Robb,

What an ambitious project.

Excellent that you are documenting it in photos. My C11 disassembly/cleaning has become legendary and a go-to procedure.

What are you going to use for a lubricant? I heard Dow Corning Vacuum lube is great stuff. I wait for the next chapter.

One other question?

Is that the wife's table cloth?


Read more: astronomer.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=StarParty&thread=3077&page=1#ixzz1HA8dl3AA

Nice report and good luck with the rest!

Btw, I think Maddie had just a little more fun than you did!

And so the journey continues!

After disassembly and cleaning, it was time for the nitty gritty: sanding and polishing! The process involves taking every part that comes in moving contact with any other part and sanding it down to remove any imperfections, burs, spars, blemishes, or anything else that isn't as smooth as Jesus' baby butt! First you sand with a 320 grit sandpaper to get rid of all the rough spots. Then you move up to a 600 grit sandpaper to really smooth it out. Then, once every muscle in your hands and fingers is aching with pain, you move up to a metal polish, which is the equivalent of about 5000 grit (quick aside for those unaware... the higher the grit number, the finer or smoother the sanding).

Here is one of the axis gears:



I'm sanding and smoothing both the inside and outside of the gear.



Don't get confused if it looks like I'm doing all this great work with only one hand. I had to use one of my hands to take the photo. I didn't take the time to set up some fancy self-photo contraption to capture myself in the action (a la Chicago Joe's famous narratives).

The next two photos show the before and after of the RA axis shaft. It might not look totally shiny and perfect in the after photo, but you don't have to polish every square centimeter of your mount. You only have to worry about those areas that come into contact with other metal parts.





After sanding and polishing all the contact spots, it was time to pull out the lube... SuperLube that is!!! This is a higher-end lube that was included with the Hypertune kit. It is synthetic and contains PTFE, some sort of micro powder that makes it uber-slick. You just apply it to all the parts that come into contact with each other and rub it all over nice and greasy like!





After the lube party is over and it finally comes time for reassembly, some of the original parts get replaced with better parts that come in the Hypertune kit. First off are all the plastic washers that are installed between every single moving part in the mount. These plastic washers are crappy to the Nth degree. They were all gnarled and scarred and burred and cut up. Nice, new, super-slick Teflon washers came with the kit. The Teflon washers are the white, clean ones atop the others in this next photo.



Next came the replacement of the bearings in the worm gear assemblies. The DIY kit came with new, super ceramic bearings that fit onto each end of the worm gear. You can see the old crappy bearings with the exploded view of the worm gear assembly, and then the new bearings in the following photo.





At this point, I've nearly got everything put back together:



The only things left are the axis motors and final reassembly.





In all, the entire process took me between 3-4 days. Now, I know you may be thinking that's an awfully long time. However, I only got to work on this project for a couple hours each night after my daughter went to bed. In total, it probably took about 6-8 hours. But this was the first time I attempted a Hypertune, plus I'm usually kind of anal/OCD about this kind of stuff anyway.

After everything was put back together, it was time for testing. During this phase, I discovered two things: 1) I'm an imbecile, and 2) I'm an imbecile with tendencies towards complete and utter stupidity. I got everything back together and started testing to see how my hard work paid off. It didn't!

When slewing, the motors sounded like a wounded and dying moose, whatever that sounds like. I imagine that sounds very similar to a cow on death's doorstep. Anyway, the motor whirring noise was very inconsistent and seemed to stutter a bit. Also, I was having trouble with the mount even completing a simple star alignment. Each time I tried to align, the motors would slew real fast towards the first alignment star and then suddenly stop and then start moving in a very slow rate (faster than sidereal rate, though). It would keep slewing at this slow rate forever until I manually stopped it. This happened over and over. I was becoming increasingly worried that I seriously flubbed something up during the operation.

After much research on the net, I had a couple ideas on what was causing the problems. The most likely was an insufficient power supply. I was using a 12V AC adapter to operate my mount. It turns out that the Celestron CG5 Go-To mount is exceptionally finicky about its power supply. It requires 12VAC and 1.5 - 2 Amps. My power supply was only spitting out 400mA! That's not good! The other problem was that I had meshed the axis motors too tightly with the worm gears during final assembly. This was causing severe binding.

I went to Radio Shack and bought a brand new 12VAC 2.5A regulated power adapter. I also pulled off the covers on my motors and readjusted them to a better mesh. Now, finally, everything is working perfectly after ample testing. Now, thing only thing I have to wait for is warmer, clearer weather in which to take out my newly tuned mount!!!

I haven't really had a chance to test, Joe. I only have the mount set up on its tripod in my dining room. I haven't put the OTA on yet. I've only been running the mount unloaded. So far, it seems extremely smooth, especially after I got a proper power adapter. I'll know more once I can take it out, put a tube on it, and test out the tracking.

Thanks, Robb. I am tuning my CG5 now, and this thread is invaluable. I am also documenting the process photographically. I have a "new type" mount that I motorized after acquisition. It has ball bearings as well, which seem to be in excellent shape.

One difference is that I found the citrus de-greaser pretty useless, and opted for paint thinner, followed by the de-greaser, followed by a good wash in water.

You're sure right about this plastic washers as well.......

forget previous suggestion LOL.

90% of CG5 weirdness is down to power supplies.

ATB

Mo.

Did it work out in the field...........