point and track option.  Which bit of the setup is a faff?

Interesting. I opened mine and found the worm spring loaded onto the large wheel. The backlash in mine is in fact lateral play in the dec motor's output shaft. Got any pictures as I couldn't see anything that can be adjusted?

[fireballxl5]

@davekelley I agree the GTi can seem underwhelming in terms of go-to performance. I've found with mine that I need to enable the auxiliary encoder before I do anything and this appears to make go-to much more reliable, making use of the mount far more satisfying😀

HTH

Andy

[davekelley]

21 hours ago, fireballxl5 said:

@davekelley I agree the GTi can seem underwhelming in terms of go-to performance. I've found with mine that I need to enable the auxiliary encoder before I do anything and this appears to make go-to much more reliable, making use of the mount far more satisfying😀

HTH

Andy

Thanks for that.  What does it mean?      I'm not very tech savvy.......

 

[fireballxl5]

3 hours ago, davekelley said:

Thanks for that.  What does it mean?      I'm not very tech savvy.......

 

Just go to the Settings menu and select the Auxiliary Encoder, a second encoder that enables release of the clutches without losing alignment.