What do you do when the mount's performance starts to deteriorate a bit, or a few years have gone by since the last time it has been serviced, and you don't have the time or the physical ability or the confidence to perform maintenance/tuning yourself?
Do you work with Sky-Watcher support and ship it to them? Or do you rely on 3rd party entities which you know are reliable - and/or, maybe, go beyond simple maintenance, but also venture in hypertuning or such?
From what I understand, the Hypertune folks don't do servicing anymore, and some Google search didn't bring up much else, other than some folks in the UK with mixed reviews. But, considering the weight of the mount, the more local the better - I would say…
Suggestions?
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It's going to cost money to ship it to skywatcher and back and also have them service it. Is that worth it? Might not be if the mount is older.
I just had a cq350 sent to them under warranty so it didn't cost anything but I imagine it would have been $500 USD on shipping alone + cost to service. If it was a eq6r and older(5+ years), I would sell it and buy a new one.
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Matthew Proulx:
...If it was a eq6r and older(5+ years), I would sell it and buy a new one. Yes, that's another option which I didn't dare mentioning in my original post.
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There are some tuning/refurb people around. Friend of mine got his overdone and now it runs better then ever before. Costs where around 500€- And as there are better parts installed now, it sure will last longer.
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I was in your shoes a year or so ago. No one was servicing the EQ6R anywhere so I dug into what a hypertune actually was. To the best of my knowledge, it was just replacing the bearings. So I found a list of all the bearings, ordered them (cost around $120 USD), and got to work. I was scared, but honestly its a fairly simple setup. There really isn't much to the mount mechanically. While I replaced all of the bearings, the only ones that actually had any issues were the small bearings for the worm gears. The hardest part or at least the part that took the most effort was tuning the backlash again after installing everything. After changing the bearings my guiding RMS went from 1.3" average to 0.6" - 0.8" average.
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I was scared, but honestly its a fairly simple setup. That's good to hear; that may be the path I need to settle for myself eventually.
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If you live in the UK, Darkframe service mounts and especially Skywatchers. I use him for servicing my 2 mounts.
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I also have an EQ6R-pro and I'm wondering what happened to your bearings? From a mechanical point of view, the bearings on a machine that operates at such a low RPM and low load should as a practical matter, last forever. What did you observe about the condition and what do you think happened? Is it possible water got to then or was it something else? Just want to know so I might be able to prevent it from happening in the first place.
As to the original post, there are a lot of videos on line that show how to rebuild one of these mounts which to my mind, is the only practical course of action. I would really encourage you to take this on as it's very easy. I wonder if you might find someone locally, a club member perhaps that has the tools and experience to help you? Any local machinist, even if not familiar with telescopes would be able to do this easily.
Lastly, it would be interesting to know exactly what in the mount's performance has degraded? Sometimes it's a matter of simple tuning that doesn't require anything other than removing a few covers and sometimes, not even that.
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If you live in the UK, Darkframe service mounts and especially Skywatchers. I use him for servicing my 2 mounts. Nope, Boston area in the US... I did notice that those UK guys provide shipment options from/to the US, but the impact on the overall cost would make @Matthew Proulx 's point even more relevant...
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If it is just feelable backlash, all you need is an allen key and a tutorial video. Like the on from "cuiv the lazy geek" and you will be good to go again in no time.
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Boston? There are a ton of helpful astro photographers in your area. Seriously, contacting a local club would be the way to go.
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Tony Gondola:
Lastly, it would be interesting to know exactly what in the mount's performance has degraded? Sometimes it's a matter of simple tuning that doesn't require anything other than removing a few covers and sometimes, not even that. So far, I can't really complain; guiding is excellent (0.30"-0.50"). I occasionally notice some "inertia" (I hesitate to call it backlash) in DEC which ends up delaying guiding calibration or settling after dithering; might be backlash (but I can't feel any play in DEC), might be some intrinsic defect of the worm or gear. But in the big picture that's fairly irrelevant. I am mostly thinking ahead, especially after I leave the telescope outside for a few weeks in a row (yes, yes, properly covered) in very warm or very cold weather - like it's quite typical in the Boston area.
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Tony Gondola:
Boston? There are a ton of helpful astro photographers in your area. Seriously, contacting a local club would be the way to go. I will try - good suggestion. Things seems quieter here in that regard than I would have expected when I moved from Italy; but it is true that I haven't made a big effort to look around.
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Andreas Auer:
If it is just feelable backlash, all you need is an allen key and a tutorial video. Like the on from "cuiv the lazy geek" and you will be good to go again in no time. Yes, that's easy; I already did it for RA, as the backlash was very "feelable" (even if I must say that never really impacted guiding numbers...).
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I've had my EQ6-R outside in North Carolina for over 2 years now. I did a hypertune a couple of years ago and it was a beast to get the gear mesh nailed down. This summer I noticed some oil on the altitude bolt, I assumed grease breaking down in the heat (yes covered, no the OTA is not outside except when in use). I tore it down and re-greased it. No biggie. Mesh was easier this time probably because I had done it before. I use a simple amp meter with 1mA accuracy (overkill!) and slew the mount through 360* of rotation in both Dec and RA (one at a time) at a slow speed, watching for any spikes in current which indicate micro binding. This time there was none. When I took it apart I noticed one of the worm gear locking ring things was loose. It's running better than ever now of course! Every 3 or 6 months I check on belt tension. With temp changes I have had them wear out. Easy to change and always better performance afterwards. In summary, if you can physically lift the mount I'd go for the DIY rebuild. But I wouldn't do it until things were starting to degrade in some way! And +1 to the mention of a local club. Good chance someone has done it before. Note, the only thing I _had_ to buy was grease and a blind hole bearing puller. Some of those bearings were a beast on my mount to get loose. YMMV, find (or make) a friend that has one  |
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Jewzaan, North Carolina,
Really hope you came through Helene OK. Stay safe.
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Tony Gondola:
I also have an EQ6R-pro and I'm wondering what happened to your bearings? Its always water. For me its unavoidable as I live on the coast and we have a good deal of salt in the air as well. The small bearings on the worm gears (I think RA was worse) had a small amount of rust on the casing and were grinding when you roll them. They weren't seized, but were not operating well. The bigger shaft bearings all seemed fine, but were replaced anyway. Another note was that the new bearings had more grease that felt thicker so the bearings definitely did not turn as freely as the old ones. That is not a problem, but if you didn't know you might think it was a problem.
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I tore it down and re-greased it. No biggie. Mesh was easier this time probably because I had done it before. I use a simple amp meter with 1mA accuracy (overkill!) and slew the mount through 360* of rotation in both Dec and RA (one at a time) at a slow speed, watching for any spikes in current which indicate micro binding. This time there was none. When I took it apart I noticed one of the worm gear locking ring things was loose. It's running better than ever now of course!
Every 3 or 6 months I check on belt tension. With temp changes I have had them wear out. Easy to change and always better performance afterwards. Your method of meshing seems a lot better than my guess and check method haha. Have you ever had to change mesh for summer vs winter? Also, where did you get replacement belts? I've been looking for some and I don't know where to go or what to get since Skywatcher doesn't sell them.
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Your method of meshing seems a lot better than my guess and check method haha. Have you ever had to change mesh for summer vs winter?
Also, where did you get replacement belts? I've been looking for some and I don't know where to go or what to get since Skywatcher doesn't sell them. I haven't noticed any difference with mesh in summer vs winter. I've been getting belts from Maedler though looks like my bookmark is not good anymore. This one looks to be the same though. https://maedlernorthamerica.com/partshop/polyurethane-timing-belt-t2-5-width-6mm-lw-177-5mm-71-teeth-6-t2-5-1775-pn-16060400/ |
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Your method of meshing seems a lot better than my guess and check method Meant to post the meter I use. Simply wired 2.1x5.5mm female and male plugs so I can put it in-line with the power to the mount. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07Y89632T/ |
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What do you do when the mount's performance starts to deteriorate a bit, or a few years have gone by since the last time it has been serviced, and you don't have the time or the physical ability or the confidence to perform maintenance/tuning yourself?
Do you work with Sky-Watcher support and ship it to them? Or do you rely on 3rd party entities which you know are reliable - and/or, maybe, go beyond simple maintenance, but also venture in hypertuning or such?
From what I understand, the Hypertune folks don't do servicing anymore, and some Google search didn't bring up much else, other than some folks in the UK with mixed reviews. But, considering the weight of the mount, the more local the better - I would say...
Suggestion It would depend on what country you're in but I believe you should be able to find exactly where to send it on via the global SkyWatcher website. https://www.skywatcher.com/where-to-buy/Now, from my personal experience, I had to replace the motherboard was burned out by using an older camera that didn't have a built-in relay that isolates the old SBIG camera/autoguider from the mount and both stepper motors (don't know how that happened) . I ordered both from SkyWatcher and installed them myself. So, if you're mechanically inclined, you may be able to avoid shipping off your mount. Also, there are tutorials online for tuning up a EQ6-R. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hzAh6ro8YU |
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Hi, I followed some well done tutos on youtube (astrobloke as an exemple) to dismount and rebuild my EQ6R completely and replace all the bearings and retune it (tension of the belts, backlash, fine alignement of worm gear with RA and DEC bronze gears). Not so hard to do, requires some dedicated tool that one can buy or build easily on its own (like the one to dismound the annular bolts at the extremety of the worm trains) but a lot of people have done it. You just need to take pictures of each step when you dismount something to be sure to rebuild it the exact same way and you need to have plastic bags to keep all the screws, bolts, etc one by one with labels to avoid mixing things and not remembering what was what? And you have to be patient when you dismount the bearings, some of them are coming easily, some of them does not come naturaly square and binds in their housing. You just need to take your time and never use brute force. Besides these simple advices everything went good for me and it is incredibly smooth after and guide around 0.6 RMS. Pierre astro even sell a complete step by step procedure as they sell some repair parts.
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Frédéric Ruciak:
Hi, I followed some well done tutos on youtube (astrobloke as an exemple) to dismount and rebuild my EQ6R completely and replace all the bearings and retune it (tension of the belts, backlash, fine alignement of worm gear with RA and DEC bronze gears). Not so hard to do, requires some dedicated tool that one can buy or build easily on its own (like the one to dismound the annular bolts at the extremety of the worm trains) but a lot of people have done it. You just need to take pictures of each step when you dismount something to be sure to rebuild it the exact same way and you need to have plastic bags to keep all the screws, bolts, etc one by one with labels to avoid mixing things and not remembering what was what? And you have to be patient when you dismount the bearings, some of them are coming easily, some of them does not come naturaly square and binds in their housing. You just need to take your time and never use brute force. Besides these simple advices everything went good for me and it is incredibly smooth after and guide around 0.6 RMS. Pierre astro even sell a complete step by step procedure as they sell some repair parts. I remember what happened to the stepper motor. I don't remember if it was RA or DEC but I put too much tension on the pulley (RA and DEC rotates via a pulley belt moved by a stepper motor - you can see it in the link in the tutorial) If they are not a little bit loose, it is too tight and it will break the stepper motor shaft. So, be careful not to make it too tight.
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