Belt Mod Test

[Stu Wilson]

I got the belt mods for my NEQ6pro the other week but up here in NW England it rains so only got to test it out at midnight last night.

Everything went together as usual.

Fired it all up Polar aligned pretty good.

Sent to M101 and Plate solved, synced and ran PHD2

It did a new calibration, still said adjusting backlash and other axis did a nudge south, the graph was noticeably a lot smoother than its ever been.

I did a quick 10 image stack of M101 which hasn't come out to bad considering its only 100 mins, however the main goal was to see if there is a major difference with the belt drives.

To summarise, considerably quieter, it tracked/guided very well, the graph said it all, and the few objects I slewed it to, it landed on the money every time.

Very happy and recommend it to anyone with same mount, I am an engineer but it was not rocket science how to put it all together. (Instructions online were very well explained)

[ebdons]

Hi, yes did this belt mod a few years ago on my EQ6pro and was worth the mount stripdown and clean etc,  can now guide well at 1/2 sec exp  on PHD2 and lodestarx2 mono cam. worth it but still some other mods may help more, depends on what % improvement is needed? did the cresent this morn but the haze copped me a bit but something albeit average at best, ngs1 filter did a good job with the moon and haze, 10x10 subs ds6161cxl+ngs1 on f5'5 triplet, enjoy! Tony

Edited August 9, 2020 by ebdons
update

[Stu Wilson]

I need to find a coma corrector and correct spacing for my QHY8L  camera on 200P skywatcher but I'm a bit clueless what I need.

[sagramore]

Hey! Thanks for this - I've been considering the belt mod for my NEQ6 for a long time and finally have the money to think about it seriously.

I wanted to ask specifically if you had any problems loosening any of the bolts in the mount when you did the mod? I've tried to loosen a few of the hex-head / Allen key bolts and some of them felt so tight that I was actually starting to strip the heads before they undid. My biggest worry is I spend the cash on the parts and then I'm unable to actually fit it!

[Stu Wilson]

There was some very tight ones.

The kit comes with a few Allen keys.

There is a couple of others you need think they were 4 mm and 5mm

Just make sure you use good quality new good fitting Allen keys and you should be fine.

[ebdons]

Hi, just to add to what the OP has said, the large hex bolts are very tight, but they should not have "threadlock" on them, but after doing the belt mod a bit of fine tuning is needed and those large hex bolts have to be done up tight after freeplay adjustments, should all be in the instructions from rowan. ton

[michael8554]

Often very tight bolts can be loosened by counter-intuitively tightening first !

A tiny clockwise move can often result in a "click" as oxidisation and binding is released.

And leaves the anticlockwise faces of the Allen screw and key undamaged by the initial huge anticlock effort that people apply to break the lock.

Michael