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Subject: LX200: Dec motor kludginess
From: Bill Arnett
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Sat May 11 00:19:34 1996

I noticed today that I could move my scope by 30' or so on the dec axis
before there was any resistance from the motor. This seemed a bit
excessive so I took the dec motor cover off to see what I could see. The
motor and worm gear assembly is mounted on a hinged bracket with one side
of the hinge firmly attached to the fork arm and the other carrying the
motor and gears. A spring pushes the worm gear into engagement with the
big gear attached to the OTA. I presume that this apparently kludgie
arrangement is to allow for a little slop to keep the gears from binding.
But I had a LOT of slop. I first noticed that there is an adjustment screw
that limits the range of motion of the hinge. I adjusted that (with great
difficulty since the whole hinge has to be removed from the fork in order
to reach the adjustment screw) but it didn't help much. Then I noticed
that the axis around which the hinge pivots had a lot of slop, too. There
is a screw in the end of the hinge which seems to act as the hinge pin.
Tightening that screw (which was VERY tight for some reason) removed all
the slop. My dec axis now has essentially no slop and I am a happy camper.
:-)

---
Bill Arnett                 "Science is a way of trying
San Jose, CA  USA            not to fool yourself."      -- Feynman
billa@zNet.com                              <URL:http://www.seds.org/billa/>