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NEQ6 Strip & Tune


MG1

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Hi kookoo - I have an HEQ5 strip down guide on my site. Its very slighly different to the EQ6 in strip down but its tuning would be the same, the shim sizes would be different as to the best of my recollection the bearing sizes are smaller in the HEQ5.

The process wpuld be the same. My own HEQ5 was stripped and rebuilt with better lubrication and better tuning of the worm gears and runs like a dream now.

Take a look here HEQ5 Strip Down Guide for the guide.

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i have used your guide for my mount and it was very easy to do it. now i strip it down with my eyes closed. i just wanted to know about the process for the shims if it is the same for the heq5 pro in order to hyper tune it in the near future

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A couple of things that may help.

Obtain a strap wrench. B&Q sell the rubber (not chain) version for about £8. Makes strip and rebuild easy.

I had significant worm drive issues.

Loose at one point to almost jamming at another. So I lapped the gears. Got valve lapping kit from Halfords. Made an adaptor for my drill to drive the worm.

Adjusted the gears so they were firm at the "loose" section. Applied the finest paste for the kit. Started the drill. Lapping in progress. Let it run till there was no change in the sound of the drill motor. About 30 mins in each direction.

Readjusted gear mesh then done the same again.

Mega clean out. No traces of grinding paste can be left.

Readjusted gear mesh. Then lapped with autosol polish. Got from Halfords. This polish in actually a very fine grinding paste.

Clean out.

Readjusted. Very minor adjustment needed. Ran on drill and autosol for about an hour.

Clean out. Reassemble with decent grease.

Using PHD guiding with an Orion 80mm 400mm scope and orion starshoot guider, my pec is about a quarter of the first division lines.

Two things to note:

1. All gear meshing must be accurate before you start.

2. When you first start lapping it sounds awful.

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That sounds interesting....was just talking to a chap at Kielder about lapping the worm gear....what's in the halfords kit and was it expensive?

I'm going to get a little more 'involved' with this mount in the summer when I can access the engineering labs without interfering with student projects!

All good stuff....and if it gets pec that low! Wow!

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Second question....

When washing out the bearings my eldest observed that when dry and not greased the bearings run much faster and asked the question'why bother greasing them - the run more freely without grease and lets face it the telescope is hardly whizzing along at many revs so why not leave them dry ?'

Its a damn good question and I cant think of an answer - any ideas ?

Apologies for jumping in at this late stage.

When I did my strip, tune and rebuild I packed the thrust bearings fully with superlube. The one downside I've found is that it's slightly tighter than before and therefore more difficult to get an accurate balance.

If I slacken the thrust bearing retaining nuts to ease the stiffness then I can feel a bit of play. Next time I have a free day I'll clean them out again, lightly re-grease them and see if that makes much difference.

I went with ceramic bearings for the 608's, as that was what most people were using, I also bought a set of these afterwards and will try these at some point in the future. They did feel silky smooth, probably better than the ceramics.

I did consider lapping the worm gears but bottled out, I would have thought that valve grinding paste is too course, I think even the fine stuff is ~60 microns. I was planing on starting with the 12-22 micron compound and moving on to the 0-2 micron paste from this page.

Cheers,

Ian

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My brass gear was in a right state, so I chanced the Halfords kit.

However, it has turned out really well.

The site selling the other compounds seems very expensive.

Don't forget it's the final finish that counts.

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My brass gear was in a right state, so I chanced the Halfords kit.

However, it has turned out really well.

The site selling the other compounds seems very expensive.

Don't forget it's the final finish that counts.

Halfords kit?

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The problem with lapping in situ is that the Worm Wheel becomes the lap as it's the softer component. Also the lapped area of the Worm itself will be concentrated in one place.

Also unless you take steps to completely remove all media the wheel will still be a lap for a long long time.

The ideal scenario is to use a soft worm to lap the wheel and a sacrificial wheel to lap the worm. We don't live in an ideal world of course.

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The worm appears to be stainless steel. This is harder than brass.

The worm shows no sign of lapping, but the brass gear is now nice and smooth.

It started out with significant tooth damage (no dental jokes please!) and burrs. Now runs quiet, no play and the motors do not change in noise level at all.

If it was the worm gear that had been lapped then it would have play at different points of the brass gear, and tight at other points as it used to.

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I really enjoyed reading this thread, a good rebuild. I'm in the process of turning my black eq6 into a fast slewing highly tuned beasty (I hope), and I read a fair bit on bearing replacement but as with mine I need to change the transfer gear ratios so I wondered if I changed the gears from straight to helical cut, would it have a great improvement in any periodic error.

HPC do both ranges of gears.

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That's beyond my knowledge I'm afraid...but someone else may know. However, you could try posting on the EQ6 yahoo group and I'm sure you'll get an answer there.

If you do please let us know as I'm interested.

Sorry I don't have a link to hand as I'm on my phone.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Welcome to the world of Chinese manufacturing! I've seen gearboxes in Chinese machinery churning up swarf, maybe they think it makes them quieter.

Swarf! That was the very word I was looking for, but for the life of me could not think of it.

Anyway, I have now checked the mount under load with the scope and counterweights on and it is much better than before.

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