Celestron Motor Degrease.

[philsail1]

Cleaned out all the sticky black grease from the two drive motors on my CG5 mount. Took pics mainly to show me how to put everything back correctly. Job was easy - just a bit fiddly with the small parts. Washed the gearboxes in White Spirit, then re-coated with lithium grease. They work much smoother now. (Did the whole mount earlier - that's another story!). Tried the mount with scope. Everthing works OK!

Regards,

philsail1

[gfletcher]

Well done Phil

I bet it has made a huge difference !

Graham

[philsail1]

Thanks Graham,

When I removed the gearboxes and "spun" the shafts by hand, they rotated with a "gluey" feeling, and they were really quite hard to turn. After cleaning and applying the lithium grease, the gears turned a lot easier and much more smoothly.

On a "dry" run with scope on mount, the whole set up seems to be running a lot smoother. Whilst I don't think it will actually "track" any better (as it tracked fine before cleaning), but I do think that it will save on battery power.

Regards,

philsail1

PS. Hope you are getting on fine with your HEQ5!

[pbyrne]

Hi Phil

It's amazing the difference cleaning the mount makes, everything is so smooth and rotates with ease. When I cleaned my cg-5 I even found metal shavings and grease:icon_scratch: that had congealed into lumps that required a knife to scrape off.

Paul

[gfletcher]

Phil

The HEQ5 is working like a dream.

Graham

[philsail1]

Your dead right there Paul! (I didn't find any metal, but the grease was as you say, in congealed lumps in places).

Oh! and one other thing I had to do was file a half "mm" off the bottom edge of the DEC cover (the bit that holds the actual telescope), as it seemed to be catching the top edge of the head of the mount.

Graham - that's great news! Glad it's going well.

Regards,

philsail1

[schoash]

When I saw this it remebers me that I also wanted to do it on my bresser mount, it is somehow so sticky that it is sometimes difficult to balance it cus it sticks

Nice work!

[philsail1]

Well "schoash," just have a go!

Take your time. Study the mount carefully. Take lots of pictures, or make sketches. Make notes. Have some small containers to hold the bits & pieces - and stick lables on the containers so you know what is in which!

Have plenty of clean rags, plenty of old newspapers to put the dirty parts on.

And finally, do try to ensure you won't be disturbed whilst doing the job - or do the job somewhere (in a shed or garage) where you can leave the mount disassembled and can go back to it as and when you have time.

Oh! and finally, finally! if any part will not come off, don't be tempted to force it. Go back to any instructions you have, or look more closely - even ask on here for advice, but under no circumstances force anything.

Best wishes,

philsail1