When the RA clutch is undone, the whole RA/DEC assy ( including the RA axle ) spins freely, but the wormwheel stays put, ( hence why the wormwheel must be a sliding fit on the axle ) The slow motion handle turns the worm that is engaged with the wormwheel assy.Īs long as they are connected together, the only way to move the wormwheel is to use the slomo control. Question though: if the worm gear can spin on the RA shaft, what prevents it from just spinning in place while you use the slow motion knob when the clutch is locked? Then it can be cleaned/polished with some fine wetndry sandpaper as required.
Eq2 dry eye entangler free#
You might just break it free enough to get it out. Or, fit the nut to the end of the shaft to protect the threads and then hammer on the nut. Try hammering the alternate ends of the axle with a piece of wood first ( as the wood wont damage the shaft ) It is a stainless shaft and an alloy wormwheel, so i guess it has some grit/dried grease or mild corrosion in there, but it shouldnt be badly "rusted" together or anything. Penetrating oil, a bit of heat if necessary and a soft hammer. You can clearly see the galling on the top end of my wormwheel assy, where the clutch screw has been biting in. When you tighten the RA clutch, the end of the screw bites into the top section of the wormwheel assy and hence locks the casting to the wormwheel. When the worm is fitted, the wormwheel assy becomes locked ( relative to the main base casting ), but the whole RA axle assembly can still spin freely around it. When first assembled the wormwheel assy can spin freely on the axle. I even added extra loctite to mine to get a more rigid fit. That threaded joint should be rock solid. There is a set screw in the mount that prevents the shaft from backing out entirely and provide some stability. The mount can spin freely on the thread in the front with the clutch unlocked. The "front" end of the shaft has a male thread that screws into a female thread inside the mount.Ĭorrect, and that is the main strength joint that holds it all together. Ie it is totally free to move on the axle. If you look at my piccies, you can see it is a neat ( but ) sliding fit on the shaft, The RA clock gear is fixed to the shaft and rotates with it (at least on my admitted broken RA axis). With the clutch locked, the mount's relationship to the RA shaft is fixed, and the shaft can rotate only if the clock gear turns. When placed in the alt/az fork mount, the clock gear meshes with the slo-motion worm gear. The "front" end of the shaft has a male thread that screws into a female thread inside the mount. I'd like someone to clarify how the RA mount is supposed to work to see if I am thinking the right way about it. I'm not really sure what happened, but it appears that the female threads in mount got stripped. Never taken mine apart, yet, so I dunno what's in there. Could yours have gotten stripped from being locked? Just a thought. I think I will make sure to leave both axes unlocked when I transport it in the future. But, your post gives me an idea of what kind of things can go wrong. And, I have transported the mount many times. I've also never had any trouble with my RA operation, clutch or otherwise. I've had my eq2 for about six years with no trouble other than the dec clutch will work loose sometimes. I guess a better way to say it is that the worm and clock gears are fully engaged and I can't rotate the mount in RA freely. I can't move the scope normally, only with the slow-motion controls. The problem is now that when re-assembling, the worm and clock gear remain meshed and the shaft stays locked.
I think that the polar shaft came loose from the mount either through too much stress or the set screw backing out.
Is it binding when using the slomo contols, or are they working smoothly? It shouldn't move when you tighten the clutches, except for using the slomo controls. I'd check with my local astro club if nothing else as someone there could probably tell you what's wrong with it. If that isn't right, you can have some slippage at best, and chewed up gears at worst.at least that's my understanding of it on my CG4.Pretty certain it's a very similar, if somewhat smaller, version on the EQ2. The gears have to mesh correctly and that requires a specific amount of tension between the worm gear and the "clock" gear.
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