EQ6 Tuning...

[spaceboy]

Make sure you get some spare shims before you strip the mount http://stargazerslounge.com/discussions-mounts/157010-huge-thank-you-astro_baby.html

[billhinge]

Make sure you get some spare shims before you strip the mount http://stargazerslounge.com/discussions-mounts/157010-huge-thank-you-astro_baby.html

Thanks but what do you mean by shims?

I think Celestron have done something with this ASGT as it isn't as bad as early anecdotal versions, certainly seems fairly smooth, grease comes off in a few minutes with bike cleaner and the bearings seem to be swiss jera custom made 6007 and 686. worm runs smooth. Having cleaned everything up I'm of a mind I don't need do anything other than greasing up and align gears

[ncjunk]

The shims are little teflon washers or spacers that sit on top of some of the bearings.

You can buy some and then measure a few distances and see if you need to add additional ones or not (tweak the adjustment)

If all looks ok and you werent suffering any problems before the stripdown then dont bother with touching the shims just regrease and put the mount back together, unless you have a broken shim.

Same comment with everything else if it all seems in order just put it back together and spend time on the adjustment.

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[spaceboy]

As Neil said they are basically spacers. These allow the mesh of the worm gear to be fine tuned reducing backlash to a minimum and ultimately offer better pointing accuracy and smoother tracking. The problem is the original shims have been known to become brittle and fall apart as I found out. The fella who supplies them from the states is a genuine top bloke and dose his best to get them straight out to you but having the mount stripped to pieces on the dining room table for several days can upset the wife The only bearings I found necessary to change were the worm end bearings which were very notchy for want of a better word. £7 for good quality replacements from a skateboard shop did the trick. All the other bearings were stripped cleaned and re-greased. It was not through the want of changing all the bearings it was that there was no obvious point to it as the re-greased bearings were smooth enough.

[billhinge]

Thanks guys

As I said the impression I get is that Celestron have improved engineering on the CG5 quite a bit recently - mine isn't that bad inside and the shims (or spacers/washers as I would call them) are not in bad condition, even the grease is OK and comes off easily with grease cleaner. I am being tempted to replace the bearings on the worm with a couple of ABEC 5 ceramics though, I found a specialist bike shop selling them cheap. I shall see...

[spaceboy]

Sorry Billhinge I have only just realised. I was replying to the original EQ6 thread started by Daz.

If your CG5 is a manual mount then yes a simple clean and re-grease is all that is needed. Often due to the restricted weight handling of the CG5/EQ5 there is not really much point in going to town on it as for visual astronomy as you will not notice a great deal of improvement and for imaging with the CG5-GT you will find you soon exceed the capabilities of the mount anyway when adding guide scopes etc.