is there anything us new mount owners should check after unpacking

Normally nothing to check. However, if you are curious, the motor boxes have covers that can be removed and you can watch the motors doing their thing. We have always encouraged people to remove the covers to see how things work under the hood.

Rolando

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffc <jeffcrilly@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Thu, Mar 4, 2021 4:36 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Problem with first startup of Mach2 -- obstruction / grinding sound

Roland -- thx for the detailed explanation.  

> Apparently I must have tightened only two of the 4 and left the other two loose.

I'm just wondering.. is there anything us new mount owners should check after unpacking and before powering up?   Sorta like a final QA?

(Mach2 is scheduled to arrive monday.)

thx

-jeff

On Thu, Mar 4, 2021 at 10:13 AM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:

hello All,

With the help of our mount owner we found the problem. He was able to locate the obstruction on the gear teeth by removing the grease cover on the side of the mount that exposes the worm gear teeth. There was a tiny washer that had worked its way into the gear teeth. Two screws had vibrated loose, probably during shipping, and fallen into the gearbox along with their washers.

This is entirely my fault since i do all the final assembly and testing of the Mach2 mounts. One of the final things I do is to adjust the belt tension, and this requires loosening the 4 screws holding the motor in place. Apparently I must have tightened only two of the 4 and left the other two loose. Murphy's law states that any loose screws will always loosen more and fall out to jam up the gears. The corollary is that they will only tighten up if that causes the machinery to jam. I will change my procedure based on this unfortunate occurrence in order to prevent this from happening again.

Roland

(donning dunce hat of shame )

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics