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Re: Of Mice and Mounts

thefamily90 Phillips
 

Just ordered one. Maybe two?
Very high humidity here in S.C.
I also use a TGZ 365

Jim

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From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of W Hilmo <y.groups@...>
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2020 6:07:24 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Of Mice and Mounts
 

The Goldenrod gets warm, not hot.  I can easily touch it when it’s running.

 

To mount it, I used the plastic stand-offs included with the Goldenrods and attached them to thin strips of plywood.  I then zip tie the plywood strips to the turnbuckles on my portable field pier.

 

From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> On Behalf Of thefamily90 Phillips
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2020 2:35 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Of Mice and Mounts

 

Since the goldenrod gets hot, how do you attach it to the mount?

 

Jim

 

From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of Stuart <stuart.j.heggie@...>
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2020 5:21:45 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Of Mice and Mounts

 

Ouch! Happened to me TWICE! Once with one of those "red" mounts and then once when a few of the critters got into the OTA of my Planewave 12.5" and down behind the primary and ate EVERYTHING. OMG. What a mess. In both cases the cost of repair was high. And my insurance policy explicitly lists mice under "Not covered for damage by vermin".

 

 

 

On Fri, 17 Jul 2020 at 17:58, uncarollo2 <chris1011@...> via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:

Lat week during an imaging session in my observatory I happened to see a mouse rappelling down the power cord on my nearby 1600 mount. Rather strange, I thought, that mice would use wires as highways up and down a telescope pier.

 

Then last night, as I was getting ready to do some imaging with the 17" astrograph on that 1600 mount, I ran into a familiar problem. The Dec axis ran for 1 second and stopped, with the yellow light coming on in the CP4 controller. I looked up the open hole in the back of the RA (yes I forgot to put the plug back in last August) and saw some shredded paper way up in the Dec axis cavity. I knew then I had to get into the Dec axis and check out the damage.

 

Since I had a large astrograph on the mount, I decided to put the mount counterweight down, scope on top and lock the axes clutch knobs tight. Without removing the scope, I removed all the counterweights, the counterweight shaft and unscrewed the counterweight adapter from the end of the Dec axis. Here's what it looked like:

 

 

After cleaning out the mess:

 

 

The mice had chewed on all the wires and broke several of them. Fortunately I have lots of practice soldering. I pulled out the Dec connector wire along with the crossover box:

 

 

The mice had damage 6 of the 8 wires. With some matching pieces of wire, some heat shrink tubing I spliced in the damaged portions:

 

 

Finished cable wrapped with some electrical tape. Did it work? YES, the mount is back in business and the scope is imaging again.

 


--

Stuart
http://www.astrofoto.ca/stuartheggie/

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