Thanks for this video Glen, it was excellent to follow and gave me the confidence to do the bearing replacement ! I have a hypertuned EQ6-R Pro thanks to you....
Thank you. It does require a little engineering skill but it is something you can do I am sure. I am glad it has been insightful though and thank you for commenting
Never touched the RA axis of my EQ6r-pro, saw your EQ5 teardown today and thought it would be great to have the same for the 6r... hours later: voilà! Thank you!
Just did the tune tonight. My mount is literally a year old and hasn’t been used and abused in the cloudy area of Ohio. Omg my bearings were leaking like crazy. So Much more then you and joes. Wait until you see the video. Thanks again Glenn! The video helped a ton.
Hi,thanks. and I am really glad the video helped. Its a shame they don’t seem to use a good standard of bearing as they are not that expensive. Clear skies
I just finished using this process to tune my EQ6R-Pro and it is night and day. I just ran a 2 hour session and tracking stayed tight right down the center. My ToT was at 0.22-0.24 until I got a few min from meridian flip and it did jump up a bit but I think that was caused by the mount trying to dither so close to the meridian limit. If anyone is on the fence about this, hop off now. I took me about 4 hours to complete including a break for dinner. Materials cost me around $200 US and I went with all SFK bearings. This is one of the most useful tutorials I've seen. Thanks mate!!
Hats off Glenn, Man, I could never do something like this.... I would pee myself.... That thing moves like BUTTER!!!!!! Looking forward to the results. Clear Skies!!!!!
Thanks, really nice instructions… If anyone is wondering this is about a $200 upgrade from a quick look at higher quality bearings in the U.S.A… I imagine it would be worthwhile to just disassemble, clean and relube with high quality grease. For a really inexpensive tune up… So reasonably inexpensive upgrade and a great instructional video to go with it, that’s a win in my book…
Best Glenn We have become a lot wiser again it was again very instructive; as I have already mentioned in connection with the backfocus of my zenitstar 61 II and the reducer and flattener with the ZWO 1600mm I will get out this was well illustrated in the manual of the Williams zenitstar 61 II but due to the bad weather also in Belgium I can not test it out; so out of sheer misery also my HEQ5 mount was taken care of; I just didn't use any new roller bearings, disassembled and cleaned them out and degreased them with WD-40 and then re-supplied them with grease that I purchased from Geoptik;I had some minor problems dismantling the HEQ5 but thanks to your contribution on TH-cam I managed to do it anyway; only I have to wait for better weather for the fine adjustment we see. Greetings from Belgium- Frank
Hi Glen, I finaly finished to do the same to my EQ6R. Thanks to you 🙂, I knew what, how and when to do things. I would add some comments and share my own experience. Removing and mounting roller bearing is sometimes very tricky. I used a caliper to monitor how square I was with the housing and it helped to know where to put some rubber hammer small hit to restore the right position for the roller bearing. I had a tough job removing one of the roller from the RA brass declination gear, I put it in the oven at 70°C and the extraction was much easier. Last but not least I had a strange behavior with the new SKF roller bearings 6008 2RS1. There were so stiff that after installation the dec axis appeared to be very sticky because the DEC axis was in fact moving in the internal hole of the bearing without gripping it thanks to the grease I put for installation. Fortunately as soon as there was some radial effort it worked properly. For tuning worm gear and brass gear, I followed the presentation of Astro-baby to compute the thickness of the shimmer for the gears and to adjust the distance I did it before reinstalling the belts. It gives you a good touch of whether you are too tight and you can also feel the backlash. Thanks again for this video, Frédéric
Fantastic news. Sounds like you got the job done well, there is always a bearing or something that misbehaves but hopefully you will see a nice improvement in your mounts performance. Thank you for keeping me informed on how it went. I saw an email from you and will reply, just been a busy time lately so sorry for not replying sooner.
I finished the rebuild today using the bearings you suggested. I'm am so thankful for your help and all your very helpful tutorials on YT. The process went very well and right out the gate with only a new calibration and guide assistant, I'm guide at 1460mm with an Edge HD8 at .44 RMS. Oddly enough GA showed I have a DEC backlash of 3800 ms.. So I haven't sorted that out yet, but I'm extremely happy. I'll be getting my balance meter next week, maybe I can mesh those worm gears more precisely. Cheers!
That's great news Damien and so glad my video helped with your mount. Sounds like you did a great job. Those guiding numbers feel good after doing a project like that so well done mate. The balance meter will help you get really good fine adjustment but don't worry too much about backlash that is measured and reported as PHD2 will compensate for it. If your DEC rms are similar to the RA rms then all is good and you will have round sharp stars. Thank you for the extra support on Patreon, really appreciate that. Clear skies
Very well done Glen. I came across this channel today and it was just what I needed to see. I have a two year old EQ6-R Pro . I’m 80 and have been involved in more astrophotography than I care to admit… or should I say more problem solving situations with equipment. You have saved me countless hours and headaches figuring out how to tune my mount with your very well constructed video. Thanks so much for sharing. I very much appreciate all the time and effort you put into this video! From cold, cold Minnesota, Clear nights and best wishes! Dennis
Hi Dennis and thank you for taking the time to write such kind comments. I am really pleased that i was able to help you as that has been my main goal with the channel. Problem solving is without doubt one of our biggest hurdles. I bet you have seen many many changes in this pursuit of ours. Clear skies to you too, all the Best Glenn
Just about the best how to video I've seen. Guiding was fine this summer. Now with winter in Colorado US, it's gone to hell. I'll see if this helps. Tha ks Glen!
Hi Frank and thank you for your kind comment. They tend to get tighter in the cold months and Joe who also lives in Colorado has to adjust his mount for the winter. We are lucky not to get the extremes that you guys get. Hope it goes well, any issues I can help with let me know. Clear skies
@@Astrobloke Yeah, it does get chilly here in the winter, but I'm using powered usb cables to sit inside. That's been great! I'm getting a Stellarview 152 soon (ordered a explore scientific 152 which had bad glass issues but could handle same mount) Now will have slightly heavier setup that I hope a hypertuned eq6 will handle. Otherwise refinance the house for EQ6R! Ha
Hi Glenn, well covered. When I did the fine tune on the gears I slewed a full 360 degrees with a vixen bar in the saddle for the DEC and the counterweight bar for the RA , checking about every 5 degrees for the backlash. When I found the tightest spot, that is where I made my final adjustments and rechecked.
Just a note of thanks. I followed along with the video and pulled off this operation with great success. No hiccups, no problems. I do the fine tuning on the back lash and such in the morning. Thank you very much!
Excellent tutorial Glenn! I've stripped & rebuilt an HEQ5 before, but was very glad to have your video to walk me through the EQ6-R. Made for a good sick day project for me today. Now to get it under the stars and make sure I haven't made things worse, haha. Cheers!
Hi and thank you for commenting. Glad the video was helpful, just a few differences but I am sure you have done well. After a tinker these mounts give great results. Since doing mine quite some time back now it has been a trouble free performer. Clear skies
@@Astrobloke Well post rebuild it's certainly no worse than before, and even had some decent stretches guiding tonight at 0.4-0.5" RMS, so that's a relief! I didn't change out the bearings, but did pop the plastic shields, on the 6008s, and stripped the old grease (some of it yellowed and paste thick), and replace with Superlube. At least now I won't be intimidated by the teardown if I decide to upgrade the bearings in the future. Cleaned everything else thoroughly, dried and regreased thinly with Superlube as well. Seems to be singing. Thanks again!
Thanks for the video, it helped a lot. I recently did a teardown and serviced my EQ6 R Pro. I did everything but replace the bearings. It's like a brand new mount.
I have the eq6 pro and an apm 6 inch apo refractor i bought as a package deal from apm and the eq6 is so much better than the previous mount I owned..great video.
What was your previous mount? I think the EQ6 is an excellent level of mount and serves the majority of amateur astronomers and astrophotographers out there. I love mine. Thanks for watching and clear skies
@Astrobloke I had a eq5 . I tried it with my telescope but my telescope was too heavy for the mount and had some movement when I viewed through the ep. When other people were viewed with my they would always grab the telescope my the eye piece and move the mount.
Ahh, just as I decide to look at my eq6 to tighten my FWHM in images, and this pops up. Awesome video, thankyou. PART NUMBERS IN DESCRIPTION TOOO YEEEEEAAAHH
Great video! Convinced me to rebuild my EQ6-R Pro (used with a Celestron EdgeHD 8" for AP). Guiding was always pretty good, typically ~0.5 to 0.7 without PEC.RA was always too tight but never adjusted it. Occasionally Dec axis stiction led to the decision to rebuild. Was easy. Mount now v. free and easy to balance. Still in the mount "tuning" phase. Backlash in DEC almost completely eliminated (
This video has been a major help today! Thanks! My EQ6 R Pro took a swim to the bottom of the deep end of my swimming pool last night. Seriously! It seems that 100 km/h wind was just enough to topple the whole tripod and mount and tumble it right onto my frozen pool (I'm in Canada) and through the ice. I've spent today learning how to disassemble it with the help of your video. Hopefully I can get everything dried out, re-greased and tuned up.
Hi Roy. i am pleased the video has helped you out. Once dried and greased I can’t see you’ll have any mechanical issues. I suppose its how the electrics faired. Hopefully once fully dried they’ll be ok.
@@Astrobloke Yes I think mechanically everything will be fine. I think (hope) the electronics will be ok since it wasn't powered up or even plugged in when it went for a swim. I will be giving the circuit board a good long drying out period. In the meantime with the help of your video I'm learning about the innards of the mount and I may as well tune it up at the same time. Seems like one of the bearings on the worm gear was sticky anyway.
Very thorough video Glenn, good explained and it looks so smooth now looking forward to see the results and also the video about pec training your mount
Excellent video Glenn! I'm going to go ahead and order everything I need and get ready to do this in the summer when the seeing is horrid here in Florida. Appreciate the time you took to make this and pass the knowledge along!
Thanks for your excellent tutorial Glenn! My mount is brand new but both of the brass worm drives were absolutely smothered in grease. Both of the axis locking nuts were over tightened too, causing difficulties with balance. A little fettling with these mounts can make the world of difference. I think there is a different type of grease (more tacky) used on the 2 locking levers. It helps to hold the levers in place when the axis are loosened. On my HEQ5 I replaced that grease with Superlube, but then had the problem of when I loosened the lever it would slide back down causing the axis to lock.
Thank you. The grease seems to be everywhere on some mounts and good to get cleaned away from where its not needed. A few tweaks and these mounts will last years and return great results for Astrophotography. You are right about the grease there, it is better if it is a more tacky type. Mine had loads in there so just wiped some off rather than clean and re lube
Thanks for making this video . My Eqr6 out of the box was as Tighter than a fish's arse! ( SW qa dept checklist-yep tighten everything to within a mill of snapping Check! ) . Just backed the dec&Ra compression nuts off by a poofteenth and both axis flip by themselves now ...
You are welcome Willows and thanks for commenting, made me laugh. I swear someone in that factory is on steroids and if you get their mount you have a fight on your hands.
Thank you Joe. I look forward to seeing yours as there is always something to learn. Glad your mount is performing well, will report on mine as soon as I can see some stars ☁️🇬🇧☁️
That’s an interesting 54 minutes watch Glenn! Like I said in your HEQ5 upgrade, ‘you’re a braver man than me’ You clearly know your stuff mate! I look forward to seeing the guiding results. Hopefully, my new Eq6 R Pro won’t need doing for a good while! Good vid mate👍
Wow! Loosening that RA locking nut does wonders! Its smooth as silk now and balancing is another game! I used a very cheap bicycle tool to loosen it: parktool spa-1
Thank you for sharing your work and all the components needed, just ordered the new bearings and excited to do the hypertune asap. Also anxious to see your guiding, mine was around 0.5 - 0.8 on best conditions, with some strange movements every few subs, not sure if it was pec or not... but ended up discarding 30% of them. As you say in the video, balancing is not really smooth with the eq6r pro, your final result looks amazing, looks like you can perfectly balance very accurately. Great video!!
Hi and many thanks for pointing that out. I have since that video made many adjustments including that one after tweaking backlash at a later date. In fact I actually replaced the belts.
Very nice. My mount is new. I had a cgem2 sent it back they sent another one I had it hypertuned ,600$, and it still wouldn’t get below 1.0 , the stiction was removed but he didn’t remove the play in ra that was there in the beginning. A waist of money . Sold it bought the eq6-r pro and great guiding at averages of .70 better. Lookin foreword to the guiding results.
what a shame you had such a poor experience at first. The Eq6 is good out of the box and even just tweaking with PHD2 and PEC training can easily get you down to 0.5rms. If you check my videos there is one on the PEC training for this mount
Thats because the cgem uses servos and the skywatcher uses steppers, you also get harmonics within the servo motors.. also with the skywatcher they run on belts from the motor to the worm, so it takes out that backlash scenario, the cgem has gear to gear mesh... Some have belt modded the cgem and replaced the servos with steppers..you then get the same sort of performance. .. synta make both mounts so it's only the difference in motors that makes the skywatcher the better mount straight out of the box
Top Job Glenn, I'm not sure I would trust myself to do this but you've obviously got this down. You guide graph will be a flat line. I wonder if PHD2 pops up with a special message if you get a total rms of Zero!
Thanks for the tear-down on this! I'm usually scared of projects that I don't where to begin with , but this helps! By the way, I might be lucky with my EQ6R, because if there is one thing it does very well is tracking. All I did after a week of using it was I removed some backlash from the DEC with those tiny allen screws, removed the locking clutch levers and cleaned up those copper disks from the sticky grease and never had an issue with tracking ever since, PhD2 barely have to correct the tracking. My criticism falls on the azimuth/elevation adjustment knobs, as they are too rough to be very precise when polar aligning so I tried greasing the bolts up , but not much changed. The worst is the elevation up/down bolts just feels very rough during polar alignment so I have to "guesstimate" like if Sharpcap polar alignment say move 2'10" up on elevation, I don't have to, just tighten down both up/down and and the down-knob will move it enough to get to nearly 0'0". But sometimes it's more finicky and more time wasted messing with the knobs. I wish I could make it more precise though.
Hi Frank. Sounds like you got one of the really good mounts from the factory. The ALT adjustment is very crude to say the least and I am not sure what can actually be done to help it. I know a mod was made for earlier versions but not sure there is one for our mount. I often get as close as possible so the final adjustment is down and then achieve 0" or as close to by tightening the back bolt. At least with that one you have some control unlike the clumsy ratchet thingy for up.
@@Astrobloke 1 year later: I'm gonna have to do this, haha! My tracking is gone down to hell in both axis. I blame myself a bit, since the mount spent several days outside under a cover during cloudy and rainy days, and while it protected from direct water, I'm pretty sure the moisture done its work in the interior mechanisms, most likely the bearings. The mount feels sticky in both axis and backlash screw or belt adjustments don't change a thing. I'm thinking it's the bearings and lubrication. Thanks again!
@@Neanderthal75 Hi Frank. Its possible but more likely just the cold. Its strange but I always thought the hotter weather would cause things to expand and lead to binding and stiffness but it seems its the cold that effects it more. Have you brought it inside and let it warm up? worth a try. If you have any issues please don't hesitate to contact me, happy to help.
Thanks to you Glenn I have successfully rebuilt my EQ6-R Pro (minus the fine tuning for now). If you would ,tell us where you obtained the spare belts for the RA and DEC Thanks, Noah.
Hi Noah, thats excellent mate and I hope it all went well for you. There is a dealer in the uk called rothervalleyoptics.co.uk and they stocked them but I would think most that sell the mount would
Really nice video on the EQ6R-Pro. Couple of questions regarding the bearings. I was surprised at how easily the bearing outer rings came out of the castings and the fact that you installed the new ones with grease on the outer faces. My concern would be that the outer ring could rotate inside the casting once the bearing was pre-loaded. I would definitely install the outer rings using a bearing locking compound to prevent the outer ring from rotating with the RA and DEC shafts. I also found that the dust covers on the bearings can create a fair amount of drag. As these bearings are pretty much buried inside the mount and not really exposed to dust and dirt etc, I would remove these covers. This also allows the bearings to be lubricated with a high quality grease during subsequent maintenance (it’s surprising how little grease is often applied during manufacture). I also noticed (but it may have been an optical illusion from the camera angle) that the mounting hole in the small toothed pulley on the DEC worm drive shaft didn’t seem to be machined concentric to the outer diameter causing the pulley to “wobble” making the belt flop about as its tension subsequently increased and decreased slightly as the shaft rotated. I will definitely be looking at that on my mount and replacing it if I find it has been machined eccentrically. I’ll definitely be replacing all the bearings in my mount in the future but at the moment my tracking is spot on and to be honest, I find it’s the seeing conditions that tend to impact my guiding more than anything else. Great video.
Helpful video Glenn but I noticed a mistake. You used super lube on the worm gear. Whilst super lube is ok for bearings it isn’t a suitable lubricant for gears. You should have used something like Liqui Moly LM47 on the worm gears
Thanks for commenting. For fast moving gears I would tend to agree as certain greases can thin/separate over time and fly off if on fast moving parts. With the very slow mechanics of a mount the super lube performs very well and to date I have had no issues to think it needs changing.
Nice video. However, the 608-2rs bearings are not the correct bearings for the EQ6-R Pro. The diameter of the worm shaft where it butts up against the bearing exceeds the max allowed abutment dimension given in the spec sheets for the 608-2rs bearings. The bearings with the metal shield (SKF part #608-2z) have a larger max allowed abutment dimension, and are the correct bearings to use. When I rebuilt my EQ6-R Pro, I had some bearings with rubber shields left over from when I rebuilt my Orion Atlas (same as SW EQ6), but when I used them in the EQ6-R Pro, when I tightened the nut down on the worm bearings, I could feel it binding up because of the rubber shields. So I had to order the correct bearings, and replace them. Now when I tighten the nut down on the worm bearings, no more binding on the rubber shield. Don't mix up the spacers! Make sure you put the same number of spacers back where they came from! Ideally, you should measure the spacing, and use the correct number of spacers to center the worm on the worm gear, possibly adding or removing spacers from what SW used. Don't necessarily trust that they got the number of spacers correct. The Astro Baby site has the procedure for adjusting the number of spacers to use. Also, since you went through all the trouble to tear the mount down, you really should degrease things, especially the outside of the brass worm gear, where the clutches press up against it. That's why the clutches on the EQ6-R Pro are notorious for slipping. Degrease everything with mineral spirits and that problem goes away. Also, degreasing and cleaning the worm and worm gear will remove any grit that might be in there, which would cause spikes in guiding. Really, there's no reason not to do that when you have everything torn apart. Clear skies!
Hi Kevin. Thank you for your reply. I know the bearings I took out had the metal seals and not the plastic ones. I opted for the later as they are a higher standard of bearing and I had read in more than one source that these were suitable for the job. I personally did not have any binding issues and the mount is now guiding at 0.3rms so they seem to work fine. I will however add this information to my video so people have the choice. clear skies
My 3 yo beat up EQ6-R Pro guides my 120mm refractor using a 210mm guide scope at .30-.60 typical. Last night I saw .28. When it STB, I'll buy a new one.
@@Astrobloke Glenn, I needed to go through this video as my EQ6R-Pro got soaked accidentally when the roof to my observatory leaked badly, meaning the guiding became crappy and unreliable. So I took this as an opportunity to service it and upgrade the bearings. After running my mount through this video I was left with what I would describe more as a grinding noise, as opposed to binding, (I think of binding as less whereas grinding being noisier and sounding more like it could do damage) to the point where the Dec axis wouldn't actually slew with the hand controller. I decided to dismantle the mount again and checking the slewing after each stage of the dismantling the grinding noise disappeared once I got to the loosening of the 4 bolts on the mount that hold the Dec carrier in place. So I put it all back together with these bolts not tightened quite so much as previously, and all worked well when I tested the slewing, the grinding noise had gone; both axis slewed without any binding; however, guiding was not as good as hoped. It was better than when the mount got wet (guiding RMS then was 2 - 2.5), but before it got wet I could expect 0.6. Is this backlash that is causing this? There is a noticeable movement in the Dec axis, which I didnt have before.... Thanks. Kind regards Matt
@@oakleywindowcleaning Hi Matt. The grinding noise is not nice at all but its just the axis locked up and the stepper motors slipping. ts possible you may have it too loose and its a very fine adjustment between running freely and binding. You also need to guide for a good period of time and give the mount a while to settle. Just in case you haven't, re run all calibrations. treat it like a brand new mount and I would also run guide assistant (for EQ6 thats 8 mins = 480mins) so it goes through one complete worm cycle and apply the changes and then run a fresh calibration again. See how it is after this. Make sure with calibration you have your mount RA so the mounts is parallel with the ground and slew as low to the south that you can or when Dec reads zero. This will give you the best calibration for your mount. Hope this helps and please let me know how you get on.
Always chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and buying snake oil to make it just that bit better lol. That’s me all over. Thanks for watching and hope its helped .
I would love to do this to my mount but I can’t bring myself to tear into a brand new $1,500 mount. Thought about having it professionally done but then didn’t want to be without it. So I’ll just be happy with 0.8 for a few years.
I can understand that and most probably not necessarily what you have to do to get great performance. PHD2 settings and PEC training can all make a big difference and drop your guiding error numbers.
@@Astrobloke I watched your video on PEC and ran the full 9 cycles on mine but my graph looks like a staircase. Probably some stiction in the mount but I’m not sure where. I’m hopeful that it will loosen up over time. Do you think that PECprep will sort that out. The mount is under warranty but I doubt they will see it as a problem.
@@jedidiahwest4619 Pecprep can help ypu produce a smoother curve. Run the PEC curve you have and while guiding with it next time you are imaging record another 9 cycles.
Hi, absolutely this is the best video to understand how to renew the EQ6R, thanks a lot for this 🙏😉 I have one question: at 48:30 time you adjust the bottom and top screws to set properly the RA backlash, in this time the 4 big screws must be left a little loose or tight? thanks in advance for your reply 😊
Thank you very much for watching and commenting. When adjusting just slightly loosen them but still have them gripping slightly. The adjustment grub screws are quite small so will move against a little resistance but too much and you will strip them. Hope this helps
Hi Glenn I have the newer AZ-EQ6 Pro, and my RA guiding suddenly became terrible. From 0.7rms to over 8rms. I stripped the mount. Turns out the bearings on the RA worm shaft were rough and noisy. I followed your video. Excellent work. At 23:00 you changed your bearings. I’m struggling to find information regarding the size I need for my mount? Is it SKF 608-2Z? 22mm outer, 8mm inner and 7mm thickness? Many thanks
Hi Osama. I am really sorry but because I have never worked on this mount I have no idea of the bearing sizes for it. Have you tried contacting Sky Watcher? They may be able to help. Sorry I don't know the answer for you.
Don't know much about bearings, but the suppliers I asked say the 6008 2rs1 is a designated ball bearing number ,they don't understand when I ask for the roller bearing in this size.
Mine regularly gets .3 to .4 guiding. sometimes I hit .5 o.6 but usually on average .4 or below so I don't think I will bother with this for now. lol My image scale is 1.0" per pixel so I think that is fine for even 20 mins worth of subs.
Looks like you got one of the good ones and at that guide performance I would leave well alone and just use it. My EQ8 R Pro is like that. Guides 0.3-0.4 so perfect out of the box. Clear skies
Hi Glenn, how are you mate. My dad just watched the. If for this and he said it is amazing video he is going to do his eq6r pro. Very impressed by the vid... Cheers Oh and also I'll probably get him to do my heq5pro. How many minutes can you get in your heq5pro ?? My dad got 10 mins a few months ago 👍💯👌 thanks
Hi Mitch. Thank you mate. If I am doing narrowband 10 mins is all I ever do as my LP causes problems beyond that. I have guided 15min subs but the sky was too bright
Thanks for the video and bearings link. I’ve completed the tune except for one part-replacing the bearings on the RA worm shaft. I ran into a problem where I couldn’t get the optical encoder disk off the worm shaft. The screw used to hold the disk on the shaft is very poor quality and its head stripped when I tried to remove it. Any suggestions? Thanks, Greg
That is a real shame that screw head stripped. Its a very small screw and if done up too tight I can imagine easily damaged. I was lucky that mine just turned ok. I am not sure what you can do other than try to drill it out. Not sure how easy that would be with it being so small. It might be worth a search on google or TH-cam for ways to remove small screws that are damaged. What you don't want to do is damage the disc. I hope you are able to find a solution, a replacement screw would be easy to source its just getting the old one out. Thank you for watching and commenting and good luck, please let me know how you get on. Glenn
Thank you for the video. In rhe description and one of the comments, the smaller worm bearing is listed as 608, but in the video you say 606. Was that just a mis-speak? Thank you
Great video Glenn, very interesting to see the internals of the mount..some could argue that it's a regrease and not a hypertune... you could have gone alot further into detail...things that would help, and some that might cause you issues further down the line But on the whole, great video
Thank you Derek. After all the work I did and replacing all the bearings with much higher quality ones it would be a little unfair for someone to class this as a regrease. I do have a follow up video coming out very soon showing that my guiding is now at 0.3 total rms error which I think you'll agree is tuned nicely.
@@Astrobloke yes it's well worth the effort, some would say you're mad to take it apart, especially as it wasn't causing you any issues other than a bit of stiction.. but .3 is in pixels and on the scale of your guide cam.. arc sec is an arc sec, regardless of your set up
Thank you for the excellent video! Do you know which one is the tapered bearing for the DEC axis? The 30206 or the 32208? Is that info available somewhere? Thanks!!
Thanks for the video. My Eq6 keeps getting really bad declination numbers and I think it seizes in a few places despite being a little sloppy with the feel. You always go off video when you clean up a part. What method do you use for cleaning...what brand of degreaser?
Hi Jeff, thank you for watching and commenting and I hope it helps sort your mount issues out. Sorry that the video doesn't show that detail but the degreaser I used is this one amzn.to/46b5X27. I just sprayed any parts that needed it and used an old small paint brush and paper towels to remove the grease. Please let me know ho you get on.
It was quite some time ago now and I honestly cannot remember what I did there. I would say they do need loosening off first but the carrier may come off without that as they should not be done up tight.
Great video on hyper-tuning the Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. I ordered the bearings kit from R&M Bearings in England, and am ready to perform the upgrade. My question is this: Did you do anything in the way of cleaning and lubing the bearings before installing them in the EQ6-R Pro? R&M Bearings suggested not doing anything to the bearings since they come from the factory already lubed and ready to install. Your thoughts? Thanks for the great video!
Thanks Darryl. The sealed bearings I leave alone and just put in the mount, there is really no need to grease these as they come pre packed with grease and you don't want to open them unless you have good reason to. (Re greasing older bearings maybe). The tapered bearings will need to have grease applied. Good luck with your project. clear skies
@@Astrobloke I don't see you apply grease to the tapered bearing in the video, how much grease should be applied to the tapered bearing? Should they be fully packed?
What causes stiction and what can be done without replacing all the bearings? Also does pec tuning in phd2 improve guiding in both ra and dec or just one of them. Thanks again for your efforts in bringing us these how to videos.
Stiction can be simply because the main nuts that hold the Ra and Dec axis on the mount are done up too tightly from the factory. Just slightly loosening these can help but make sure there is no play. You can see this in my stripdown videos. PHD2 will adjust guiding for the Dec and Ra. Pec is purely measuring imperfections in the RA wormdrive only nad corrects for resonance in that drive.
@@danjensen9425 no they are the worm carrier bolts for the Ra and the dec. I am referring to the first main nuts that are removed when taking apart the Dec or the Ra , Dec one is where the counter weight bar comes out and Ra where the polar scope is.
Hi Glenn Just got all the needed SKF bearings to do surgery on my EQ6R Pro, but I am wondering, if you cleaned the factory supplyed grease from the 6008 bearings? They are extremely smooth, but the grease seems to provide a fair bit of sticktion.
The ones I fitted don't spin freely but don't seem to have stiction to affect the mount under load. I left the grease that they came with but you could change it if it feels too stiff for you.
Awesome job! Inhave mine in pieces right now. Somehow mice got in and filled it with what looks like cat food lol (got it used). It is a disaster inside. What dod ypu clean all the parts/gears with? Varsole?
I was quite lucky in that I just had excess grease in mine so was able to just wipe it clean and apply new grease. In your case you can use any degreaser really but just make sure thats all cleaned up and dry before applying new grease. One I have used before is WD40 degreaser, works very well.
I have one small issue with balance. No matter what I do the telescope is east heavy, I have adjusted the counterweight over and over and over, but nothing changes is there any advice you can give me at all?
Its very possibly whats referred to as the 3rd axis and where there is more weight to one side of the scope. Firstly make sure the mount is level as this can effect it also. If it is then either add weight to the side it is falling away from. I use Newtonians mainly and you can rotate these in the rings to balance this out. With my refractor the autofocuser on oneside throws off this balance so I just add some small weights. Hope this helps
Thank you. It is the same process apart from the RA roller bearing which I believe is a different size. If you contact Sky Watcher they should be able to confirm the bearings needed for your mount. Good lick and clear skies
Great video. Thank you. Another question if I may. Why using that reflective material in your observatory? One would think stray light would reflect on this. Unless you are lucky to live in a Bortle 1 area of the world, but there is always LED lights on equipment.
I have had a few comments on this. Its insulation as its a plastic shed and so prone to condensation, this stops that. Absolutely not reflective issues at night as you can see from any of my images, including an APOD
Brilliant video, thank you. I'm due to move house soon and so my observatory will have to be dismantled and shifted with me. I'll take the opportunity to tune my EQ6R-Pro so this video has been very timely! Just one question - what do you use for cleaning up the parts? Whenever I've done anything like this (my AZ-GTi for instance, following one of your other videos!) I worry about fibres of tissue getting left all over the place. Is there something specific you use?
Nothing special actually. I have some heavy paper towel and i just carefully wipe off messy or excess grease. May use degreasant if really bad but the newer mounts seem a lot better and use higher quality grease. Not had any issues with fibre from tissues to date but I am always careful to check
@@Astrobloke cheers, Glen. I always seem to get bits caught on sharp edges so end up having to use the wife’s toothbrush to get everything clean again (just joking in case she happens to see this 😬).
Hi Glenn, a very important instruction you provided here. I allready used your HEQ5 guide for my good old (now sold) HEQ and now it was the time for the EQ6R. One question, since I am not shure if you name it in the video (also on the HEQ5) and I simply forgot how I did it then: you don't regrease the outside of the worm gear, right? Just the parts where the bearings are inserted. Looking forward to the rest of the tuning. Although it's a bit exciting, it is still a lot fun (and I have nothing better to do with months full of clouds over here), greetings from Germany and continue the good work! Jens
Thank you for watching and your kind comments. On grease application, just on any moving parts that are in contact with other parts. I only pit a thin layer on outside of bearings to help ease them in easier. Good luck and clear skies
@@Astrobloke great thanks! I also have ordered the SKF 608 2RS Bearings but for my taste they are not quite right and the worm gear has some resistance compared to the original 608 Z bearings and is sometimes running "free" in the inner part of the bearing, introducing problems. The 2Z/C3 bearingsonline are naming in their kit could fit, but I probably stay at the original worm carrier bearings here, as they are working pretty good. Clear skies!
@@Astrobloke interessting. I think I will try them out and see how the worm drive behaves. Until now I tested it only freestyle in my hands. A mount tuning workshop here in Germany suggested me hybrid ceramic bearings, cost 9 euros per piece, maybe I try them out later
@@jensleuteritz6827 The ceramic ones are very nice. I think they have limits of tolerance in very cold weather. I think it would have to be extreme though and in Germany you should be fine
Hi, Great video and I can appreciate the time and effort to do this! I ordered the bearings that you used and I found them to be extremely stiff. I sent a note to R&M bearings where I ordered them as a kit they suggested I ask you for some feedback. I had earlier purchased a hypertune kit and the worm bearings were easy to spin. Any suggestions, to anyone?
New bearings can feel stiff (mine were) if you try and spin them in your hand. Once under load they will be fine. Obviously if they are not moving freely when under load in the mount there could be a fault with them. But if they turn by hand and feel smooth (no bumps, notches) they are fine. You don’t want them too loose as these could have play in them. Its hard to tell what they are like as i would need to see and feel them but they come packed with grease so won’t just spin freely
Hi Glenn, great video and channel. Just a quick question. I note from the recommended bearings website there are three options for the tapered bearing 30206 and the profile info suggests each has small differences in bore, width and OD. Can you confirm which one you used please. Thank you in advance.
Hi Stuart. I still have the originals but agree they are not the best. Now I have an EQ8 it really shows up how clunky and poor they are. I think I will look into what alternatives are available and will show any I get. I think the main problem on the Az though is the thread is too coarse so fine adjustment is difficult.
Hi Richard, the clouds have been challenging as always but keeping well thank you. The mount is still buttery smooth since the work I did and guides so well I don't even think about guiding anymore with it. Just set it up and away it goes. I am starting a build on a new 2 pier observatory so the EQ6 will make it back onto a pier alongside my EQ8. Can't wait
What exactly is the point to this? I don't mean to pose that question in a negative light. I've seen several people going on about this sort of thing on the forums, but my understanding was that the EQ6R was so well made it didn't need tuning. As far as I'm aware I've not had any issues that have caused my mount not to work as well as intended, so find it odd that people would need to do this. In any case certainly going to watch and would be interested by your answer.
I had an older HEQ5 that was very stiff and had guiding issues. Being mechanically minded I stripped the mount to see what could be the issues. Firstly the bearings used are of questionable quality, the ones I took out were unbranded and 2 of them the seals were leaking and grease was all over areas it shouldn’t be. Also the bearings holding the wormdrive were notchy and not smooth. After servicing the improvements were massive with much better guiding and a mount easier to balance. This then led me to do the same for my EQ6. When you watch the videos I do explain my reasons for carrying out both the hypertunes.
@@Astrobloke Fair enough. Going to watch it later today, just about to head to bed. Might answer some of my other questions, probably too tired to actually take anything in right now, haha.
@@Astrobloke awesome. You also mentioned you have some bearing pullers that would make the process easier. Do you have a recommended set or style of bearing pullers?
![ฮักเทื่อสุดท้าย - บอย ศิริชัย [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-1PoPoQ-B-k/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for this video Glen, it was excellent to follow and gave me the confidence to do the bearing replacement ! I have a hypertuned EQ6-R Pro thanks to you....
You are welcome and so pleased it helped. Thank you for feeding back to me. Hopefully nice smooth balancing and guiding from now on, clear skies
I have no confidence to do this myself (yet) but it's very insightful to see the inner workings like this. Good tutorial!
Thank you. It does require a little engineering skill but it is something you can do I am sure. I am glad it has been insightful though and thank you for commenting
Never touched the RA axis of my EQ6r-pro, saw your EQ5 teardown today and thought it would be great to have the same for the 6r... hours later: voilà! Thank you!
glad it was something you wanted
Just did the tune tonight. My mount is literally a year old and hasn’t been used and abused in the cloudy area of Ohio. Omg my bearings were leaking like crazy. So Much more then you and joes. Wait until you see the video. Thanks again Glenn! The video helped a ton.
Hi,thanks. and I am really glad the video helped. Its a shame they don’t seem to use a good standard of bearing as they are not that expensive. Clear skies
So I did this to my EQ6-R PRO and wow!! I was getting 0.25 last night. The best I got before was maybe .60. Thanks for the tutorial.
Thats fantastic David. Great job and thank you for commenting and sharing your results
Such a fantastic video. You really are an asset to the Astro community. My favourite channel
Thank you Mark I really appreciate your kind comments
I just finished using this process to tune my EQ6R-Pro and it is night and day. I just ran a 2 hour session and tracking stayed tight right down the center. My ToT was at 0.22-0.24 until I got a few min from meridian flip and it did jump up a bit but I think that was caused by the mount trying to dither so close to the meridian limit. If anyone is on the fence about this, hop off now. I took me about 4 hours to complete including a break for dinner. Materials cost me around $200 US and I went with all SFK bearings. This is one of the most useful tutorials I've seen. Thanks mate!!
Hi James and thank you for taking the time to comment. I am really happy for you and the results you have got from doing this. Clear skies
Hats off Glenn, Man, I could never do something like this.... I would pee myself.... That thing moves like BUTTER!!!!!! Looking forward to the results. Clear Skies!!!!!
As soon as the weather co operates I will post some numbers. Its ok to pee, a little lol
Thanks, really nice instructions… If anyone is wondering this is about a $200 upgrade from a quick look at higher quality bearings in the U.S.A… I imagine it would be worthwhile to just disassemble, clean and relube with high quality grease. For a really inexpensive tune up… So reasonably inexpensive upgrade and a great instructional video to go with it, that’s a win in my book…
Thank you Robert and happy you found the video helpful. Clear skies and good guiding to you
If you are taking all that apart etc, it's prob just worth the savings in labor to get the upgraded parts too tbh.
Best Glenn
We have become a lot wiser again it was again very instructive; as I have already mentioned in connection with the backfocus of my zenitstar 61 II and the reducer and flattener with the ZWO 1600mm I will get out this was well illustrated in the manual of the Williams zenitstar 61 II but due to the bad weather also in Belgium I can not test it out; so out of sheer misery also my HEQ5 mount was taken care of; I just didn't use any new roller bearings, disassembled and cleaned them out and degreased them with WD-40 and then re-supplied them with grease that I purchased from Geoptik;I had some minor problems dismantling the HEQ5 but thanks to your contribution on TH-cam I managed to do it anyway; only I have to wait for better weather for the fine adjustment we see.
Greetings from Belgium- Frank
Thank you Frank. I really do hope the weather improves for you. It has been bad here too but not the same as yours.
That was very interesting. You do great work. Thank You!
That's very kind of you to say so, thank you
Hi Glen, I finaly finished to do the same to my EQ6R. Thanks to you 🙂, I knew what, how and when to do things. I would add some comments and share my own experience. Removing and mounting roller bearing is sometimes very tricky. I used a caliper to monitor how square I was with the housing and it helped to know where to put some rubber hammer small hit to restore the right position for the roller bearing. I had a tough job removing one of the roller from the RA brass declination gear, I put it in the oven at 70°C and the extraction was much easier. Last but not least I had a strange behavior with the new SKF roller bearings 6008 2RS1. There were so stiff that after installation the dec axis appeared to be very sticky because the DEC axis was in fact moving in the internal hole of the bearing without gripping it thanks to the grease I put for installation. Fortunately as soon as there was some radial effort it worked properly. For tuning worm gear and brass gear, I followed the presentation of Astro-baby to compute the thickness of the shimmer for the gears and to adjust the distance I did it before reinstalling the belts. It gives you a good touch of whether you are too tight and you can also feel the backlash.
Thanks again for this video, Frédéric
Fantastic news. Sounds like you got the job done well, there is always a bearing or something that misbehaves but hopefully you will see a nice improvement in your mounts performance. Thank you for keeping me informed on how it went. I saw an email from you and will reply, just been a busy time lately so sorry for not replying sooner.
I finished the rebuild today using the bearings you suggested. I'm am so thankful for your help and all your very helpful tutorials on YT. The process went very well and right out the gate with only a new calibration and guide assistant, I'm guide at 1460mm with an Edge HD8 at .44 RMS. Oddly enough GA showed I have a DEC backlash of 3800 ms.. So I haven't sorted that out yet, but I'm extremely happy. I'll be getting my balance meter next week, maybe I can mesh those worm gears more precisely. Cheers!
That's great news Damien and so glad my video helped with your mount. Sounds like you did a great job. Those guiding numbers feel good after doing a project like that so well done mate. The balance meter will help you get really good fine adjustment but don't worry too much about backlash that is measured and reported as PHD2 will compensate for it. If your DEC rms are similar to the RA rms then all is good and you will have round sharp stars.
Thank you for the extra support on Patreon, really appreciate that. Clear skies
Very well done Glen. I came across this channel today and it was just what I needed to see. I have a two year old EQ6-R Pro . I’m 80 and have been involved in more astrophotography than I care to admit… or should I say more problem solving situations with equipment. You have saved me countless hours and headaches figuring out how to tune my mount with your very well constructed video. Thanks so much for sharing. I very much appreciate all the time and effort you put into this video!
From cold, cold Minnesota,
Clear nights and best wishes!
Dennis
Hi Dennis and thank you for taking the time to write such kind comments. I am really pleased that i was able to help you as that has been my main goal with the channel. Problem solving is without doubt one of our biggest hurdles. I bet you have seen many many changes in this pursuit of ours.
Clear skies to you too, all the Best
Glenn
Just about the best how to video I've seen. Guiding was fine this summer. Now with winter in Colorado US, it's gone to hell. I'll see if this helps. Tha ks Glen!
Hi Frank and thank you for your kind comment. They tend to get tighter in the cold months and Joe who also lives in Colorado has to adjust his mount for the winter. We are lucky not to get the extremes that you guys get. Hope it goes well, any issues I can help with let me know. Clear skies
@@Astrobloke Yeah, it does get chilly here in the winter, but I'm using powered usb cables to sit inside. That's been great! I'm getting a Stellarview 152 soon (ordered a explore scientific 152 which had bad glass issues but could handle same mount) Now will have slightly heavier setup that I hope a hypertuned eq6 will handle. Otherwise refinance the house for EQ6R! Ha
Great video M8. For anyone seeing this, the procedure is pretty much identical for the Orion Atlas (both the EQ-G, as well as the newer Atlas II)
Thank you for the kind comment and great tips on the other mounts.
Hi Glenn, well covered. When I did the fine tune on the gears I slewed a full 360 degrees with a vixen bar in the saddle for the DEC and the counterweight bar for the RA , checking about every 5 degrees for the backlash. When I found the tightest spot, that is where I made my final adjustments and rechecked.
Hi and thank you for sharing your tips on the backlash. Will give that a try even though I have it guiding really nice after the hypertune
Far beyond where i am with the hobby at this time but great tutorial for future endeavours 👍
Hi Rob and thank you.
Just a note of thanks. I followed along with the video and pulled off this operation with great success. No hiccups, no problems. I do the fine tuning on the back lash and such in the morning. Thank you very much!
Hi James and thank you. Glad it was of help and I hope you get great results, clear skies
Excellent tutorial Glenn! I've stripped & rebuilt an HEQ5 before, but was very glad to have your video to walk me through the EQ6-R. Made for a good sick day project for me today. Now to get it under the stars and make sure I haven't made things worse, haha. Cheers!
Hi and thank you for commenting. Glad the video was helpful, just a few differences but I am sure you have done well. After a tinker these mounts give great results. Since doing mine quite some time back now it has been a trouble free performer. Clear skies
@@Astrobloke Well post rebuild it's certainly no worse than before, and even had some decent stretches guiding tonight at 0.4-0.5" RMS, so that's a relief! I didn't change out the bearings, but did pop the plastic shields, on the 6008s, and stripped the old grease (some of it yellowed and paste thick), and replace with Superlube. At least now I won't be intimidated by the teardown if I decide to upgrade the bearings in the future. Cleaned everything else thoroughly, dried and regreased thinly with Superlube as well. Seems to be singing. Thanks again!
@@otameal that’s great. I found it takes a couple of sessions for them to fully settle down, but 0.4-0.5 is very nice
Thanks for the video, it helped a lot. I recently did a teardown and serviced my EQ6 R Pro. I did everything but replace the bearings. It's like a brand new mount.
That’s excellent John and really glad the video was helpful. It does make a huge difference, thank you for commenting, clear skies
I have the eq6 pro and an apm 6 inch apo refractor i bought as a package deal from apm and the eq6 is so much better than the previous mount I owned..great video.
What was your previous mount?
I think the EQ6 is an excellent level of mount and serves the majority of amateur astronomers and astrophotographers out there. I love mine.
Thanks for watching and clear skies
@Astrobloke I had a eq5 . I tried it with my telescope but my telescope was too heavy for the mount and had some movement when I viewed through the ep. When other people were viewed with my they would always grab the telescope my the eye piece and move the mount.
Ahh, just as I decide to look at my eq6 to tighten my FWHM in images, and this pops up. Awesome video, thankyou.
PART NUMBERS IN DESCRIPTION TOOO YEEEEEAAAHH
Excellent, glad I could help out
you just make great videos that really help the Astrophotography community. Keep up the great work Glenn
Thank you Claire thats a very kind comment
Great video! Convinced me to rebuild my EQ6-R Pro (used with a Celestron EdgeHD 8" for AP).
Guiding was always pretty good, typically ~0.5 to 0.7 without PEC.RA was always too tight but never adjusted it.
Occasionally Dec axis stiction led to the decision to rebuild. Was easy. Mount now v. free and easy to balance. Still in the mount "tuning" phase. Backlash in DEC almost completely eliminated (
Hi Tim. Thats excellent mate and thank you for taking the time to write and share your results. Really glad the videos helped. Clear skies
This video has been a major help today! Thanks! My EQ6 R Pro took a swim to the bottom of the deep end of my swimming pool last night. Seriously! It seems that 100 km/h wind was just enough to topple the whole tripod and mount and tumble it right onto my frozen pool (I'm in Canada) and through the ice. I've spent today learning how to disassemble it with the help of your video. Hopefully I can get everything dried out, re-greased and tuned up.
Hi Roy. i am pleased the video has helped you out. Once dried and greased I can’t see you’ll have any mechanical issues. I suppose its how the electrics faired. Hopefully once fully dried they’ll be ok.
@@Astrobloke Yes I think mechanically everything will be fine. I think (hope) the electronics will be ok since it wasn't powered up or even plugged in when it went for a swim. I will be giving the circuit board a good long drying out period. In the meantime with the help of your video I'm learning about the innards of the mount and I may as well tune it up at the same time. Seems like one of the bearings on the worm gear was sticky anyway.
Grazie al tuo video, il lavoro l’ho fatto. Adesso è tutto perfetto. Backlash annullato. Errore 0.10-0.05. Grazie amico😊👏
That is great. I am very happy to have helped. Clear skies
@@Astrobloke 🥰👋
Complimenti ,sei stato bravissimo e professionale nel commentare nel video tutti i passaggi utili per ricondizionare la montatura EQ6 R PRO.
Thank you for your kind comment. I hope it helped you
Very thorough video Glenn, good explained and it looks so smooth now
looking forward to see the results and also the video about pec training your mount
Thanks , will follow up as soon as the clouds clear
Glenn, Thanks for the clarification. I'll order them today, thanks for your video
You are welcome. Let me know if I can help any further. Best of luck
Excellent video Glenn! I'm going to go ahead and order everything I need and get ready to do this in the summer when the seeing is horrid here in Florida. Appreciate the time you took to make this and pass the knowledge along!
Thank you for commenting and best of luck to you with your mount. Clear skies
Thanks for your excellent tutorial Glenn! My mount is brand new but both of the brass worm drives were absolutely smothered in grease. Both of the axis locking nuts were over tightened too, causing difficulties with balance. A little fettling with these mounts can make the world of difference.
I think there is a different type of grease (more tacky) used on the 2 locking levers. It helps to hold the levers in place when the axis are loosened. On my HEQ5 I replaced that grease with Superlube, but then had the problem of when I loosened the lever it would slide back down causing the axis to lock.
Thank you. The grease seems to be everywhere on some mounts and good to get cleaned away from where its not needed. A few tweaks and these mounts will last years and return great results for Astrophotography.
You are right about the grease there, it is better if it is a more tacky type. Mine had loads in there so just wiped some off rather than clean and re lube
Great! thanks for an up to date video of the procedure. Super helpful 👌.
Hi Michael, thank you and you’re welcome
Awesome amount of effort to put this together mate, bravo! - I'm sure it'll help countless folk out :-)
Great job!
Thank you Luke. I know you appreciate the amount of work some videos take. These ones are quite a few days in the making but worth the effort.
Nice one! Been waiting for a full tune of this mount. You made it look not so scary! Thx.
Thank you. Its not too bad as long as you don’t rush.
Thanks for making this video . My Eqr6 out of the box was as Tighter than a fish's arse! ( SW qa dept checklist-yep tighten everything to within a mill of snapping Check! ) .
Just backed the dec&Ra compression nuts off by a poofteenth and both axis flip by themselves now ...
You are welcome Willows and thanks for commenting, made me laugh. I swear someone in that factory is on steroids and if you get their mount you have a fight on your hands.
@@Astrobloke Yeah to true , Funny thing was the grub screws were pretty well loose . Cheers again mate
Really good to see this Glenn. Looks realy smooth after that tune up. Something I will be looking to do in the future. Many thanks for sharing.
You are welcome Ben. I will follow up with guiding numbers as soon as I can 🤞
Great tutorial Glenn! As you know I’ve been also doing the same thing and so far so good. You still make it look easier than it is hahaha
Thank you Joe. I look forward to seeing yours as there is always something to learn. Glad your mount is performing well, will report on mine as soon as I can see some stars ☁️🇬🇧☁️
That’s an interesting 54 minutes watch Glenn! Like I said in your HEQ5 upgrade, ‘you’re a braver man than me’ You clearly know your stuff mate!
I look forward to seeing the guiding results. Hopefully, my new Eq6 R Pro won’t need doing for a good while! Good vid mate👍
Hi Simon. Thanks mate. It will be fine and if there are any issues just give me a shout and I'll help you sort them out
@@Astrobloke Thanks Glenn👍
Wow! Loosening that RA locking nut does wonders! Its smooth as silk now and balancing is another game! I used a very cheap bicycle tool to loosen it: parktool spa-1
I think they overtighten this a lot
Hi Glenn , really good video. You explain the steps so well that I want to do the same with my AZ EQ6 PRO mount. Keep up the good work :)
Thank you. I am glad its easy to follow.
I did not know that a Synta EQ-6 contained brass worm-gears, and for DEC-axis as well; remarkable, and beautiful.
Its nice piece of machinery
Whoa! Great video man! Definitely something I need to do. I skimmed through for now but will be referencing for sure. Thanks for sharing this!
Awesome, thank you!
Thank you for sharing your work and all the components needed, just ordered the new bearings and excited to do the hypertune asap. Also anxious to see your guiding, mine was around 0.5 - 0.8 on best conditions, with some strange movements every few subs, not sure if it was pec or not... but ended up discarding 30% of them. As you say in the video, balancing is not really smooth with the eq6r pro, your final result looks amazing, looks like you can perfectly balance very accurately. Great video!!
Thank you Josep. Hopefully this will improve things for you. I will be releasing a video on the final guiding results in the next few days
You should check the DEC motor position. the belt is climbing - and will be damaged over time ^^ u can see that in the video at 49:58
Hi and many thanks for pointing that out. I have since that video made many adjustments including that one after tweaking backlash at a later date. In fact I actually replaced the belts.
Very nice. My mount is new. I had a cgem2 sent it back they sent another one I had it hypertuned ,600$, and it still wouldn’t get below 1.0 , the stiction was removed but he didn’t remove the play in ra that was there in the beginning. A waist of money . Sold it bought the eq6-r pro and great guiding at averages of .70 better.
Lookin foreword to the guiding results.
what a shame you had such a poor experience at first. The Eq6 is good out of the box and even just tweaking with PHD2 and PEC training can easily get you down to 0.5rms. If you check my videos there is one on the PEC training for this mount
@@Astrobloke awesome I’ll look at the pec training video for sure. It’s something I’ve wanted to do.
Thats because the cgem uses servos and the skywatcher uses steppers, you also get harmonics within the servo motors.. also with the skywatcher they run on belts from the motor to the worm, so it takes out that backlash scenario, the cgem has gear to gear mesh...
Some have belt modded the cgem and replaced the servos with steppers..you then get the same sort of performance. .. synta make both mounts so it's only the difference in motors that makes the skywatcher the better mount straight out of the box
This is such a good video
Thank you
Top Job Glenn, I'm not sure I would trust myself to do this but you've obviously got this down. You guide graph will be a flat line. I wonder if PHD2 pops up with a special message if you get a total rms of Zero!
if I can get to a steady 0.3 I will be very happy
You only get zero rms if you guide on a hot pixel
Thanks for the tear-down on this! I'm usually scared of projects that I don't where to begin with , but this helps!
By the way, I might be lucky with my EQ6R, because if there is one thing it does very well is tracking. All I did after a week of using it was I removed some backlash from the DEC with those tiny allen screws, removed the locking clutch levers and cleaned up those copper disks from the sticky grease and never had an issue with tracking ever since, PhD2 barely have to correct the tracking.
My criticism falls on the azimuth/elevation adjustment knobs, as they are too rough to be very precise when polar aligning so I tried greasing the bolts up , but not much changed. The worst is the elevation up/down bolts just feels very rough during polar alignment so I have to "guesstimate" like if Sharpcap polar alignment say move 2'10" up on elevation, I don't have to, just tighten down both up/down and and the down-knob will move it enough to get to nearly 0'0". But sometimes it's more finicky and more time wasted messing with the knobs. I wish I could make it more precise though.
Hi Frank. Sounds like you got one of the really good mounts from the factory. The ALT adjustment is very crude to say the least and I am not sure what can actually be done to help it. I know a mod was made for earlier versions but not sure there is one for our mount. I often get as close as possible so the final adjustment is down and then achieve 0" or as close to by tightening the back bolt. At least with that one you have some control unlike the clumsy ratchet thingy for up.
@@Astrobloke 1 year later: I'm gonna have to do this, haha! My tracking is gone down to hell in both axis. I blame myself a bit, since the mount spent several days outside under a cover during cloudy and rainy days, and while it protected from direct water, I'm pretty sure the moisture done its work in the interior mechanisms, most likely the bearings. The mount feels sticky in both axis and backlash screw or belt adjustments don't change a thing. I'm thinking it's the bearings and lubrication. Thanks again!
@@Neanderthal75 Hi Frank. Its possible but more likely just the cold. Its strange but I always thought the hotter weather would cause things to expand and lead to binding and stiffness but it seems its the cold that effects it more. Have you brought it inside and let it warm up? worth a try. If you have any issues please don't hesitate to contact me, happy to help.
Thanks!
You’re welcome
Smashing vid Glenn, my dad will find this interesting 💯
Thanks mitch.
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you
Thanks to you Glenn I have successfully rebuilt my EQ6-R Pro (minus the fine tuning for now). If you would ,tell us where you obtained the spare belts for the RA and DEC Thanks, Noah.
Hi Noah, thats excellent mate and I hope it all went well for you. There is a dealer in the uk called rothervalleyoptics.co.uk and they stocked them but I would think most that sell the mount would
Subscribed! what amazing knowledge you possess, thanks for sharing.
Thank you, you are welcome
Bravo e grazie😊
Thank you
Thank you!
You’re welcome
Really nice video on the EQ6R-Pro. Couple of questions regarding the bearings. I was surprised at how easily the bearing outer rings came out of the castings and the fact that you installed the new ones with grease on the outer faces. My concern would be that the outer ring could rotate inside the casting once the bearing was pre-loaded. I would definitely install the outer rings using a bearing locking compound to prevent the outer ring from rotating with the RA and DEC shafts. I also found that the dust covers on the bearings can create a fair amount of drag. As these bearings are pretty much buried inside the mount and not really exposed to dust and dirt etc, I would remove these covers. This also allows the bearings to be lubricated with a high quality grease during subsequent maintenance (it’s surprising how little grease is often applied during manufacture).
I also noticed (but it may have been an optical illusion from the camera angle) that the mounting hole in the small toothed pulley on the DEC worm drive shaft didn’t seem to be machined concentric to the outer diameter causing the pulley to “wobble” making the belt flop about as its tension subsequently increased and decreased slightly as the shaft rotated. I will definitely be looking at that on my mount and replacing it if I find it has been machined eccentrically. I’ll definitely be replacing all the bearings in my mount in the future but at the moment my tracking is spot on and to be honest, I find it’s the seeing conditions that tend to impact my guiding more than anything else. Great video.
.
Helpful video Glenn but I noticed a mistake. You used super lube on the worm gear. Whilst super lube is ok for bearings it isn’t a suitable lubricant for gears. You should have used something like Liqui Moly LM47 on the worm gears
Thanks for commenting.
For fast moving gears I would tend to agree as certain greases can thin/separate over time and fly off if on fast moving parts. With the very slow mechanics of a mount the super lube performs very well and to date I have had no issues to think it needs changing.
Nice video. However, the 608-2rs bearings are not the correct bearings for the EQ6-R Pro. The diameter of the worm shaft where it butts up against the bearing exceeds the max allowed abutment dimension given in the spec sheets for the 608-2rs bearings. The bearings with the metal shield (SKF part #608-2z) have a larger max allowed abutment dimension, and are the correct bearings to use. When I rebuilt my EQ6-R Pro, I had some bearings with rubber shields left over from when I rebuilt my Orion Atlas (same as SW EQ6), but when I used them in the EQ6-R Pro, when I tightened the nut down on the worm bearings, I could feel it binding up because of the rubber shields. So I had to order the correct bearings, and replace them. Now when I tighten the nut down on the worm bearings, no more binding on the rubber shield.
Don't mix up the spacers! Make sure you put the same number of spacers back where they came from! Ideally, you should measure the spacing, and use the correct number of spacers to center the worm on the worm gear, possibly adding or removing spacers from what SW used. Don't necessarily trust that they got the number of spacers correct. The Astro Baby site has the procedure for adjusting the number of spacers to use.
Also, since you went through all the trouble to tear the mount down, you really should degrease things, especially the outside of the brass worm gear, where the clutches press up against it. That's why the clutches on the EQ6-R Pro are notorious for slipping. Degrease everything with mineral spirits and that problem goes away. Also, degreasing and cleaning the worm and worm gear will remove any grit that might be in there, which would cause spikes in guiding. Really, there's no reason not to do that when you have everything torn apart.
Clear skies!
Hi Kevin. Thank you for your reply. I know the bearings I took out had the metal seals and not the plastic ones. I opted for the later as they are a higher standard of bearing and I had read in more than one source that these were suitable for the job. I personally did not have any binding issues and the mount is now guiding at 0.3rms so they seem to work fine. I will however add this information to my video so people have the choice.
clear skies
@@Astrobloke Sounds like a success! Glad the mount is performing well for you! CS!
My 3 yo beat up EQ6-R Pro guides my 120mm refractor using a 210mm guide scope at .30-.60 typical. Last night I saw .28. When it STB, I'll buy a new one.
👍
Superb! Thankyou.
Thank ypu
@@Astrobloke Glenn, I needed to go through this video as my EQ6R-Pro got soaked accidentally when the roof to my observatory leaked badly, meaning the guiding became crappy and unreliable. So I took this as an opportunity to service it and upgrade the bearings. After running my mount through this video I was left with what I would describe more as a grinding noise, as opposed to binding, (I think of binding as less whereas grinding being noisier and sounding more like it could do damage) to the point where the Dec axis wouldn't actually slew with the hand controller. I decided to dismantle the mount again and checking the slewing after each stage of the dismantling the grinding noise disappeared once I got to the loosening of the 4 bolts on the mount that hold the Dec carrier in place. So I put it all back together with these bolts not tightened quite so much as previously, and all worked well when I tested the slewing, the grinding noise had gone; both axis slewed without any binding; however, guiding was not as good as hoped. It was better than when the mount got wet (guiding RMS then was 2 - 2.5), but before it got wet I could expect 0.6. Is this backlash that is causing this? There is a noticeable movement in the Dec axis, which I didnt have before....
Thanks.
Kind regards
Matt
@@oakleywindowcleaning Hi Matt. The grinding noise is not nice at all but its just the axis locked up and the stepper motors slipping. ts possible you may have it too loose and its a very fine adjustment between running freely and binding. You also need to guide for a good period of time and give the mount a while to settle. Just in case you haven't, re run all calibrations. treat it like a brand new mount and I would also run guide assistant (for EQ6 thats 8 mins = 480mins) so it goes through one complete worm cycle and apply the changes and then run a fresh calibration again. See how it is after this. Make sure with calibration you have your mount RA so the mounts is parallel with the ground and slew as low to the south that you can or when Dec reads zero. This will give you the best calibration for your mount. Hope this helps and please let me know how you get on.
@@Astrobloke Thankyou, clear skies in the south here in the UK tomorrow apparently. I'll check out those suggestions.
Matt
@@Astrobloke Glenn, in your last reply you said I may have it too loose. Which part are you refering too? The belt for the Dec axis?
Total engineer comment, basically "I fixed everything, it's perfect, but I want it better." 1:20
Always chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and buying snake oil to make it just that bit better lol. That’s me all over. Thanks for watching and hope its helped .
Just remember that when you're doing worm engagement that a little bit loose is better than a little bit tight
Absolutely, something i have to tell others alot. PHD2 can compensate for a little backlash but cannot do anything for binding
I would love to do this to my mount but I can’t bring myself to tear into a brand new $1,500 mount. Thought about having it professionally done but then didn’t want to be without it. So I’ll just be happy with 0.8 for a few years.
I can understand that and most probably not necessarily what you have to do to get great performance. PHD2 settings and PEC training can all make a big difference and drop your guiding error numbers.
@@Astrobloke I watched your video on PEC and ran the full 9 cycles on mine but my graph looks like a staircase. Probably some stiction in the mount but I’m not sure where. I’m hopeful that it will loosen up over time. Do you think that PECprep will sort that out. The mount is under warranty but I doubt they will see it as a problem.
@@jedidiahwest4619 Pecprep can help ypu produce a smoother curve. Run the PEC curve you have and while guiding with it next time you are imaging record another 9 cycles.
Hi, absolutely this is the best video to understand how to renew the EQ6R, thanks a lot for this 🙏😉
I have one question: at 48:30 time you adjust the bottom and top screws to set properly the RA backlash, in this time the 4 big screws must be left a little loose or tight? thanks in advance for your reply 😊
Thank you very much for watching and commenting. When adjusting just slightly loosen them but still have them gripping slightly. The adjustment grub screws are quite small so will move against a little resistance but too much and you will strip them. Hope this helps
@@Astrobloke dear Glen thank you so much for your reply, I’ll keep you updated about the tests
cheers
Roberto
Hi Glenn
I have the newer AZ-EQ6 Pro, and my RA guiding suddenly became terrible. From 0.7rms to over 8rms. I stripped the mount. Turns out the bearings on the RA worm shaft were rough and noisy. I followed your video. Excellent work. At 23:00 you changed your bearings. I’m struggling to find information regarding the size I need for my mount?
Is it SKF 608-2Z? 22mm outer, 8mm inner and 7mm thickness?
Many thanks
Hi Osama. I am really sorry but because I have never worked on this mount I have no idea of the bearing sizes for it. Have you tried contacting Sky Watcher? They may be able to help. Sorry I don't know the answer for you.
Don't know much about bearings, but the suppliers I asked say the 6008 2rs1 is a designated ball bearing number ,they don't understand when I ask for the roller bearing in this size.
www.bearings-online.co.uk/browse/q-6008/q-2rs1
Click on that link as it will show you the bearing I used
Great video again! 👍🏻✌🏻🇨🇦
Thank you
Mine regularly gets .3 to .4 guiding. sometimes I hit .5 o.6 but usually on average .4 or below so I don't think I will bother with this for now. lol My image scale is 1.0" per pixel so I think that is fine for even 20 mins worth of subs.
Looks like you got one of the good ones and at that guide performance I would leave well alone and just use it. My EQ8 R Pro is like that. Guides 0.3-0.4 so perfect out of the box. Clear skies
Hi Glenn, how are you mate. My dad just watched the. If for this and he said it is amazing video he is going to do his eq6r pro. Very impressed by the vid... Cheers
Oh and also I'll probably get him to do my heq5pro. How many minutes can you get in your heq5pro ?? My dad got 10 mins a few months ago 👍💯👌 thanks
Hi Mitch. Thank you mate. If I am doing narrowband 10 mins is all I ever do as my LP causes problems beyond that. I have guided 15min subs but the sky was too bright
Thanks for the video and bearings link. I’ve completed the tune except for one part-replacing the bearings on the RA worm shaft. I ran into a problem where I couldn’t get the optical encoder disk off the worm shaft. The screw used to hold the disk on the shaft is very poor quality and its head stripped when I tried to remove it. Any suggestions? Thanks, Greg
That is a real shame that screw head stripped. Its a very small screw and if done up too tight I can imagine easily damaged. I was lucky that mine just turned ok. I am not sure what you can do other than try to drill it out. Not sure how easy that would be with it being so small. It might be worth a search on google or TH-cam for ways to remove small screws that are damaged. What you don't want to do is damage the disc. I hope you are able to find a solution, a replacement screw would be easy to source its just getting the old one out. Thank you for watching and commenting and good luck, please let me know how you get on. Glenn
Thank you for a great video. Does anyone know if the NEQ6 uses the same dimension bearings?
I think it does. The EQ6 and NEQ6 are basically the same mount as with the Orion Atlas.
Thank you for the video. In rhe description and one of the comments, the smaller worm bearing is listed as 608, but in the video you say 606. Was that just a mis-speak? Thank you
Thank you for commenting Rhys. You are correct and well spotted. the listing is correct and I said the wrong number in the video
One quick question.Is a 6008-2RS bearing the same as a 6008-2RS1 bearing ?
Great video Glenn, very interesting to see the internals of the mount..some could argue that it's a regrease and not a hypertune... you could have gone alot further into detail...things that would help, and some that might cause you issues further down the line
But on the whole, great video
Thank you Derek. After all the work I did and replacing all the bearings with much higher quality ones it would be a little unfair for someone to class this as a regrease. I do have a follow up video coming out very soon showing that my guiding is now at 0.3 total rms error which I think you'll agree is tuned nicely.
@@Astrobloke yes it's well worth the effort, some would say you're mad to take it apart, especially as it wasn't causing you any issues other than a bit of stiction.. but .3 is in pixels and on the scale of your guide cam.. arc sec is an arc sec, regardless of your set up
@@derekregan6926 What methods and procedures do you consider is classed as a hyper tune?
@@Astrospacegeek modifying and improving parts that isn't originally in the stock mount
Thank you for the excellent video! Do you know which one is the tapered bearing for the DEC axis? The 30206 or the 32208? Is that info available somewhere? Thanks!!
Thank you for watching and commenting. The smaller tapered bearing (30206) is the one for the DEC axis.
Thanks for the video. My Eq6 keeps getting really bad declination numbers and I think it seizes in a few places despite being a little sloppy with the feel. You always go off video when you clean up a part. What method do you use for cleaning...what brand of degreaser?
Hi Jeff, thank you for watching and commenting and I hope it helps sort your mount issues out. Sorry that the video doesn't show that detail but the degreaser I used is this one amzn.to/46b5X27. I just sprayed any parts that needed it and used an old small paint brush and paper towels to remove the grease. Please let me know ho you get on.
I see you do not loosen the set screws for the carrier backlash adjustment prior to removing the carrier. Or is this just not shown in your video ?
It was quite some time ago now and I honestly cannot remember what I did there. I would say they do need loosening off first but the carrier may come off without that as they should not be done up tight.
Great video on hyper-tuning the Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro. I ordered the bearings kit from R&M Bearings in England, and am ready to perform the upgrade. My question is this: Did you do anything in the way of cleaning and lubing the bearings before installing them in the EQ6-R Pro? R&M Bearings suggested not doing anything to the bearings since they come from the factory already lubed and ready to install. Your thoughts? Thanks for the great video!
Thanks Darryl. The sealed bearings I leave alone and just put in the mount, there is really no need to grease these as they come pre packed with grease and you don't want to open them unless you have good reason to. (Re greasing older bearings maybe). The tapered bearings will need to have grease applied. Good luck with your project. clear skies
@@Astrobloke I don't see you apply grease to the tapered bearing in the video, how much grease should be applied to the tapered bearing? Should they be fully packed?
@@DamianVines I just put a thumb size blob in the palm of my hand and work it into the rollers. Just make sure it has a good even coating
What causes stiction and what can be done without replacing all the bearings? Also does pec tuning in phd2 improve guiding in both ra and dec or just one of them. Thanks again for your efforts in bringing us these how to videos.
Stiction can be simply because the main nuts that hold the Ra and Dec axis on the mount are done up too tightly from the factory. Just slightly loosening these can help but make sure there is no play. You can see this in my stripdown videos. PHD2 will adjust guiding for the Dec and Ra. Pec is purely measuring imperfections in the RA wormdrive only nad corrects for resonance in that drive.
Just to be clear the 4 main bolts for each that hold the ra and dec carrier on not the grub screws and counter weight cap .
@@danjensen9425 no they are the worm carrier bolts for the Ra and the dec. I am referring to the first main nuts that are removed when taking apart the Dec or the Ra , Dec one is where the counter weight bar comes out and Ra where the polar scope is.
Hi Glenn
Just got all the needed SKF bearings to do surgery on my EQ6R Pro, but I am wondering, if you cleaned the factory supplyed grease from the 6008 bearings? They are extremely smooth, but the grease seems to provide a fair bit of sticktion.
The ones I fitted don't spin freely but don't seem to have stiction to affect the mount under load. I left the grease that they came with but you could change it if it feels too stiff for you.
Awesome job! Inhave mine in pieces right now. Somehow mice got in and filled it with what looks like cat food lol (got it used). It is a disaster inside. What dod ypu clean all the parts/gears with? Varsole?
I was quite lucky in that I just had excess grease in mine so was able to just wipe it clean and apply new grease. In your case you can use any degreaser really but just make sure thats all cleaned up and dry before applying new grease. One I have used before is WD40 degreaser, works very well.
I have one small issue with balance. No matter what I do the telescope is east heavy, I have adjusted the counterweight over and over and over, but nothing changes is there any advice you can give me at all?
Its very possibly whats referred to as the 3rd axis and where there is more weight to one side of the scope. Firstly make sure the mount is level as this can effect it also. If it is then either add weight to the side it is falling away from. I use Newtonians mainly and you can rotate these in the rings to balance this out. With my refractor the autofocuser on oneside throws off this balance so I just add some small weights. Hope this helps
what kind of bearing you use to replace the old ones? could you tell us the item number of it?
All the details are in the description
@@Astrobloke thank you
Excellent video! Would you know if this is the same process for the AZ-EQ6?
Thank you. It is the same process apart from the RA roller bearing which I believe is a different size. If you contact Sky Watcher they should be able to confirm the bearings needed for your mount. Good lick and clear skies
@@Astrobloke Thanks a lot, highly appreciate the feedback!
Great video. Thank you. Another question if I may. Why using that reflective material in your observatory? One would think stray light would reflect on this. Unless you are lucky to live in a Bortle 1 area of the world, but there is always LED lights on equipment.
I have had a few comments on this. Its insulation as its a plastic shed and so prone to condensation, this stops that. Absolutely not reflective issues at night as you can see from any of my images, including an APOD
Brilliant video, thank you. I'm due to move house soon and so my observatory will have to be dismantled and shifted with me. I'll take the opportunity to tune my EQ6R-Pro so this video has been very timely! Just one question - what do you use for cleaning up the parts? Whenever I've done anything like this (my AZ-GTi for instance, following one of your other videos!) I worry about fibres of tissue getting left all over the place. Is there something specific you use?
Nothing special actually. I have some heavy paper towel and i just carefully wipe off messy or excess grease. May use degreasant if really bad but the newer mounts seem a lot better and use higher quality grease. Not had any issues with fibre from tissues to date but I am always careful to check
@@Astrobloke cheers, Glen. I always seem to get bits caught on sharp edges so end up having to use the wife’s toothbrush to get everything clean again (just joking in case she happens to see this 😬).
Hi Glenn, a very important instruction you provided here. I allready used your HEQ5 guide for my good old (now sold) HEQ and now it was the time for the EQ6R. One question, since I am not shure if you name it in the video (also on the HEQ5) and I simply forgot how I did it then: you don't regrease the outside of the worm gear, right? Just the parts where the bearings are inserted. Looking forward to the rest of the tuning. Although it's a bit exciting, it is still a lot fun (and I have nothing better to do with months full of clouds over here), greetings from Germany and continue the good work! Jens
Thank you for watching and your kind comments. On grease application, just on any moving parts that are in contact with other parts. I only pit a thin layer on outside of bearings to help ease them in easier.
Good luck and clear skies
@@Astrobloke great thanks! I also have ordered the SKF 608 2RS Bearings but for my taste they are not quite right and the worm gear has some resistance compared to the original 608 Z bearings and is sometimes running "free" in the inner part of the bearing, introducing problems. The 2Z/C3 bearingsonline are naming in their kit could fit, but I probably stay at the original worm carrier bearings here, as they are working pretty good. Clear skies!
@@jensleuteritz6827 do not worry if they seem a little stiff as they will be working under a load condition and this will not effect your guiding
@@Astrobloke interessting. I think I will try them out and see how the worm drive behaves. Until now I tested it only freestyle in my hands. A mount tuning workshop here in Germany suggested me hybrid ceramic bearings, cost 9 euros per piece, maybe I try them out later
@@jensleuteritz6827 The ceramic ones are very nice. I think they have limits of tolerance in very cold weather. I think it would have to be extreme though and in Germany you should be fine
Hi, Great video and I can appreciate the time and effort to do this! I ordered the bearings that you used and I found them to be extremely stiff. I sent a note to R&M bearings where I ordered them as a kit they suggested I ask you for some feedback. I had earlier purchased a hypertune kit and the worm bearings were easy to spin. Any suggestions, to anyone?
New bearings can feel stiff (mine were) if you try and spin them in your hand. Once under load they will be fine. Obviously if they are not moving freely when under load in the mount there could be a fault with them. But if they turn by hand and feel smooth (no bumps, notches) they are fine. You don’t want them too loose as these could have play in them. Its hard to tell what they are like as i would need to see and feel them but they come packed with grease so won’t just spin freely
@@Astrobloke Thanks, I guess the idea of being able to spin the RA/DEC axis so it keeps rotating is not necessary
Merci bonne explications est-ce que vous pouvez me donner la marques des Behring et leurs spécifications ? Tank you
Thank you Edith. All of those details are in the description below the video
Hi Glenn, great video and channel. Just a quick question. I note from the recommended bearings website there are three options for the tapered bearing 30206 and the profile info suggests each has small differences in bore, width and OD. Can you confirm which one you used please. Thank you in advance.
You do not want the 3rd option of the reduced size bore. I opted for the more expensive of the other 2.
Hi Glenn. Do you have any advice on replacing the alt and az bolts? The factory ones are not very easy to use because of the knobs. Thanks
Hi Stuart. I still have the originals but agree they are not the best. Now I have an EQ8 it really shows up how clunky and poor they are. I think I will look into what alternatives are available and will show any I get. I think the main problem on the Az though is the thread is too coarse so fine adjustment is difficult.
@@Astrobloke I'll look forward to that. Do you happen to know what size the bolts are? M12? I think the alt one may be bigger than the az ones
Glen, I have the Az-eq6 pro. Do you know if the bearings are the same as the Eq6?
They are almost the same but I believe the RA bearing is slightly larger. If you email Sky watcher they will confirm the sizes for you
👍@@Astrobloke
Hi glen. I hope you are staying sane with all the cloud. So it’s been a while since you tuned it. How is it going? Have you had to revisit it?
Hi Richard, the clouds have been challenging as always but keeping well thank you. The mount is still buttery smooth since the work I did and guides so well I don't even think about guiding anymore with it. Just set it up and away it goes. I am starting a build on a new 2 pier observatory so the EQ6 will make it back onto a pier alongside my EQ8. Can't wait
@@Astrobloke look forward to seeing your build. Clear skies
Great info mate, do you know if this is the same for the NEQ6-pro? If so, I'm going to follow along 👍
Yes mate they are very similar. Will send a link to you of some specific details that will cover any differences
Great work , can you do 8t on cgx mount?
I know someone who did this to an AVX mount so I am sure the CGX can be done. I don't have one though
What exactly is the point to this? I don't mean to pose that question in a negative light. I've seen several people going on about this sort of thing on the forums, but my understanding was that the EQ6R was so well made it didn't need tuning. As far as I'm aware I've not had any issues that have caused my mount not to work as well as intended, so find it odd that people would need to do this. In any case certainly going to watch and would be interested by your answer.
I had an older HEQ5 that was very stiff and had guiding issues. Being mechanically minded I stripped the mount to see what could be the issues. Firstly the bearings used are of questionable quality, the ones I took out were unbranded and 2 of them the seals were leaking and grease was all over areas it shouldn’t be. Also the bearings holding the wormdrive were notchy and not smooth. After servicing the improvements were massive with much better guiding and a mount easier to balance. This then led me to do the same for my EQ6. When you watch the videos I do explain my reasons for carrying out both the hypertunes.
@@Astrobloke Fair enough. Going to watch it later today, just about to head to bed. Might answer some of my other questions, probably too tired to actually take anything in right now, haha.
Great job.. You think you could do mine at some point?? (East London)
Is there an advantage to the ADM saddle over the original one?
Check this out as I cover it all in here th-cam.com/video/LJ-egFak5ZU/w-d-xo.html
How much time would you estimate the full upgrade process takes?
I would say 2-3hrs without rushing. Obviously longer if you have any particular problems like bearings getting stuck etc
@@Astrobloke awesome. You also mentioned you have some bearing pullers that would make the process easier. Do you have a recommended set or style of bearing pullers?
@@blairconner8670 I have had them a while and they are just an inner bearing puller set. There is a set on Amazon which look identical
amzn.to/3Nf6OIH