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DK3 Motor fitting

haitch

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haitch

haitch

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Just picked up a set of these 2nd hand to fit on my CG5 mount (bargain:)).

I've got no instructions but it looks simple enough to fit them so I'm sure I'll figure out the fitting when I have the motors and the mount together in a couple of weeks (The mount is in France). The only thing I'm a bit unsure of is where one of the motors seems to have a longer bolt than the other to attach (the motors themselves look identical so I guess the RA & Dec are interchangeable) can anyone with these motors tell me whether the long bolt fits on the RA or Dec?

If anyone has a link for the fitting instructions or an electronic copy they could send me I'd greatly appreciate it (just to keep me safe from my gung ho approach).:)

Btw I've only had them running on a bench without the gears attached but I can concur that these motors are incredibly quiet. Just a quiet tick when tracking and I think they're even quieter slewing - virtually silent.:(

Cheers:icon_salut:

Paul

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haitch

haitch

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Motors are interchangeable.

Long bolt is RA

You MAY have to file down one edge of the motor casing to get it to fit on the DEC support.

Cheers for that.

Oh yes, I'd heard about the filing down somewhere before - luckily I'm going to France to do some DIY so I'll have plenty of tools with me.

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  • 10 months later...
Ludd

Ludd

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Funnily enough I was fine-tuning the MT1 motors on my GP mount yesterday and enjoying the sweet and barely audible purring noise they make when set up right. I'm controlling them with an ancient Vixen Skysensor 3 which has a max slew rate of 32x which is a bit of a joke if you want to move more than a few degrees but it's a fantastically accurate setup.

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haitch

haitch

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The 32x slew was one of the things that attracted me to the DK3s too (as well as being so quiet you have to keep touching them to reassure yourself they are moving and picking them up not working for a song and discovering it's just the voltage regulator blown :)).

I think Skywatcher & Celestron tracking motors only do 8x slew!

Looking round I think I can also add a guideport to the controller with a bit of soldering work.

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haitch

haitch

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Well I've got the DK-3 on a CG5 which is the same as an EQ5 so anything that fits an EQ5 SHOULD fit any mount that is compatible with the DK-3. That said I understand the EQ5 to be a clone of the Vixen GP and I always thought the EQ3 was a clone of the SP but I could be wrong on the latter. If, however, I am right the gearing would be different.

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thommo10

thommo10

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I have just been on a website called Company Seven in America, it gives the History of the SP mount which the GP mount is the modern version of which the EQ5 is the clone. so is the Celestron CG 5 in fact the SP was marketed in America under the Celestron name. ? so having said that, do I go for a MT-1 motor and SD1 controller at a price of almost £200 or the EQ5 at £80 ?

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haitch

haitch

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Just had a look at the Company 7 website and noticed it says...

The MT-1 can also be adapted for use on the now discontinued Vixen SP type mounts, please ask to see our tech note for SP mounts on Mount Accessories.

I would check further. That said, assuming it fits, the SD-1/MT-1 set up will slew faster than the EQ5 motors (32x Vs 8x I think), but you probably won't be doing much slewing in one axis, and is of a generally better quality (metal gears v plastic).

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  • 1 year later...
kriss13

kriss13

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Is there some kind of housing for motors and gears? I would hate to let the gears exposed to elements (dust, dew etc) or even worst, touching that grease and transfer it to something else (eyepiece :)) via my hand.

Do you have any pics?

How do these motors (just the motors) compare to iOptron GoToNova or Sky Scan GoTo (ignore the goto, I'm interested in motor quality).

thx

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Ludd

Ludd

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I bought a set of these from Bern at Modern Astronomy, who gets stuff in from TS at good prices (no connection). They did not come with any motor covers but I never had any problems with contamination. The gears fit quite closely to the mount body and so there's not much risk of catching things on them. If the mount is kept in a case of some sort, I wouldn't have thought dust would be a problem.

What I think the DK3 motors do best is low noise: they're as quiet as my old Skysensor 3's MT1 motors, very solidly built with no loose or plasticky bits to resonate or rattle. It's a bit ahrd to compare them with goto system motors, as the latter will be driving the mount at crazy speeds of 1200x or more, compared to the max speed of 32x on the DK3. But I've found them superb for tracking when using a webcam to image planets, and the big bold handset controls make it very easy to make slight adjustments if polar alignment is not spot-on.

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Ludd

Ludd

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Oh, and I should add that although the DK3 may say it is meant to run off a 12V power supply, the paperwork from TS recommends dropping this to 9V as they;ve had reports of the handset overheating when on 12V. It was an easy job to adapt the battery pack to take 6 rather than 8 D cells. Of course, it can also run off a mains-fed PSU but one of the joys of the DK3 is that it does not use much juice and it's sometimes nice to head out without too many trailing wires.

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kriss13

kriss13

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Thank you for the info.

I'm thinking about mod the controller to accept control form the guider , so accuracy for astrophoto is a must about these motors.

Strange they made the motors for 9V. I thought is a different model than on TS page.

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  • 8 months later...
haitch

haitch

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Just something to add to my old thread - I now have a GP with an original Vixen dual axis handset and 8 pin connectors. I only had one MT1 motor so set about converting a motor from a DK-3 I'd picked up (yes - the pins are different despite having the same connector) the translation is in another thread of mine here... http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/193980-mt1-v-dk3-motor-wiring/?hl=%2Bmt1+%2Bmotor#entry2034133

Anyway just to point out that in dismantling them to figure it out I noticed that all the cogs inside the built in Vixen gearbox are brass whereas in the other one there are a couple of plastic ones. I imagine they've been selective and just used plastic on the ones that are under less strain

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haitch

haitch

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also to concur on the power supply - the DK3 controller I got had a blown voltage regulator which I think actually stepped it down to 6v internally so 9v would still be plenty and put less strain on the regulator. I replaced it with one from Maplin and I never had a problem with it thereafter on 12v - maybe cost cutting on components was the issue. Even if it does blow it is a really simple fix with only VERY basic soldering skills required.

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