Heq5 belt mod

[Daf1983]

I've just purchased the belt mod kit, and I'm having an absolute nightmare trying to remove the connectors from the main board. Is it possible to complete this mod without disconnecting these?

Also, it mentions on the @FLO website to keep the connector connected, and just free the cables(note 2 below).

 

Thanks in advance

Dafydd

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Daf1983

[Budgie1]

You may be able to do the swap without disconnecting but it will be a much more difficult job. Also, the DEC cable is normally wrapped around other cables inside the casing to stop it from chafing on the central tube, this restricts how far out the motor will come and you can't free the wires with the connector fitted.

Have a look at 4:25 in this video and he explains how to free the connectors they're not that willing:

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Budgie1

[Daf1983]

11 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

You may be able to do the swap without disconnecting but it will be a much more difficult job. Also, the DEC cable is normally wrapped around other cables inside the casing to stop it from chafing on the central tube, this restricts how far out the motor will come and you can't free the wires with the connector fitted.

Have a look at 4:25 in this video and he explains how to free the connectors they're not that willing:

 

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I've tried this technique, but it won't budge. It felt that if I applied any more force, it would break the connector off the motherboard. I've emailed flo, so I'll see what they have to say before I go any further. At the minute, I'm tempted to attempt it without disconnecting them, and see how I get on.

[Budgie1]

You may as well have a go and see. You only need the backing plate off the motor to extract the small gear and get the 5.5mm spacing for the new gear correct and you should have enough room to do that.

[malc-c]

I modified my HEQ5 to bely drive long before the Rowan kit came to market and in the course of testing various pulley combinations never removed the motor from the board.  You are only fitting a belt, and there is enough slack on the wires from the steppers to be able to undo and remove the gearing to fit the pulleys without disconnecting them.

If you really need to remove them, it shouldn't be a problem as the connector can be released using a small flat head screwdriver to open the connector slightly so that the "catch" on the JST connector clears the housing. 

[Daf1983]

Thanks @malc-c. I managed to complete the mod without removing the connectors in the end👍

As you say, there was plenty of slack in the cables. I've read various instructions and watched youtube videos of this mod, and have never seen anyone do it without completely removing the motors. 

Otherwise, I found it a quite straight forward mod, and I'm not particularly skilled with these things. 

[malc-c]

Looks good.  Thankfully Synta provided us with nice amount of slack in the cables that makes this sort of thing easy.

If you're interested in how the belt modification came about have a read of this thread - The main issue we had back then when using off the shelf pulleys was that the mod could not be used with the handset as the stock gear ratio could not be maintained.  Then along came Dave at Rowan Engineering who could CNC a one piece motor pinion and axis pulley that overcame this issue and the one where boring out the motor pulley caused it to separate.

I still use my origin 4:1 belt conversion on my HEQ5 as it's observatory based and works fine with EQMOD, and has held up nicely over the past 11 years.

[Daf1983]

That's a very interesting read @malc-c. Thank you for putting in the hours to develop the mod so that even numpties like me can install it!😀

I'm off on holiday for a week now, so I won't be able to test it out properly for a while.