Does anyone have problems with their Flextube Goto base?

[Mr Spock]

Back in May I purchased a Skywatcher 250mm Flextube Goto. On first use I had problems with it, with the az unit clunking every few seconds and the image 'jerking' at the same time. I contacted the support guys at FLO who gave me instructions on how to dismantle the az unit and adjust the tension. That didn't work.

Eventually it went back for repair. On returning, it worked ok once, then subsequently, it started clunking again. First intermittently, then continuously. 

It was then replaced with a new base unit. I immediately had problems with the handset not connecting to the base. After help from the FLO technical guys I found the connection between the az unit and cable was suspect. A new cable arrived a short while ago.

I had the scope out last week. Initially I got the same unable to connect message, but was able to resolve that by unplugging/plugging the cable and starting again. However, when observing I was getting a jerky motion every second or so - this time in the alt, with the subject eventually creeping down the fov. I did get some decent views of Jupiter though, albeit a little jerky!

I just wondered if anyone else had these sorts of problems?

I've returned so much stuff over the last year I'm loathe to do it again. Plus this scope does seem to have decent optics.

It might be a waste of £500, but I'm considering using an EQ platform and just using the hand controller for fine adjustment. I'm not sure what else to do. At the moment I've had this scope since May last year and have had little use out of it.

[Mr Spock]

It would be nice to hear from other users. I need to know if these are just no good or it's me having an endless run of bad luck.

I'm not sure what to do next.

[tomato]

Not much help, but I purchased a second hand 16” SW flex tube a while back and there were some issues with the azimuth bearing and clutch assembly which required some machining to fix. If @Tomatobro sees this I’m sure he will supply details of the defect, but having said that you have already had a replacement base unit which fixed that problem?
The altitude  drive has been ok but then it hasn’t had a great deal of use given our cloud cover this year.

[Mr Spock]

44 minutes ago, tomato said:

but having said that you have already had a replacement base unit which fixed that problem?

The replacement is also faulty, but in alt rather than az. I'm just thinking they are naff quality altogether.

[Tomatobro]

Re Tomatoes comments about the SW flex tube base. The problem was that no matter how tight the black winged hand nut was tightened the upper frame was not locked properly to the drive gear and as a result it would not track properly.

I took the whole base assembly apart and removed the base centre shaft. When I screwed the hand nut onto the shaft it was clear the the metal insert with the internal thread was not machined square to the clamping face. It had clearly been like this from new.

The result of this misalignment was that the face of the hand not was not tightening down square to the clamping clutch but clamping to one side.

I screwed the hand nut onto the shaft and mounted it in the lathe and machined the face square to the threads. Now when the base nut is tightened down by hand it clamps on the clutch properly.