New EQ6R pro not performing !

[ninjageezer]

ok so I have upgraded  ? my mount from the heq5 pro to the EQ6R pro as soon I want to use my edgehd so I knew the eq6r pro would handle the extra weight better.

so I got to test the new mount last night with the wo z73 mounted on top and I was really struggling to get any decent guiding it was struggling to stay below 1 total rms.

I ran the guide assistant a few times making sure I left it for a full worm cycle ,I then applied the recommended settings ,also tried exposure times from 1 to 4 seconds without much difference. my heq5 pro would sit on .5 to .6 all night . (it was tuned) seeing for the most part was ok. I can feel no backlash in the mount when I feel for it .I also noticed when guiding the RA was always quite a bit higher than the Dec. they used to be very close to each other on my last mount.

it was a lot of money to make my guiding worse !!

please see attached guide assistant pictures and calibration.

 

any help greatly appreciated..

[Simon Pepper]

This is a little worrying as I am planning on doing exactly the same my Rowan modded HEQ5 has been amazing since doing that I have seen it at .27 total but usually .4/.5. Is the mount brand new?  Now don’t quote me on this but it was my thinking if one line was higher than the other that can be a sign that PA is slightly off, but the issue with guiding can be so many things as we know, focus, seeing, PA, balance list goes on. I am sure this just you getting a feel for the mount and you will nail it on the next outing! 

[RolandKol]

my NEQ6 is not modded and really old and rusted.
Once balanced properly and with good PA, it keeps my 130PDS (plus mono setup) in around 0.45 Total RMS area, however....

if a slight high-level clouds come, - 0.8RMS and not lower... I tried all kind of settings without any luck...

Give a try once again, my calibration and guiding assistance graphs are MUCH worse

[ninjageezer]

Forgot to add my guide setup is a wo 50 mm guide scope fl 200mm with a zwo 120mm guide cam.

[ninjageezer]

41 minutes ago, Simon Pepper said:

This is a little worrying as I am planning on doing exactly the same my Rowan modded HEQ5 has been amazing since doing that I have seen it at .27 total but usually .4/.5. Is the mount brand new?  Now don’t quote me on this but it was my thinking if one line was higher than the other that can be a sign that PA is slightly off, but the issue with guiding can be so many things as we know, focus, seeing, PA, balance list goes on. I am sure this just you getting a feel for the mount and you will nail it on the next outing! 

I always use polemaster now and make sure it's bang on ,so if that's accurate then PA should be good ,the seeing was not bad last night either,mount arrived yesterday factory sealed.balance i tried perfect balance and then east heavy ,the latter was slightly better i guess.

I even unplugged my imaging camera to be certain of no cable drag.

[AstroGS]

7 minutes ago, ninjageezer said:

I always use polemaster now and make sure it's bang on ,so if that's accurate then PA should be good ,the seeing was not bad last night either,mount arrived yesterday factory sealed.balance i tried perfect balance and then east heavy ,the latter was slightly better i guess.

I even unplugged my imaging camera to be certain of no cable drag.

Give it a go a few more nights, it might just need to break in. I moved from an AZ EQ5-GT to an EQ6R-Pro and guiding improved significantly over time. I remember that my first light was around 1" PE but, after 2-3 sessions it was guiding steadily around 0.5" - 0.7" throughout the night.

Another interesting part was that since i was using AsiAir to control everything, i had the Dec and RA aggression levels too high for this mount compared to the EQ5. Again, when i lowered them, the guiding improved as well.

Edited October 8, 2022 by George Sinanis

[AMcD]

Whilst not an exact analogy, I had a similar experience recently when I upgraded the worms and motors on my Losmandy G11.  The guiding became much worse for a period before settling down to being better than previously.  I think the brand-new parts just needed to break in a bit.  In particular, for a while I had significantly increased DEC backlash.

Your DEC backlash results do appear similar to the ones I was initially getting, and I believe do show some DEC backlash.  I found that if I nudged the DEC axis north to clear the backlash before using the Guiding Assistant, I got a more accurate picture from the Assistant as to what adjustments would assist.

You may well already have seen them, but the PHD2 Good Practice guide is very helpful for trouble shooting, as is the Analyzing PHD Guide Logs document.  I have attached both in .PDF format in case you do not have them.  If all else fails, you can upload your guide logs to the PHD2 Forum at Open PHD Guiding - Google Groups (having followed the steps for making a baseline guiding log in accordance with the third and final document I have attached) where expert advice is available on what steps will assist.

Apologies if I am teaching my proverbial grandmother to suck eggs.🙂

PHD2_BestPractices.pdfAnalyzing_PHD2_Guide_Logs.pdfHow to create a baseline for guiding results using OpenPHD2.pdf

[newbie alert]

2 hours ago, ninjageezer said:

 

 

This is Dec backlash, the flat ish area at the top is the Dec reversing with float between gear mesh.. 

I'd check the mesh of the worm, and check that the locking nut on the bottom of the shaft isn't too tight( classic on most synta mounts)

Also, you have a 73mm scope on the top?

I'd rethink this, can cause a few issues... Differential flexure , balance issues, issues that are native to SCT won't be solved by using a separate guider.. oag is the way for SCT in my opinion.. been there done that with a separate guidescope 

[newbie alert]

12 minutes ago, AMcD said:

 

Your DEC backlash results do appear similar to the ones I was initially getting, and I believe do show some DEC backlash.  I found that if I nudged the DEC axis north to clear the backlash before using the Guiding Assistant, I got a more accurate picture from the Assistant as to what adjustments would assist.

 

PHD2_BestPractices.pdf 520.61 kB · 0 downloads Analyzing_PHD2_Guide_Logs.pdf 315.85 kB · 0 downloads How to create a baseline for guiding results using OpenPHD2.pdf 816.18 kB · 0 down

While this is true for helping calibration with mounts that have lots of backlash the image shown is where PhD sends the mount sends guide pulses in one direction then reverse the direction to bring the star back to its original position, and measures the errors... The flat top and drift is where is floating , then catching back up on itself .. this is backlash and that box shows it on the Dec axis

[Lee_P]

Just as a reference point, I have that same mount and guidescope/cam, and had this guiding last night (admittedly a personal best). 

[david_taurus83]

I would also argue for an OAG on an SCT..

In the meantime however, I would also say it needs to 'bed' in a little as it's new. My AZEQ6 seemed to perform a bit better after some use. With everything off the mount, turn it on and slew it all the way round and the same in reverse in both axis to get a good spread of grease on both sides of the gear teeth. 

[iantaylor2uk]

The 290MM mini would be far better for guiding than the 120MM mini in my view.

[ONIKKINEN]

I have an AZ-EQ6 which struggles to guide better than 0.6'' RMS even after rebuilding and relubricating it (twice, to make sure i didn't make it worse). There may be a bit of a lottery with these cheap mass produced mounts where some units perform much better than others.

[MikeeJC]

Also worth checking, quite often the EQ6R arrives with the RA and DEC axis too tight. This happened with mine. Without the scope on it, do both axis' rotate freely without any play with the clutches released? If they tend to stick and stay in one position then they'll need loosening off a bit. I've included a link below. As others have said though, give it half a dozen or so goes first to break it in.

 

[ninjageezer]

On 08/10/2022 at 12:05, newbie alert said:

This is Dec backlash, the flat ish area at the top is the Dec reversing with float between gear mesh.. 

I'd check the mesh of the worm, and check that the locking nut on the bottom of the shaft isn't too tight( classic on most synta mounts)

Also, you have a 73mm scope on the top?

I'd rethink this, can cause a few issues... Differential flexure , balance issues, issues that are native to SCT won't be solved by using a separate guider.. oag is the way for SCT in my opinion.. been there done that with a separate guidescope 

yes I have an OAG in the pipeline for the edgehd..

loosened the nut on the Dec shaft and the RA both very tight now super fluid .

also took a bit some belt slack up on both axis and a little on the RA worm gear.

see last nights guide assistant pictures.

managed to guide last when no whispy high clouds at .43 to .51 so a big improvement .stars looked nice and tight and round .

will leave it for a while now see how it settles .

 

[newbie alert]

Looking much better, not perfect but that can be fine tuned at a later date, time to enjoy some hopefully ( fingers crossed) clear skies

[ninjageezer]

15 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Looking much better, not perfect but that can be fine tuned at a later date, time to enjoy some hopefully ( fingers crossed) clear skies

i agree..😀

[Mikael Lindkvist]

I also have a reasonable new EQ6R, it is my first motorised mount and previous season was the first time I used it with the rest of my gear Celestron 9.25 XLT,/Celestron OAG. Since I was completely new to astrophotography I was pretty happy with getting decent images of galaxies etc. My guiding was almost never below 1" but I did not know what to expect so I did not pay it a lot of attention. 

Now I see people guiding with this mount at much higher accuracy so I have been investigating what the problem might be. I started by trying to eliminate potential problems related to PHD settings and sent my logs to the open phd guding group where one of the maintainers noticed that there is a 1" spike in RA every 10s that is not related to PHD (it was recorded without active guiding).

I have not tweaked the actual mount yet but your improvements after loosening the Ra/Dec axis and doing some tightening of the belts and RA worm gear sounds very interesting! Maybe that could also improve my mount performance?

Did you follow any guides, specially for the RA worm gear adjustment?

[ninjageezer]

On 17/10/2022 at 20:04, Mikael Lindkvist said:

I also have a reasonable new EQ6R, it is my first motorised mount and previous season was the first time I used it with the rest of my gear Celestron 9.25 XLT,/Celestron OAG. Since I was completely new to astrophotography I was pretty happy with getting decent images of galaxies etc. My guiding was almost never below 1" but I did not know what to expect so I did not pay it a lot of attention. 

Now I see people guiding with this mount at much higher accuracy so I have been investigating what the problem might be. I started by trying to eliminate potential problems related to PHD settings and sent my logs to the open phd guding group where one of the maintainers noticed that there is a 1" spike in RA every 10s that is not related to PHD (it was recorded without active guiding).

I have not tweaked the actual mount yet but your improvements after loosening the Ra/Dec axis and doing some tightening of the belts and RA worm gear sounds very interesting! Maybe that could also improve my mount performance?

Did you follow any guides, specially for the RA worm gear adjustment?

Hi as this is a brand new mount ive not stripped and rebuilt it like i did my heq5 pro.......dare i will soon though it made a huge difference to that mount ,and it certainly guided better than this but it is new and full of that Chinese glue type grease so im getting itchy fingers to take it apart....and at least strip and regrease with good quality grease. I have tweaked the worm gears yes....its such a fine balance between binding and backlash ,this would not be such an issue if you could test nightly but where i live can get weeks of cloud....so not helpful. Shame cannot  test in the daytime on something ...

[ninjageezer]

Done a little more tweaking ,much better these are from last night.

 

 

[scotty38]

Nothing wrong with those numbers blimey.... What was your tweaking process?

[ninjageezer]

Nothing wrong with those numbers blimey.... What was your tweaking process?

 

First thing i did was to loosen the RA and the Dec nuts way too tight from factory ,causing stiction.

then remove both drive belts.

the tricky bit that is time consuming is adjusting the worm drive gears for backlash ,just kept making tiny tiny adjustments until when turning the the belt cog it's just tight enough to not cause binding .you can feel it when its too tight,there will be parts of the cycle when its tighter as the brass drum that mates up to the worm drive is not a perfect   perfect cylinder i guess.the dec is easier as its smaller lighter .the RA is harder to turn anyway ,i used a drill bit to turn the cog like in a video i will link.just takes a bit of fiddling .

one issue is you cannot test it until you get a clear night so it could be frustrating especially where we live !!!

watch this video from about 30 mins in ...that's what did basically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEgkPA-Cd84

[scotty38]

Thanks will have a look later. I have an AZ-EQ6 but I guess most of it will apply in principle....