Hi Rich -

Thanks for your note. That wasn't the problem, but I did figure it out this
morning (my initial theory of it being a stupid question was pretty spot on!).

My mistake was trying to put the counterweight on _after_ already threading the
counterweight shaft onto the mount. I didn't initially realize that the
counterweight shaft diameter gets noticably wider right at the end -- it almost
makes the safety plug at the end redundant.

When I took the shaft off of the mount and tried putting the weight over the
threaded end, it worked fine. It will slide freely up and down the shaft until
it gets within about 1/2 inch of the bottom where it then stops (because the
shaft is wider).

What I need to do is first put the weight on the shaft, and then thread the
shaft into the mount. I've not encountered this on other mounts I've used (my
other mount is a Vixen Great Polaris). As I intend to use a reasonably wide
range of instrument weights on this, I suspect I'll get a fair amount of
practice threading and unthreading this shaft.

Thanks.

Paul









"Rich N." <rnapo@...> on 03/26/2000 05:42:01 AM

Please respond to ap-gto@...








To: ap-gto@...

cc: (bcc: Paul Schroeder/US/DataCard)



Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question . . .



Fax to:




Are you sure you have the set screw backed out all
the way? There is bronze "nose" that "floats" in the
hole. I always slide the weight on the shaft with the
knob on the weight pointing down so that this floating
bronze nose will stay clear of the shaft. Once the weight
is on the shaft I rotate the weight so the knob is on top.

Maybe there is a little burr in the hole where the bronze
nose stick through?

Rich

Hi all -

Well, my 600E GTO arrived from AP earlier this week-- it is absolutely

gorgeous

and very solid. Tonight the skies cleared up nicely, and I had hoped to

give it

a brief test drive.

Alas, I got tripped up by a fairly (very?) mundane problem.

Put simply, I couldn't get the 9 pound counterweight to slip over the
counterweight shaft. It was _incredibly_ tight. With maximum hand

pressure, I

couldn't get the shaft more than 1/4 inch into the counterweight.

The only conceivable way I could have gotten it in further would be to do

some

serious banging with a rubber mallet. I didn't feel very comfortable doing

this

with a brand new mount. As it was, it took both me and my son pulling very

hard

to get the shaft out of the counterweight (even though it was only 1/4 inch
in!).

Are the counterweights normally this snug? Is there a break-in period to
"loosen" the collar inside the counterweight, or does this sound unusual?

I'll call AP on Monday, but if anyone had any suggestions maybe I could try
again yet tonight (or tomorrow night).

Thanks and best regards,

Paul Schroeder



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good friends, school spirit, hair-dos you'd like to forget.
Classmates.com has them all. And with 4.4 million alumni already
registered, there's a good chance you'll find your friends here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/2637/3/_/3615/_/954043411/

-- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault
-- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/ap-gto/?m=1

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100% Free Service Every Driver Can Use! Get free, no obligation
auto insurance quotes now at InsWeb. Simply fill out one form
and compare rates from leading companies. See if you can save!
http://click.egroups.com/1/2448/3/_/3615/_/954067320/

eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/ap-gto/
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Hi Paul:

I have only had my 900 GTO for a little over a week and only had a chance to
use it once but have a suggestion for you. I thread the counterweight shaft
on first, then slide the counterweights on. I found that although I had
loosened the counterweight knob , if the counterweights were facing up, the
brass pin would slide down and get in the way of sliding the counterweights
up the shaft. So I just rotated the counterweights so that they faced
downward and gravity would cause the brass pin to slide out of the way. Once
the counterweights were on the shaft I just rotated them around so that the
knobs are at a more convenient position for me to adjust.

Hope this helps,

Eric

planetary and comet drawings at:
http://www.metro2000.net/~ericj

Paul Schroeder wrote:

Hi Paul,

You did get it to work... but you also uncovered a flaw in the counterweight
shaft. You should have a shaft with a uniform diameter and you should have
no difficulty adding or removing counterweights with the shaft screwed
firmly into the mount. Get it replaced. There is no reason to have to
remove the shaft in order to remove or add weights.

BTW, If you are using a refractor, you might want to check out a minor
modification that I made to help balance the DEC. axis so that one can
easily switch from visual to photographic use of the telescope without
having to resort to sliding the OTA in the dovetail mount. Prior to that
modification, I found that adjusting the DEC. balance would throw off
critical polar alignment: but I don't have that problem any more. See:
http://home.att.net/~kldenmark/equipment/decbar.html

Regards,

Larry Denmark

E-mail . . . kldenmark@...
Web site . . http://home.att.net/~kldenmark/

Hi Rich -

Thanks for your note. That wasn't the problem, but I did figure it out

this

morning (my initial theory of it being a stupid question was pretty spot

on!).

My mistake was trying to put the counterweight on _after_ already

threading the

counterweight shaft onto the mount. I didn't initially realize that the
counterweight shaft diameter gets noticably wider right at the end -- it

almost

makes the safety plug at the end redundant.

When I took the shaft off of the mount and tried putting the weight over

the

threaded end, it worked fine. It will slide freely up and down the shaft

until

it gets within about 1/2 inch of the bottom where it then stops (because

the

shaft is wider).

What I need to do is first put the weight on the shaft, and then thread

the

shaft into the mount. I've not encountered this on other mounts I've used

(my

other mount is a Vixen Great Polaris). As I intend to use a reasonably

wide

range of instrument weights on this, I suspect I'll get a fair amount of
practice threading and unthreading this shaft.

Thanks.

Paul









"Rich N." <rnapo@...> on 03/26/2000 05:42:01 AM

Please respond to ap-gto@...








To: ap-gto@...

cc: (bcc: Paul Schroeder/US/DataCard)



Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question . . .



Fax to:




Are you sure you have the set screw backed out all
the way? There is bronze "nose" that "floats" in the
hole. I always slide the weight on the shaft with the
knob on the weight pointing down so that this floating
bronze nose will stay clear of the shaft. Once the weight
is on the shaft I rotate the weight so the knob is on top.

Maybe there is a little burr in the hole where the bronze
nose stick through?

Rich

Hi all -

Well, my 600E GTO arrived from AP earlier this week-- it is absolutely

gorgeous

and very solid. Tonight the skies cleared up nicely, and I had hoped to

give it

a brief test drive.

Alas, I got tripped up by a fairly (very?) mundane problem.

Put simply, I couldn't get the 9 pound counterweight to slip over the
counterweight shaft. It was _incredibly_ tight. With maximum hand

pressure, I

couldn't get the shaft more than 1/4 inch into the counterweight.

The only conceivable way I could have gotten it in further would be to do

some

serious banging with a rubber mallet. I didn't feel very comfortable

doing

this

with a brand new mount. As it was, it took both me and my son pulling

very

hard

to get the shaft out of the counterweight (even though it was only 1/4

inch

in!).

Are the counterweights normally this snug? Is there a break-in period to
"loosen" the collar inside the counterweight, or does this sound unusual?

I'll call AP on Monday, but if anyone had any suggestions maybe I could

try

again yet tonight (or tomorrow night).

Thanks and best regards,

Paul Schroeder



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good friends, school spirit, hair-dos you'd like to forget.
Classmates.com has them all. And with 4.4 million alumni already
registered, there's a good chance you'll find your friends here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/2637/3/_/3615/_/954043411/

-- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault
-- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/ap-gto/?m=1

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100% Free Service Every Driver Can Use! Get free, no obligation
auto insurance quotes now at InsWeb. Simply fill out one form
and compare rates from leading companies. See if you can save!
http://click.egroups.com/1/2448/3/_/3615/_/954067320/

eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/ap-gto/
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications






------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn more with SmartPlanet. It's a new way of learning online.
SmartPlanet offers hundreds of courses to take on your time,
in your space. Join for FREE today!
http://click.egroups.com/1/1700/3/_/3615/_/954075570/

-- Easily schedule meetings and events using the group calendar!
-- http://www.egroups.com/cal?listname=ap-gto&m=1

Egad! That doesn't seem like a practical thing to do. I always put the cw
bar on first then attach the weights by sliding onto the shaft. So what
this implies that is that you have to load the shaft first, then attempt to
screw it with all that weight onto the mount? This simply can't be the
case. Please contact Astro Physics on Monday and find out if this is their
intention. Tell us it just isn't so. ;-0


John Gleason, dvj@...
http://www.celestialimage.com



----------

From: Paul_Schroeder@...
To: ap-gto@...
Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question - figured it out
Date: Sunday, March 26, 2000 4:57 AM



Hi Rich -

Thanks for your note. That wasn't the problem, but I did figure it out

this

morning (my initial theory of it being a stupid question was pretty spot

on!).

My mistake was trying to put the counterweight on _after_ already

threading the

counterweight shaft onto the mount. I didn't initially realize that the
counterweight shaft diameter gets noticably wider right at the end -- it

almost

makes the safety plug at the end redundant.

When I took the shaft off of the mount and tried putting the weight over

the

threaded end, it worked fine. It will slide freely up and down the shaft

until

it gets within about 1/2 inch of the bottom where it then stops (because

the

shaft is wider).

What I need to do is first put the weight on the shaft, and then thread

the

shaft into the mount. I've not encountered this on other mounts I've

used (my

other mount is a Vixen Great Polaris). As I intend to use a reasonably

wide

range of instrument weights on this, I suspect I'll get a fair amount of
practice threading and unthreading this shaft.

Thanks.

Paul









"Rich N." <rnapo@...> on 03/26/2000 05:42:01 AM

Please respond to ap-gto@...

To: ap-gto@...

cc: (bcc: Paul Schroeder/US/DataCard)



Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question . . .



Fax to:




Are you sure you have the set screw backed out all
the way? There is bronze "nose" that "floats" in the
hole. I always slide the weight on the shaft with the
knob on the weight pointing down so that this floating
bronze nose will stay clear of the shaft. Once the weight
is on the shaft I rotate the weight so the knob is on top.

Maybe there is a little burr in the hole where the bronze
nose stick through?

Rich

Hi all -

Well, my 600E GTO arrived from AP earlier this week-- it is absolutely

gorgeous

and very solid. Tonight the skies cleared up nicely, and I had hoped to

give it

a brief test drive.

Alas, I got tripped up by a fairly (very?) mundane problem.

Put simply, I couldn't get the 9 pound counterweight to slip over the
counterweight shaft. It was _incredibly_ tight. With maximum hand

pressure, I

couldn't get the shaft more than 1/4 inch into the counterweight.

The only conceivable way I could have gotten it in further would be to

do

some

serious banging with a rubber mallet. I didn't feel very comfortable

doing

this

with a brand new mount. As it was, it took both me and my son pulling

very

hard

to get the shaft out of the counterweight (even though it was only 1/4

inch

in!).

Are the counterweights normally this snug? Is there a break-in period

to

"loosen" the collar inside the counterweight, or does this sound

unusual?

I'll call AP on Monday, but if anyone had any suggestions maybe I could

try

again yet tonight (or tomorrow night).

Thanks and best regards,

Paul Schroeder



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good friends, school spirit, hair-dos you'd like to forget.
Classmates.com has them all. And with 4.4 million alumni already
registered, there's a good chance you'll find your friends here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/2637/3/_/3615/_/954043411/

-- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault
-- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/ap-gto/?m=1

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100% Free Service Every Driver Can Use! Get free, no obligation
auto insurance quotes now at InsWeb. Simply fill out one form
and compare rates from leading companies. See if you can save!
http://click.egroups.com/1/2448/3/_/3615/_/954067320/

eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/ap-gto/
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications






------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn more with SmartPlanet. It's a new way of learning online.
SmartPlanet offers hundreds of courses to take on your time,
in your space. Join for FREE today!
http://click.egroups.com/1/1700/3/_/3615/_/954075570/

-- Easily schedule meetings and events using the group calendar!
-- http://www.egroups.com/cal?listname=ap-gto&m=1

Paul:

I agree with what Eric said below.

Sometimes, I have to gently push the pin down, even when the
counterweight screw is in the "out" position.

If you look through the counterweight and turn it to various positions
you should see what is happening.

I doubt the counterweight shaft gets wider at the bottom, but you can
test that by threading the weight onto one end, then sliding it off the
other.

Derek

Paul said:

When I took the shaft off of the mount and tried putting the weight over the
threaded end, it worked fine. It will slide freely up and down the shaft until
it gets within about 1/2 inch of the bottom where it then stops (because the
shaft is wider).

I said:

I doubt the counterweight shaft gets wider at the bottom, but you can
test that by threading the weight onto one end, then sliding it off the
other.

Sorry Paul, I didn't get your second post until now. If you can't slide
the counterweight down the shaft and the screw is out, then perhaps the
pin is stuck or maybe you really do need to return the shaft.

Derek

Hi Derek -

Thanks for the note. The pin isn't the problem, the shaft actually does get
wider at the end opposite the threads.

I tried the following a few times earlier this morning. When I put the counter
weight on the threaded end, hold the shaft upright, and then drop the 9 pound
weight, it stops about 1/2 inch from the end. I'd really have to bang on it to
get it all the way off the unthreaded end. Along most of the shaft it moves
fine with no binding, but I just can't get it past the end. I did about 10
drops in a row, and it didn't seem to perceptibly loosen up any or move farther
towards the end of the shaft. Each time it stopped about 1/2 inch from the end.

I'll call AP tomorrow and I'm sure they can clarify or fix things.

Thanks.

Paul








Derek Wong <dawong@...> on 03/26/2000 12:00:54 PM

Please respond to ap-gto@...








To: ap-gto@...

cc: (bcc: Paul Schroeder/US/DataCard)



Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question -
figured it out



Fax to:




Paul:

I agree with what Eric said below.

Sometimes, I have to gently push the pin down, even when the
counterweight screw is in the "out" position.

If you look through the counterweight and turn it to various positions
you should see what is happening.

I doubt the counterweight shaft gets wider at the bottom, but you can
test that by threading the weight onto one end, then sliding it off the
other.

Derek

I have only had my 900 GTO for a little over a week and only had a chance to
use it once but have a suggestion for you. I thread the counterweight shaft
on first, then slide the counterweights on. I found that although I had
loosened the counterweight knob , if the counterweights were facing up, the
brass pin would slide down and get in the way of sliding the counterweights
up the shaft. So I just rotated the counterweights so that they faced
downward and gravity would cause the brass pin to slide out of the way. Once
the counterweights were on the shaft I just rotated them around so that the
knobs are at a more convenient position for me to adjust.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100% Free Service Every Driver Can Use! Get free, no obligation
auto insurance quotes now at InsWeb. Simply fill out one form
and compare rates from leading companies. See if you can save!
http://click.egroups.com/1/2448/3/_/3615/_/954090156/

eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/ap-gto/
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications

Hi Paul,

IMHO, this is a problem with the way the shaft
was made. You shouldn't have to put the weights
on from the threaded end of the shaft. And, you
shouldn't have screw the shaft into the mount with
all the weights on the shaft.

There is a retaining screw and "plate" on the end
of shaft to keep a weight from falling off should you
accidently not tighten the weight correctly on the shaft.

You should be able to easily move the weights along
the full length of the shaft.

Rich

Hi Rich -

Thanks for your note. That wasn't the problem, but I did figure it out

this

morning (my initial theory of it being a stupid question was pretty spot

on!).

My mistake was trying to put the counterweight on _after_ already threading

the

counterweight shaft onto the mount. I didn't initially realize that the
counterweight shaft diameter gets noticably wider right at the end -- it

almost

makes the safety plug at the end redundant.

When I took the shaft off of the mount and tried putting the weight over

the

threaded end, it worked fine. It will slide freely up and down the shaft

until

it gets within about 1/2 inch of the bottom where it then stops (because

the

shaft is wider).

What I need to do is first put the weight on the shaft, and then thread the
shaft into the mount. I've not encountered this on other mounts I've used

(my

other mount is a Vixen Great Polaris). As I intend to use a reasonably

wide

range of instrument weights on this, I suspect I'll get a fair amount of
practice threading and unthreading this shaft.

Thanks.

Paul









"Rich N." <rnapo@...> on 03/26/2000 05:42:01 AM

Please respond to ap-gto@...








To: ap-gto@...

cc: (bcc: Paul Schroeder/US/DataCard)



Subject: [ap-gto] Re: This might be a stupid question . . .



Fax to:




Are you sure you have the set screw backed out all
the way? There is bronze "nose" that "floats" in the
hole. I always slide the weight on the shaft with the
knob on the weight pointing down so that this floating
bronze nose will stay clear of the shaft. Once the weight
is on the shaft I rotate the weight so the knob is on top.

Maybe there is a little burr in the hole where the bronze
nose stick through?

Rich

Hi all -

Well, my 600E GTO arrived from AP earlier this week-- it is absolutely

gorgeous

and very solid. Tonight the skies cleared up nicely, and I had hoped to

give it

a brief test drive.

Alas, I got tripped up by a fairly (very?) mundane problem.

Put simply, I couldn't get the 9 pound counterweight to slip over the
counterweight shaft. It was _incredibly_ tight. With maximum hand

pressure, I

couldn't get the shaft more than 1/4 inch into the counterweight.

The only conceivable way I could have gotten it in further would be to do

some

serious banging with a rubber mallet. I didn't feel very comfortable

doing

this

with a brand new mount. As it was, it took both me and my son pulling

very

hard

to get the shaft out of the counterweight (even though it was only 1/4

inch

in!).

Are the counterweights normally this snug? Is there a break-in period to
"loosen" the collar inside the counterweight, or does this sound unusual?

I'll call AP on Monday, but if anyone had any suggestions maybe I could

try

again yet tonight (or tomorrow night).

Thanks and best regards,

Paul Schroeder



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good friends, school spirit, hair-dos you'd like to forget.
Classmates.com has them all. And with 4.4 million alumni already
registered, there's a good chance you'll find your friends here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/2637/3/_/3615/_/954043411/

-- 20 megs of disk space in your group's Document Vault
-- http://www.egroups.com/docvault/ap-gto/?m=1

------------------------------------------------------------------------
100% Free Service Every Driver Can Use! Get free, no obligation
auto insurance quotes now at InsWeb. Simply fill out one form
and compare rates from leading companies. See if you can save!
http://click.egroups.com/1/2448/3/_/3615/_/954067320/

eGroups.com Home: http://www.egroups.com/group/ap-gto/
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications






------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn more with SmartPlanet. It's a new way of learning online.
SmartPlanet offers hundreds of courses to take on your time,
in your space. Join for FREE today!
http://click.egroups.com/1/1700/3/_/3615/_/954075570/

-- Easily schedule meetings and events using the group calendar!
-- http://www.egroups.com/cal?listname=ap-gto&m=1