Vixen Great Polaris mount upgrade

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have had a Vixen great Polaris mount for almost 25 years, initially equipped with a single RA motor with the standard Vixen hand controller. it has always run smoothly. Some 5 years back I upgraded this as to a dual motor set-up with ST-4 port, using a Sky-Watcher upgrade kit, as related here:

 

Although this worked quite well initially, I have had to replace the controller in 2016 after the smell of burning silicon rose from it, and the RA control was lost. I suspected the cheap power supply might have had a voltage spike, so have run the replacement I got off a 6V sealed lead acid battery.  This worked well until the DEC stepper motor packed in, requiring its replacement. During my last session with the Vixen Great Polaris mount, with the Meade 6" F/5 Schmidt Newton on it, I was watching M3 at the (forced) end of the session, when I noticed the RA motor wasn't budging, and the smell of burnt silicon came from the controller once more. It was running off the usual battery so voltage surges or spikes can't be the problem. The weight of the scope might be on the higher side, but the mount was perfectly balanced and ran as smooth as silk under manual control. My only conclusion is that these controllers are not well made. They should have added more capable driver transistors for the output, and added proper cooling fins for good measure

I could of course buy a new controller, but ultimately, I do not believe this system is worth the (admittedly low) price. I have now ordered a full Sky-Watcher SynScan PRO Go-To Upgrade Kit for EQ5. More expensive, but more capable too, and hopefully more reliable.

[vineyard]

Hope it goes well.  I upgraded my GP2 to full go-to w kit from here (I think its belted stepper motors) and have been quite happy with it.  I've no idea how it compares to the SW kit or to Rowan belt mods, but for my little GP2 it does the trick v well.  Cheers.

[Alan White]

On 13/04/2020 at 16:42, vineyard said:

Hope it goes well.  I upgraded my GP2 to full go-to w kit from here (I think its belted stepper motors) and have been quite happy with it.  I've no idea how it compares to the SW kit or to Rowan belt mods, but for my little GP2 it does the trick v well.  Cheers.

Now that looks a most interesting kit, wifi, pc control, very interesting indeed.

So how long have you been running this kit?
Was it easy to import to the UK?
 

[mikeDnight]

I bought one of these Skywatcher controllers about a year ago Mike, and it worked ok until December when the on/off switch failed. I bought it from RVO but instead of contacting them, I decided to open the controller to see what the problem was. I removed the red plastic cover that hides the screws holding the box together. I found that the on/off switch was held on track by two springs but one was missing. I decided to bypass the switch, but removing it meant I now only have an RA drive, which is ok for my needs, but very disappointing. These Chinese controls are poorly made and really not worth the money in my view. I'll certainly avoid them in future.

[vineyard]

17 hours ago, Alan White said:

Now that looks a most interesting kit, wifi, pc control, very interesting indeed.

So how long have you been running this kit?
Was it easy to import to the UK?
 

Hi Alan, sorry for slow reply.  Yes I'm v pleased with it.  I got it last Oct & its been fine.  I actually got it without the wifi dongle as that's a bit cheaper, and also since I connect to a RPi3 which has its own wifi hotspot, I don't need that.  It works w ASCOM, but as I'm not a Windows user, I was most nervous about INDI compatibility.  And its fine - I use it with EKOS without any problems.

Only glitch was recently a power surge when I plugged it in frazzled something (I think the circuitry comes with a Schottky diode to protect the rest of the board?).  Alexander at the company is very good & efficient, and he suggested some diagnostics to run (it comes on the software) & based on the results, just said to take the motherboard out and post that - they will fix what needs to be fixed & send it back.  Excellent customer service throughout.

Importing was easy - just gave Alexander the delivery address, and it came from Ukraine.  I can't remember if there were any import charges though.

Hope that's helpful - cheers,

Vin