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A wet Saturday: First I set up a low energy bulb right at the top inside the dome. It was a day of heavy showers so I couldn't leave the shutter doors open for useful working light. I fitted a plug at dome ring level and a socket just below. So I can simply unplug to cut the power to the light or when I have to rotate the dome. The light cable was clipped to a shutter rib to keep things tidy. I need to get more cable clips.
Later I moved the AWR IH2 handset supports to the East side of the pier. Sited just above and to the right of my laptop screen, I now have all the information and buttons right in front of me. I also moved the laptop shelf out enough to allow cables to drop freely down behind. Rather than running across the top of the shelf. Now the mouse has room to move freely.
Siting the controls in an observatory is important. Particularly when dealing with solar observation and imaging. Reflections of brightly lit backgrounds can make a laptop screen almost illegible. I reasoned that the sun would light up the southern wall more than the east. A black, light shield for the screen will help. I'll only make one after a bit of experience to confirm exactly what is needed.
Then I spent some time Syncing and Goto Slewing using Cartes-Du-Ciel. I'm finding my way around the C-Du-C charts and buttons while Stellarium completely refuses to cooperate. I'm not sure why C-Du-C can't have Sync under both Telescope menus or even a dedicated "button." The right click Telescope menu doesn't show it. Only the main Telescope heading above the chart.
Cancel Slew is important too when the telescope tries to go "the long way around" with several nerve wracking "fairground ride" headstands thrown in. At least the noisy motor stalls have dropped to only an occasional graunch thanks to improved balancing.
The torque available is mind blowing. There is no way I can physically stop or even slow the worm shafts with finger strength alone. Multiply that by the number of teeth on the large wormwheels. [287] and you should be able to lift the dome off its rollers.
Which leaves me wondering what could possibly cause a stall. I have the motor and worm pulleys [roughly] marked. Firstly to confirm their very slow rotation during normal tracking. The tracking would stop unexpectedly while trying to get Stellarium to work.
Secondly to check for possible cyclic problems causing stalls. There seems to be no obviously recognizable pattern. Pushing the telescope appropriately doesn't always helps to overcome a noisy stall. So it may be localized to the intimate mating of specific worm and wheel "teeth." I have tried LMP grease [ugly] and bicycle oil [invisible] but it doesn't seem to get spread around much. Probably due to the slow and only partial angular rotation of the wormwheels. The majority of slews are well short of an arc from east to west via south.
Early on I tried to polish the very rough teeth of the RA wheel and its eccentric worm. By driving the worm with an electric drill I was able to increase the amount of wear. Though it would still take years before I noticed any real difference using metal polish. The speed of wheel is simply so low even when the worm is driven at such speeds. The worm is likely to wear far more rapidly than the slowly moving [worm]wheel. Each tooth of the wheel sees only a few passes of the worm per hour. While the worm is working hard all of the time. I was able to reduce the RA worm eccentricity but the wheel teeth look no different at all.
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