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CEM60 Alignment


iandh

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Hi Guys,

I am trying to tame a new to me CEM60.

I actually managed to get it to do its first GOTO last night 🙂 I only one star aligned on Vega so did not push my luck too far so only dida GOTO M57!!!

However, I assume that to start with, one needs to set the scope in the Zero position with the OTA pointing at Polaris and the counterweight shaft vertically downwards. So I did this and set this as my Zero position on the handset. I then slewed away from Zero and did a "GOTO Zero Position" which appeared to work fine. However, when I did a "Find Zero Position" it ended up with the counter weight shaft vertically downwards as I had set it, but the OTA saddle was at a rightangle to the polar axis.

Can anyone explain this for  me please. I am running with the attached firmware. 

 

 

20220809_012418.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 09/08/2022 at 09:26, michael8554 said:

I don't have a CEM60, but my guess would be:

The mount may have an internal sensor for where Zero is.

Once the mount has done a "Goto Zero Position", you loosen the clutches and position the scope in Zero Position.

Michael

 

Thanks Michael,

Sorry I overlooked your reply earlier.

Yes it seems that the CEM60 requires a Zero alignment whereby the OTA is on top of the polar axis and the counterweight shaft vertically downwards and all ined upthrough the centre of teh polar axis. Apprently it is pretty fussy about this.

Regrads

Ian

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On 09/08/2022 at 09:26, michael8554 said:

I don't have a CEM60, but my guess would be:

The mount may have an internal sensor for where Zero is.

Once the mount has done a "Goto Zero Position", you loosen the clutches and position the scope in Zero Position.

Michael

 

No you do not... The zero position has a sensor indeed but you never loosen the clutches in order to send it there

I bet you've had a heq5?

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Hi Guys,

Thank-you all so much for your toughts and ideas.

I finally got hold of a very helpful techie at iOptron who,when I explained what we all thought, told me that all I needed to do was Search Zero and then undo the four saddle retaining bolts and move the saddle through 90 degs so that ihe arrow stamped into the saddle was facing forwards with the saddle parallel to the polar axis. Simple!

Simple it wasn't as the saddle was supposed to simply lift off, which it didn't . I then noticed it was sitting on the Dec shaft slightly cocked over . I eventully managed to get a flat bladed screwdriver between  the saddle and shaft and gently twisted the screwdriver until the saddle released. 

When I  went to re-seat the saddle I noticed  that the guy who did this mod had trapped the red (presumably power) cable between the saddle and Dec shaft. Luckily I noticed this as the pressure had almost pushed the conductor out of the insulation! Once I had re-seated the saddle the Dec Stop then started working as the dec stop screw was  then hitting the Dec Stop in the casting whereas it had been missing it by a couple of millimeters before!

So one issue resolved, many  thanks.

Now trying to get the CEM60 to do accurate GoTos following a 3-Star alignment but I will start a new thread about this problem......

 

Thanks again everyone.

Edited by iandh
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Hi Guys,

OK so I think that I might have sussed out what is happening. with the CEM60 GOTOs:

I have just bought an iPolar for polar alignment of the CEM60 and the v2.62 software is not waiting for me to rotate the polar axis during calibration of the centre of rotation. Consequently  my polar alignment  is probably way off as shown following 3-star alignment which was reporting circa 45 minutes of error in both Alt and Az.

Having now read some threads on CN this appears to be well kown as is the workround of covering the polar scope between calibration frames. Pity iOptrom don't tell you this before you buy their product and then waste valuable clear sky time trying to figure it out!

Regards

Ian

 

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