Fitting a RA motor to EQ1

[valleyman]

Help needed, how easy is it to fit a Motor to a EQ 1 mount for RA

any advice or photo's would be welcome

Pat

[Merlin66]

The motor available for the EQ1 is a pretty simple affair. Just the fixed speed motor ( well there is some fine adjustment -just!) which comes with a small bracket to fit the mount. A flexible control knob is removed from the RA worm drive (if fitted) and the flexible connector (supplied) slipped over the shaft and tightened.

On the old one I had when the motor was fitted you needed to slightly undo the clamp handle on the mount to allow the scope to be moved manually.

I'm sure someone will come along with an image.....

[themos]

Instructions from SkyWatcher site

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtsupport/Instruction_Manuals/EQ1FixedRate.pdf

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net/swtsupport/Instruction_Manuals/EQ1Single.pdf

[Merlin66]

The one I had was obviously the EQ1 SIMPLE version.....

[valleyman]

Going on from that. can a motor for an EQ2 mount fit a EQ1 as shown here

Skywatcher - Skywatcher RA Motor Drive for EQ2

[jgs001]

A bit like...

This is the connection from the motor drive to the axis. The motor is clipped to the bottom of the mount by an allen bolt..You can see the bracket behind the attachment, it affixes to the altitude adjustment centre point. I don't have it setup at the moment, but I'll try and sort it out and take a couple of shots of it for you...

Ken can't anymore, as I have the motor now ...

[themos]

Going on from that. can a motor for an EQ2 mount fit a EQ1 as shown here

Skywatcher - Skywatcher RA Motor Drive for EQ2

No! No! No!

I just bought and sold one of those and they are useless for the EQ1: can't mount them properly and the tracking rate is vastly different as the EQ1 and EQ2 have different gearing.

Unless you can fabricate your own bracket and feel that you can replace soldered electronic components (a crystal oscillator, I think, possibly more) make sure you get something that says "for EQ1".

I don't understand why you can't buy the EQ1 motor version separately but you can buy the whole EQ1 tabletop + motor

[valleyman]

Thanks Themos, will just got for the basic EQ1 motor then

[themos]

Just be aware of its limitations, ok for visual, hopeless for imaging (except planetary).

edit: well, not hopeless exactly, but is a faff and a half.

[themos]

The multi-speed EQ1 motor (the one with the separate handset and more accurate tracking) seems to have surfaced!

ebay item # 150551822902

[valleyman]

Just got one with the dual speed handset fitted and working, will test it tonight on Jupitor

[steppenwolf]

You might want to consider installing a polarscope too as it is notoriously difficult to view along the RA axis to get a bead on Polaris!