Re: clutch tightening
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George
Steve,
There is not a right or wrong answer to your question. Here is the wording from the manual:
“How tight can the clutch be and can you
do any damage by pushing against them? As a final note, There is not a single “right way” to use the clutches, just as there is no perfect all-purpose telescope. Here are some hints and guidelines: The longer and / or heavier the scope, the tighter you will want the clutches The more accurate the balancing, the less clutch tension that will be required Permanent setups will generally have tighter clutches than portable setups. Imaging setups will generally have tighter clutches than visual setups. Loosen clutches for transport to avoid putting any undue stress on the worm gear.”
Regards,
George
George Whitney Astro-Physics, Inc. Phone: 815-282-1513 Email: george@...
From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 4:43 PM To: ap-gto@... Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Re: clutch tightening
I'm not in a position to check either copy at the moment, that's why I asked. "Yes" or "No" ought to suffice. Steve
From:
ap-gto@... <ap-gto@...> on behalf of
JunkMailGoesHere@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...>
Umm, and what does the manual say? I think you got both a hardcopy and a pdf version with the mount.
I'm new at the AP mounts, got the 1100, and it's fantastic quality.
Question: Are we meant to tighten RA and Dec clutches using the Allen key? Or just finger tight? (due to the ball bearing in the knob, there's always friction even when loose, hence this question).
Steve
From:
ap-gto@... <ap-gto@...> on behalf of chris1011@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...>
If you are always portable, you really don't need homing, there are alternate ways of recovering from a bad sync or other user error. Right now we don't have this homing feature for our keypad, but that could change when we add new keypad software in the near future. The new Homing feature is really meant for those who always control their permanently setup mount from a computer and may not always be there by the mount.
For those who are portable and set up fresh each night, if you have any glitch that causes the mount to point wrong and you cannot figure out what may be wrong or you cannot recover from the error, do this simple trick: 1) loosen all clutches so that the scope can swing free in both axes. 2) Hang onto the scope while you send the mount to Park3. When the mount gets to the park position (motors stop turning), place the mount physically to Park 3 position, re-tighten the clutches and you are ready to proceed with your normal mount operation.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
Hi Greg,
Thank you for a very nice review. I am glad that you are getting great results with the mount and look forward to you more images from the southern hemisphere.
Meanwhile we have been working very hard all year on some important upgrades (software etc) to our mounts. We have listened to all you guys' concerns out ther e, and will present this new stuff at the upcoming AIC conference in San Jose next month. All these upgrades will be backwards compatible to our existing mounts.
One of the things that you mentioned, the homing feature, will be available to all our mounts without any changes to the mechanics. The basic smarts are already in every mount, it just needed a clever way to implement it via new software, and that's one of the things Ray Gralack has developed and Howard is diligently trying to break :^)) - (so far no bugs found) Therefore, if the mount ever gets lost due to incorrect sync or calibration or laptop computer hiccups, simply pressing HOME will send the mount to the home position and recalibrate it to an exact starting point with respect to the sky.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
I wrote an unsolicited review on the AP1600GTO I got recently 2nd hand. Its a very positive and glowing review and I compare it to other mounts I have used including Paramount ME, Paramount MX, Takahashi NJP and others. The mount is amazing.
Greg.
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