Hi out there,
I need some suggestions or possible solutions for a strange problem I had during the last weeks. I while ago, I bought a Skywatcher EQ5 Pro mount for a second setup beside my EQ6-R and for about 6 months everything seems to work fine. I keep my setups outside and cover them with Telegizmo covers. Then I had no opportunity to take images for a while and after a pause of about another 6 months, I used it for the first time after this period. While the EQ6-R works without any issues, I realized on the EQ5, that the DEC axis drift away quite heavily (I use PHD2) and that there seems to be a huge backlash. So I decided to adjust it and took care of it. It seemed, that one of the motors was not screwed in properly (RA-axis), but the DEC motor seems to be ok. I could feel a little bit of backlash and removed it. In theory it seems to be an improvement. But during the night, the guiding graph of PHD2 really was still terrible (only in the DEC axis) and no matter what I do, the backlash seems not to go away or get better in any way. I can't count anymore, how often I took the mount apart and worked on it to repair it. Oh, I forgot to mention that every setup is controlled by its own PC. Nearly everything is done remotely.
After many tries, I decided to buy a new NEQ6, which I would have bought anyway, soon. It arrived yesterday and I set it up and as the darkness comes, I realized the same issues with a totally different mount. The DEC axis seems to guide for a while and with guiding pulses in one direction (North) it works well. The mount seemed to be setup quite well, because the Dec axis drifts away really slow. But as soon as the guiding pulses to the south occur, it felt to me that the motor is correcting in the wrong direction. Instead of guiding the star back to its initial position, the pulses seems to add to the error. With every pulse, the star moves further away from where it should be. The occuring error can't result from the badly adjusted mount, cause it seems to work for a while until the error occurs. There is no cable lag. I checked it several times.
The solution for my new EQ6 was, to create a new profile in PHD2. Doing this, I hoped to reset all the program settings and it worked. Oh boy - and how it worked! The new mount had initially an average guiding error of about 0.5 arcsecs. The graph looked really smooth and I never had such good guiding performance before. I hope it stays that way. It was only one night so far.
The conclusion now is, that maybe the EQ5 itself wasn't the only part of the problem. I can't remember to change something in the settings of PHD2 before. But maybe I have. But with the new profile averything seems to be ok. That means that the software settings were not right. I wasn't able to check the behaviour of the EQ5 with a new profile, yet. Maybe, it takes some time to check it. But after so many tries to repair it, it's the only hope that's left.
The question is now, what I may have done in the settings of PHD2. I looked at many of the settings and I could not find anything that seems to cause this issue or reverse the direction of the motor. There were so many calibration runs I've done. The guiding assistant reported a huge amount of backlash (more than 22 seconds). Does anyone have an idea what I'm missing here?
Thank you for your replies.
CS
Christian
I need some suggestions or possible solutions for a strange problem I had during the last weeks. I while ago, I bought a Skywatcher EQ5 Pro mount for a second setup beside my EQ6-R and for about 6 months everything seems to work fine. I keep my setups outside and cover them with Telegizmo covers. Then I had no opportunity to take images for a while and after a pause of about another 6 months, I used it for the first time after this period. While the EQ6-R works without any issues, I realized on the EQ5, that the DEC axis drift away quite heavily (I use PHD2) and that there seems to be a huge backlash. So I decided to adjust it and took care of it. It seemed, that one of the motors was not screwed in properly (RA-axis), but the DEC motor seems to be ok. I could feel a little bit of backlash and removed it. In theory it seems to be an improvement. But during the night, the guiding graph of PHD2 really was still terrible (only in the DEC axis) and no matter what I do, the backlash seems not to go away or get better in any way. I can't count anymore, how often I took the mount apart and worked on it to repair it. Oh, I forgot to mention that every setup is controlled by its own PC. Nearly everything is done remotely.
After many tries, I decided to buy a new NEQ6, which I would have bought anyway, soon. It arrived yesterday and I set it up and as the darkness comes, I realized the same issues with a totally different mount. The DEC axis seems to guide for a while and with guiding pulses in one direction (North) it works well. The mount seemed to be setup quite well, because the Dec axis drifts away really slow. But as soon as the guiding pulses to the south occur, it felt to me that the motor is correcting in the wrong direction. Instead of guiding the star back to its initial position, the pulses seems to add to the error. With every pulse, the star moves further away from where it should be. The occuring error can't result from the badly adjusted mount, cause it seems to work for a while until the error occurs. There is no cable lag. I checked it several times.
The solution for my new EQ6 was, to create a new profile in PHD2. Doing this, I hoped to reset all the program settings and it worked. Oh boy - and how it worked! The new mount had initially an average guiding error of about 0.5 arcsecs. The graph looked really smooth and I never had such good guiding performance before. I hope it stays that way. It was only one night so far.
The conclusion now is, that maybe the EQ5 itself wasn't the only part of the problem. I can't remember to change something in the settings of PHD2 before. But maybe I have. But with the new profile averything seems to be ok. That means that the software settings were not right. I wasn't able to check the behaviour of the EQ5 with a new profile, yet. Maybe, it takes some time to check it. But after so many tries to repair it, it's the only hope that's left.
The question is now, what I may have done in the settings of PHD2. I looked at many of the settings and I could not find anything that seems to cause this issue or reverse the direction of the motor. There were so many calibration runs I've done. The guiding assistant reported a huge amount of backlash (more than 22 seconds). Does anyone have an idea what I'm missing here?
Thank you for your replies.
CS
Christian
